The Secrets of a Sin, page 26
As the noises suddenly come to a halt, the office door flies open, and everyone in the crowd suddenly grows eerily silent. Our eyes devour the doorway, waiting for someone to come out, and eventually, Principal Welch does with a large box in her grip and fresh tears streaming down her face. She freezes almost immediately when she notices all the gawking eyes, and soon anger strikes her features. “What are you all looking at?!” She screams, shaking the walls of the hallway and piercing everyone’s ears in the vicinity.
Abruptly, a tall man exits the office with her while placing a palm on her back and ushering her out. “You don’t need to cause a scene, Cora. Just keep your mouth shut and walk away.”
She instantly repels from his touch, scoffing at his demands like he’s completely absurd.
“Keep my mouth shut?” She snarls. “I was fired because a nude photo of myself was sent, without my consent, to almost every fucking person in this school! Please explain to me why I should just keep quiet and move on!?”
Giggles ring out around us, and clearly, she hears it because her head snaps in our direction and a torrid scowl manifests across her face.
“You think that’s funny?” She shouts. “You think it's funny that I was humiliated and violated with one drunken photo of myself?” Scanning her head in each direction, her eyes clash with mine, and I immediately freeze.
“That’s enough, Cora. Let’s not make this more difficult than it has to be.” The man tries touching her again, but she totally loses it. The box in her arms almost hits him in the chest as she swivels around with her face now covered in her run-down mascara.
“Call the cops!” She eggs him on. “At this point, I don't even care.” Her crying becomes more erratic, as does her temper. “I know it was one of you fucking freaks who hacked into my phone.” She spits, glaring at every single student that stands in the crowd watching her.
“Cora…” He warns in a low whisper, gripping her arm and trying to tug her away from us. She tries tearing her arm out of his grip, but he holds on strong.
“Let go!” She screams violently, dropping the box and all the contents inside. “Let go! Let go! Let go!” She repeats in a higher-pitched shout, which has other faculty members rushing to his aide to help calm her. Once more teachers are there to help drag her away from us, and out of our view, Sister Mary stands in front of us all with a flushed face.
“Okay ladies, it’s time to get to class. There’s nothing more to see here.” She tries shooing us off, and the crowd slowly begins to break in hushed whispers.
This school is going to shit.
I hear someone whisper as they pass by, and I can’t help but agree. At the beginning of the year, I would’ve never guessed any of this could happen. It was like our school was now cursed, and nothing good ever happened anymore. All us damaged girls were now stuck in a school where horrible things happened. Where girls suddenly die. Where teachers mysteriously get fired, and where girls like me become the centerpiece for every fucked-up thing that transpires here. I was no longer here to fix myself. I was in the clutches of St. Catherine’s now, and no matter how hard I tried to escape, I was going to be pulled right back in.
I follow the string of girls who scatter into the hallway and start heading to class with ideas swirling inside my head. There had to be a reason everything was happening within such a short time span. There had to be a motive for all this, and was it possibly linked to Phoebe? There were too many questions and too little to go by. I was feeding into theories, thinking that Phoebe possibly did do this to herself, and everything else was just a coincidence. Or maybe Annalise and the others played a part in this. I didn’t know who or what to believe. But I did know that something had happened, and I was going to get to the bottom of it.
As I enter the classroom, I take my normal seat in the back and rest my elbows on the desk as I listen to girls gossip about their assumptions on what happened. It was honestly entertaining to listen to, but suddenly I feel the air shift in the room, and that’s when my eyes meet Annalise. Strutting into the classroom with her hair fully curled to perfection and her make-up on point, she looks entirely different from the girl I saw this morning. If anything, she appears more confident. I avert my stare almost as quickly as it connected with her and focus it on my fingernails that rest on the wooden desk.
I can still feel her searing eyes on me as she moves throughout the room and takes her seat on the opposite side. She’s demanding my attention, ordering me to look at her with clouded lust like she wants me to, but showing any ounce of desire towards her will give her the satisfaction she requires. It’s like she needs my acknowledgment for her own sanity. Like it’ll give her clout and the power that she so desperately craves.
