Savage Little Lies: Chapter 30

Dorian

It was the guys’ idea to stay away. Well, Wolf’s idea.

He was the one calling the shots these days.

My buddy had graciously heard me out the night I needed him, and after, he’d had me listen to him.

Wolf had been working this shit for weeks.

He’d gotten in with my grandfather’s wards. He had relationships with them, good ones, and now that he had them, he could cash them in. He was keeping watch over Sloane and her brother.

Because he’d trusted them the whole time.

It’d been me who’d had his head in his ass. My grandfather had taken me down a rabbit hole of lies and deceit, and I’d allowed him because it’d been easy. It had been easy to want to believe the lies and go off the grid with my family. I did that, and I could avoid other mental shit going on in my head. It’d been that shit that had me calling Sloane to that cabin in the first place.

I wanted her.

I wanted her so fucking bad I couldn’t even think straight, and I didn’t do that shit. I didn’t feel shit, not like that.

As it turned out, my feelings for Sloane had ended up being the very thing to jade me. I’d been in deep with her, and maybe I’d put that out there the day my grandfather had gotten me arrested. He’d read something on me that day, manipulated me.

I wasn’t going to be manipulated anymore.

Wolf and I had had to wait until Wells and Thatcher returned to talk more, discuss details and make plans, and it had taken all I had not to act up and play my cards. Not for a second did I believe Grandpa Prinze wasn’t up to something when it came to Sloane and her brother, but acting too swiftly could cause problems. He couldn’t know I was onto him. He couldn’t know my friends and I were onto him.

Which we were.

Grandfather had told me himself he didn’t act unless he needed to. He’d told me that point-blank in Sloane’s kitchen. He’d set up this whole operation, labored to hell to make all this shit happen. He had Sloane and her brother living in this town, going to our school, and living off his money. All these things took effort.

Especially since they weren’t family.

That was another thing that set off red flags. My grandfather valued family, blood, and he’d told me that himself. Taking care of virtual strangers would be unusual to his character, and even though my friends and I had discovered he’d later left town (after another brief visit), he wouldn’t be gone for long.

We found the fucker’s house.

He’d purchased one, but this time, it was under his own name. Thatcher had found this, more pieces, more moves…

My grandfather was making plans to return to Maywood Heights, and he wasn’t hiding this time. A second house wouldn’t be for Sloane and her brother.

This was another reason Wolf told me to stay away from Sloane and only partially because he found out she was pissed at me. I needed to look impartial to his ward, like she was just another fuck buddy that meant nothing to me. If he thought he’d played me, he wouldn’t be looking at me while we looked into him.

But ignoring Sloane wasn’t easy, and hundred percent not that day when her brother came back. The initial days even before that, I’d made sure to smoke quick with my friends before leaving in the morning. I’d gone on to class and hadn’t even sat with them at lunch. That too had been Wolf’s idea. He knew personally what I was capable of when it came to Sloane.

I’d punched him in the goddamn face over it.

I lost all sense when it came to her. Fucked in the head. Knowing my grandfather was close to her… could be around her at any moment only made me crazier. My friends had had to talk me down more than once to keep from going over to her house and putting my foot through her door. It didn’t sit well my grandfather could just come and go out of her life, out of her house, as he pleased. I didn’t care if he was out of town or not. He still could.

The only thing keeping me from going truly crazy was that Wolf had been able to get a camera actually in her house recently. Like he’d stated, that project of his was another one of his proactive measures. He and Sloane were working on his senior project, but he’d been using it to gain more intel and get closer to her. He really did have my back the whole time.

I trusted my friend. I trusted all my friends, but ignoring Sloane was easier said than done.

It felt like she was everywhere at school, which made her easy to stalk. I knew her schedule like the back of my hand. I had since that day Thatcher had gotten a hold of it when Sloane had first arrived. It’d been burned in my memory since I’d basically been stalking her then. She’d crossed me, and it’d been necessary.

I knew where Noa Sloane was supposed to be every hour on the hour, and because I did, I should have known better than to hit up the vending machines right outside the room she held her independent study in. This happened to be an art room, and her independent study had also been Wolf’s idea. With his mom being the new headmaster now, he wanted to keep Brielle away from anything Sloane kids-related. Getting Sloane to opt for an independent study got her out of the headmaster’s office, and if that gave Wolf a little security in regard to his mother, well, I got that. I’d probably do the same thing. This was my grandfather we were dealing with here.

I saw Sloane’s ponytail that day by the vending machines. It glided in a sea of dark strands across her back, the girl waltzing right past me.

She hadn’t seen me.

She pushed inside the bathroom, her thighs thick and her calves shapely. Her skirts never fit her right, too short since she was so tall.

And too fucking tempting.

