Chapter 3

I did not dose off to sleep, my drugs were far from me so lay in the dark with the taste of him still on my tongue and the memory of his cock heavy in my hand. The shared wall felt alive. Every time Cash shifted in his bed I heard it, every time he exhaled I imagined the sound against my skin. My body was a traitor to me, It still remembered the exact pressure of his fingers from two years ago. It still clenched at the thought of being pinned under him. Hate was supposed to be clean. This wasn’t clean at all it was messy, wet and humiliating.

Enemies-to-lovers was a pretty phrase people used when they wanted to romanticize the damage done and the hurt taken, they never talked about the part where you wanted to fuck the person who broke you just to prove you could survive it, nor did they talked about how the anger made the attraction sharper, how every cruel word from the past turned into fuel when his hands were on you. I hated Cash Harlan, true, but I also wanted him to ruin me again so I could look him in the eye afterward and show him I was still standing.

That was the conflict chewing through my ribs, keeping me awake all through the night.

Morning made it worse, I ran into him in the third-floor kitchen at 7:12 a.m. He was shirtless again, drinking a protein shake straight from the blender cup, hair a mess, yet made him much hotter. The scar through his eyebrow looked darker in the flat fluorescent light. He smelled like sleep and the same soap that used to live on my pillows. My stomach made uneasy noises, my thighs pressed together without permission.

“You look like you didn’t sleep,” he said, voice rough.

“You look like you spent the night thinking about me.”

His mouth twitched. “I did.”

The honesty was a weapon and he knew it. I poured coffee like my hands weren’t shaking. He watched every movement. When I reached for the sugar his chest brushed my back. Heat soaked through the thin nighty I slept in. I felt him harden against my ass for half a second before he stepped away.

“Careful, Captain,” I said without turning. “Someone might think you still want the girl you called toxic.”

“I want a lot of things I shouldn’t.” His voice was closer than it should have been. “Including the version of you that keeps looking at me like she’s deciding where to stick the knife.”

I turned around, we were too close. I could see the gold flecks in his dark eyes. I could smell the mint on his breath. My nipples tightened against the nighty and his gaze dropped, lingered, then lifted again with pure filth in it.

“Keep looking at me like that,” I whispered, “and I’ll start charging you.”

He laughed once, it was low and dark. “Bill me.”

I left before I did something stupid like kiss him.

The day dragged, it was boring, my classes came and gone. Every time my phone buzzed I expected a message from the club. At 9:40 p.m. it came.

Your regular booked the back room. Two hours. He asked for no limits tonight.

No limits.

I changed into the lace with shaking hands. The mask felt heavier than usual. I slipped out the back stairwell and into the cold night. The Den’s red lights painted my skin the second I stepped inside. The private room was already warm. I went in waiting.

Cash walked in looking like sin itself. Black button-down open at the throat. Eyes almost black. He locked the door behind him.

“No rules tonight,” he said.

I should have said no. Instead I crooked a finger.

He was on me in two steps. Mouth crashing against the side of my neck because the mask was in the way. His hands gripped my ass and lifted me like I weighed nothing. My back hit the wall. The lace between my legs was already ruined. He ground his cock against me, thick and brutal, and I moaned before I could stop it.

“That’s it,” he rasped against my throat. “Let me hear you.”

He dropped me only long enough to spin me around and bend me over the arm of the couch. One hand between my shoulder blades, the other yanking the lace aside. The first drag of his fingers through my wetness made both of us curse. He pushed two inside without warning. I was so soaked the sound was obscene.

“Fuck! listen to you.” His voice was wrecked. “Dripping for a man you won’t even show your face to.”

I pushed back onto his hand, chasing the stretch. He added a third finger and curled. My vision went white at the edges. The hatred and the need collided so hard I couldn’t tell which one was making me shake. This was supposed to be revenge but this felt like surrender.

He pulled his fingers out, tore his zipper down, and dragged the head of his cock through my folds. Once. Twice. Not entering. Just torturing me with need to have him inside of me.

“Beg,” he ordered.

I laughed, breathless and mean. “Make me.”

He slammed in to the hilt.

The stretch burned so good I cried out. He didn’t give me time to adjust. He fucked me like he was trying to crawl inside my bones, deep, punishing strokes that forced broken sounds out of my throat every time he bottomed out. One hand fisted my hair. The other reached around to rub my clit in tight, vicious circles. I came so hard my knees buckled. He held me up and kept going, chasing his own release with animal focus.

I felt him swell. Felt the exact second he was about to lose it.

Then the door handle jiggled.

Both of us froze.

A voice I recognized loud, drunk, familiar came through the wood.

“Cash? You in there, man? Coach is looking for you. Something about the video from last week.”

Cash’s entire body went rigid inside me. My blood turned to ice.

Video? How?

The teammate outside laughed. “Bro, if you’re with the masked girl again you better wrap it up. They’re saying someone recorded a private dance and it’s about to blow up.”

Cash pulled out of me so fast I gasped. I spun, yanking the lace back into place with trembling hands. His eyes met mine over the mask wide, shocked, already calculating.

The handle jiggled again.

And then, clear as day, his teammate said the words that detonated everything:

“Also, weird question, but has anyone seen Reyes tonight? Because someone swore they just saw a girl who looked exactly like her leaving the athlete dorm in a black coat… and she was heading this way.”

Cash’s head snapped toward me.

The mask suddenly felt paper-thin.

His voice came out deadly quiet.

“Vi?”