“Good morning, ladies.” Sister Mary strides in quickly, rushing over to the podium where she collects herself and lifts her chin. “As you all know, Principal Welch was let go this morning due to some unfortunate circumstances.”
Whispers circulate all around the room, but the tap of Sister Mary’s pen on the podium has everyone quieting. “But I can assure you there’s no need to worry. We have everything under control, and I have some delighted news I would like to share with you all.” She begins to say with a small grin appearing on her thin lips. “Superintendent Hanson has spoken with me about the now open position for Principal, and I have kindly accepted the offer.”
No one makes a sound as we all stare with wide eyes.
“Starting tomorrow, I will be the new Principal at St. Catherine’s.”
I still couldn’t believe the news. Even after a full day of school, I was still in utter shock. Not only was Welch fired, but quiet, demure Sister Mary was going to be our new Principal. It wasn't that I thought she would be a bad disciplinarian, I just never could see her as anything other than a teacher. I’m sure most of the girls thought the same, too.
Now at midnight, I wait patiently beside the entrance doors for Arsen to arrive. And this time, I wasn't dreading our encounter or even annoyed with my desire to see him. Because now, I craved his presence more than I ever thought was possible. I desired his rage, his possessiveness over me, and the indisputable courage that he carried within himself. I felt almost incomplete without him near and even weak, as if he owned half of my heart already. It was beyond foolish of me to let someone so clearly erratic and unstable into my life, but I was never known for making the right decisions anyway. In fact, I always made the worst. But something about Arsen made me feel like I made the perfect choice, regardless of how wrong it truly was.
As I stood there waiting, a new sensation tingled throughout my body as the anticipation to see him reached an all-time high. I missed him like crazy, and it has been less than twelve hours since our last encounter.
Was I delusional going from one strong emotion to another in a matter of days? I mean, how could we possibly go from loathing one another to being completely enamored?
It was absurd, even to me, but the answer was as simple as it was irrational. Hatred was just another form of passion. In our case, it was instant. Like a painful papercut, it happened so quickly. We couldn’t avoid it from happening in the first place. Driven by the unwanted lust we had towards one another, we disguised our desires with hurtful words and constant denial. My body may have betrayed me and succumbed to his touch in the beginning, but my mind, soul, and heart knew this was wrong. It could be possibly detrimental to me, but even the worst ideas can turn into something unexpected.
And they had.
Suddenly, a tap on the door startles me, and my gaze focuses on the dark shadow that stands beyond the glass. Thump, thump. My heart has a mind of its own as it batters speedily against my chest. My eyes immediately scale down the length of him, taking in his tall frame and remembering all the sinful acts he committed on my body. Chills shot through me, a tenacious force that vibrated my insides until the only sensation that was left to feel was raw hunger. With a grin, I steadily open the doors, waiting for my dark angel to come to me.
Dressed in a black sweatshirt with the hood covering his head, he appears more playful and ominous as his features are clouded in darkness. I could make out a smile and his pearly white teeth, but everything else was hidden.
“Missed me?” He stalks towards me, pressing his hard chest against mine until I can feel the erratic beats of his heart. My eyes peer up into his, noticing a calmness in them that I’ve never noticed before. Almost like he’s relaxed around me.
“What do you think?” I question while rising onto my toes and circling my hands around his neck. His body instantly melts into mine as I press myself further into him.
“I think I need inside you before I can concentrate on anything else tonight.” He leans down, coating his minty breath over my face until I’m greedily inhaling his scent. I was becoming a distraction for Arsen, a horrible interference in what he should be concentrating on and doing, but I couldn’t deny him. I was as obsessed as I was addicted. An unhealthy combination that provided more disarray on my already unstable mental health, but I feared losing him would be just as harrowing as staying with him.
“Welch was fired this morning.” I announce, causing his brows to lower.