I called myself on my madness in the next moment. I didn’t follow her in the bathroom, but I might as well have. The girls’ restroom was right next door to the tech room, and since I had keys, I opened it up and hid out inside. I waited, telling myself all kinds of things. I was just going to watch her when she left the bathroom. I’d get a look at her and wouldn’t do anything else. If anything, the glance would just check my obsessive thoughts about her for a second so I could go about my day.

It didn’t.

She was coming back, adjusting her ponytail. I watched those silky strands move and sway through the glass on the door, and I wasn’t thinking when I opened the door.

I just took her hand.

I took her, yanking her inside the room with me. She shrieked, of course, fought me. I mean, it was dark in here, and she probably thought a crazy person grabbed her.

I was crazy.

I was crazy enough to pin her to the wall. I was crazy enough to kiss her, her fists punching at my chest and her teeth and mouth fighting me. She tried to bite my fucking face off at first.

But then, she recognized me.

It was slow, her mouth in delayed recognition. Her eyes opened, studying me and the situation. I got her to kiss back for all of a second before she pushed me off her.

“What the fuck,” she growled, shaking, but I didn’t stop. I grabbed her by the back of the neck and fused our mouths together.

Euphoria. Goddamn heaven in a single taste.

“Sloane.” Her name fell from my mouth in desperation, my tongue flicking hers. “Little fighter.”

I’d missed her. I missed her in my head, my dreams. She’d been in there enough.

She curbed the nightmares.

They’d been nonstop since what had happened to Charlie, fear, loss a staple in my life.

I didn’t want to lose another thing.

“Please stop,” she whimpered, our kiss salty. She was crying. “It hurts.”

It did hurt. The pain was deep and violent. I crowded her. “Don’t fight.”

She always fought me. She always fucking fought me. She didn’t like fighting.

I was tired of it myself.

I was tired of pain. I was tired of suffering. I just wanted this. I wanted fucking something that didn’t hurt, and she was the one thing that never had. She was my peace always.

She was my refuge.

“I want you,” I admitted, making her gasp. “Please, Sloane. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry…”

Her breath stolen, her fingers clenched tight on my shirt. They relaxed as I braced her face.

“I should have believed you,” I ground out, my tongue diving into her mouth. “I want you so bad. I should have—”

She shoved me off her, and so quickly, it took me a second to realize what had happened.

Especially when she slapped me.

The hit burned hot, searing hard into my flesh, but I’d been hit harder. Sloane was a chick. She wasn’t hitting as hard as one of my boys when things got rough.

“You’re so fucked up.” Her chest hiked, trembling up and down. “You are, and you’re trying to drag me down in that shit with you.”

I didn’t understand, and she only laughed.

She lifted a finger. “You’re a headcase, Dorian Prinze. You’re fucked and you’re…” She swallowed. “You’re too late.”

Too late.

Her laughter continued, so fucking dry. I’d pulled some of her hair out of her ponytail, and she pushed a veil of it out of her face. “You don’t want me. It’s your ego. It’s…” She raised and dropped her hands. “I don’t know what the fuck it is, but people who want people don’t treat them the way you have me. They don’t abandon them and call them liars.”

I’d made a mistake, shaking my head. My throat jumped. “I know I’ve fucked up.”

“You don’t know the half.” She pulled her ponytail down. “I told you to stay the hell away from me, and I meant it. You don’t know what you want, and even if you did, I want nothing to do with it. You treat people like shit, and you’ve especially treated me like shit.”

I wished I could just tell her, tell her everything. She needed to know my grandfather was playing her and her brother. She needed to know he was my grandfather.

But there was too much risk.

My buddies and I didn’t know the answers. In fact, we knew little to nothing, and Grandfather was right. It might be too late for the truth now with her, and her going rogue and doing something random once we told her our theories could cause more harm than good. My grandfather was a determined man, a violent man.

And if she got hurt…

She couldn’t know, not yet, and I said nothing after what she said.

Her smile was haunted, as sad as it was gorgeous. Noa Sloane could bring a man to his fucking knees with her beauty.

She had me.

Maybe she wanted me to fight, fight her and what she said. Maybe she wanted me to fight for her.

I should have.

Shaking her head, she left me, and before I thought better of it, I went after her. She ran right into someone the moment the door opened, my buddy grabbing her.

Wolf glanced up, probably roaming the halls. We’d all been taking details. Just keeping our eyes open in case my grandfather attempted to try something at school.

This must have been Wolf’s shift.

“Sloane?” he questioned, but then she shoved him away. She speed-walked down the hall, and he started to go after, but then spotted me.

He blinked then, his eyes flashing. “What did you do?”

I blinked myself, not expecting that reaction.

Especially when his eyes narrowed.

They cut hard in my direction, his dark eyebrows descending like storm clouds. Before I had a chance to get a word in edgewise, my buddy was striding down the hallway. He headed in the same direction as Sloane, and I fell back against the door, knowing I’d fucked up. I’d told my buddies I’d stay away. I’d told them I’d keep my distance.

But today, what just happened told me I obviously couldn’t.