“Why?” He asks, searching my eyes for answers, but I remain collected.
“There was a leaked photo of her sent around the school.”
He grimaces and reaches around my waist to yank me closer to his chest.
“Somethings going on, Arsen.” I sigh while shaking my head. “First Phoebe, then Mr. Rossi, and now Principal Welch? It can’t all be a coincidence.”
He leers down at me, void of any emotions with a straight line across his mouth. “Those girls.” He mutters in a low voice. “Do we know anything about them? Their fucking stories or why they’re here?”
Letting out a breath of air, I nod slowly. “I know what they told me, but who knows if they were actually telling the truth.”
His face immediately contorts into anger as his eyes fill with black clouds. “What do you mean what they told you? Are you friends with them?”
Was I?
I thought I was in the beginning when they weren’t trying to seduce me and be all strange and creepy. But I knew if I admitted that to Arsen, he would only fall further into vengeance and fury, and I was afraid I might never be able to pull him out of.
“I hung out with them a couple of times, but they were only trying to be nice and include me into their group.” I indicate, but he clearly wasn’t going to let this go anytime soon.
“Nice.” He scoffs in a growl. “From now on, stay away from those fucking girls until we know they didn’t have anything to do with Phoebe’s death.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. I didn’t want to bump into any of the three of them at all, but I knew that was highly unlikely, so instead, I tried to appease him. “I will.”
The sudden urge to taste his lips strikes me hard, so rising onto my toes again, I place my mouth onto the bottom of the now overgrown hair on his chin and kiss him softly. There was something awfully primal and sensuous about a man having a beard. He wasn’t anything like the boys who greedily stole my innocence for their gain. He wasn’t even in the same ballpark as those teenage pricks. He was in a league entirely of his own, and I was somehow fortunate enough to catch his eye.
As I drag my lips slowly away from his chin, Arsen takes matters into his own hands and reaches for the back of my thighs. “God, I fucking missed you.” His exasperated groan surprises me as he lifts me into his arms, and my legs circle around his waist. "Who would have thought… A man like me admitting he misses the girl who continually drives him insane, on purpose.” Squeezing the exposed flesh of my thighs, I sigh in contentment, loving the way his hands ignite my body.
“Tell me again how you missed me.” I beg, yanking at the hood that covers his head and revealing his signature messy hair.
“I missed your mouth.” He groans. “Couldn’t stop thinkin’ of all the ways I wanted to use it today.” He leers down at my lips that are now purposely nibbling and licking at the seam of my mouth. “What do you say, angel? Think you could take my whole cock down your throat and suck me until I fill that pretty little mouth of yours with my cum?”
Tightening my legs, I move in a slow figure-eight motion, trying to grind myself into him, but nothing was easing the ache now lit in my core. His filthy words were only fuel to my fire, and without his touch, I’d surely extinguish. “I could do that and more.” I tease, fluttering my eyes as his hands now shift to my ass.
“Are you bluffing, angel?” He grins wickedly while studying my face for a reaction. “I want to feel the hollows of your cheek suffocate me until my cum clogs your throat.” His eyes darken as if he’s already imagining my mouth around his cock. My eyes instantly widen, but apparent lust consumes me completely.
How can something so deranged and wrong make my pussy throb mercilessly?
I should feel disgusted by his words, or at least offended, but I'm not. If anything, my desire has only catapulted.
“Already second-guessing us, angel?” He mocks in a tone that sends a frigid chill down my back. His grip on my ass tightens to a painful degree, and suddenly, he’s walking us through the hall. “Does my depravity repulse you yet?” He watches me intently with eyes that read fear and anger, but I can’t seem to muster up any words to alleviate his stress.
“No.” I respond softly, still lost in his eyes that could ruin cities with their darkness.
He continues to carry me, but I'm too focused on his face to even notice he’s opening the doors to the church. Walking us further inside the temple, he lowers me down until my ass lands on the edge of the pew, and his body lowers onto his knees. My hands fall behind me, holding up my upper half as my legs dangle over the sides around his frame.
“It should.” He forces out on a growl. “If you could listen to all the vile things in my head right now, you’d run for the fucking hills.” He pushes in closer until I instinctively lift my legs and drape them over his shoulders.
“How do you know that?” I question, seeing only bits and pieces of his body while the rest of him is hidden in the blackness of the church. I couldn’t understand why he was trying to scare me off. Did he really think that I’d run from him? How could I run from someone I was completely haunted by? I wanted his perversion just as much as I wanted his sweetness, but in moments like this, I needed much more than either.
With his hands now resting on each thigh laying over his shoulders, they start to drift down the length of my legs and stop at the edge of my shorts. “You see, your pussy isn’t the only thing I want to taste on my tongue.” He ghosts his lips over my right thigh, and I immediately tense. His tongue darts out, and I feel the smooth pad of him graze my skin delicately.
“What else do you want to taste?” I pant as my head drops back and my eyes meet the cathedral ceiling that’s watching everything unfold in their chapel.
“I want it all, Charlotte. I want you on every fucking level I can have you.” He gouges his teeth into my upper thigh, which has me moaning into the atmosphere. “I need a part of you in me. I want you flowing through my veins, filling my lungs, and sinking into my heart.”
Arsen wasn’t just a callous, cold-hearted man. He was a goddamn poetic angel that wanted to worship every square inch of me. I was his reason, his antidote, his remedy from the darkness, and I’d gladly follow him through the depths of hell if I had to.
“Take whatever you want from me, Arsen.” I cry out, feeling every bit of misery as his tongue assaults my thigh instead of my sore center. “Take it all, just promise me you won’t let me go.”
He curses to himself, then suddenly, I hear his hand ruffling through the pocket of his jeans until the sound of something opening gets my attention. “Do you trust me?” His tone is soft and filled with so much lust that anything coming out of my mouth at this point would be purely to satisfy him.
“Always.” I pant as I give him what he needs to hear.
“Then I need you to relax for me, angel.” He mumbles softly. My head instantly lifts, but it’s hard to make out anything other than shapes and shadows shifting in front of me.
“What are you doing?” I question, slightly nervous for what he’s about to do when I gradually feel something sharp at my thigh.
“Relax, it’s only going to hurt for a second.” He tries to pacify me, but I quickly try to shift my leg away from him, but it doesn’t work. He holds me still, and then I feel the slicing of a knife dig into my leg, and I quickly retract. I flinch and almost shout for him to get off me, but he swiftly stops me.
“Your blood is now my blood. Wherever you go, I go.” His mouth latches onto the wound he created and sucks. As weirded out as I should be, I oddly enjoy the feeling of his tongue licking at the sore with fervor. It was an entirely new sensation that I wasn’t familiar with, but something about it caused me to awaken. I wanted him to have a part of me within him that would be everlasting.
He was tasting and drinking what keeps me alive. There was something so powerful and barbaric about the act that my sensations became tangled between what was right and what was wrong and created something new.
Something rare.
He continues to savor the fluid like it’s an elixir and swallows my blood until it fully invades his body. Slowly pulling away, the cool air blows over my small puncture, and I immediately search for Arsen’s face as if I could see him in the pitch-black building.
“Now that I’ve hurt you, it’s time to pleasure you, baby.” He declares as I hear the sounds of his tongue slurping around the corners of his mouth and then a low grumble after ingesting the remnants. My vision is foggy with hunger, so the second his warm hands connect with the bottom of my shorts, I arch. Lifting my ass off the pew, I let him drag both fabrics down my legs until my lower half was completely bare for the taking.
“I can smell your desire seeping out of you.” He lowers his head until I can anchor myself perfectly over the breadth of his shoulders. Leaning back onto my elbows, I recline my head towards the ceiling and close my eyes as a rush of air escapes from the back of my throat. “Does this happen every time I’m around you, angel?” He exhales against my pussy, causing my thighs to quiver in despair. A single finger then brushes against my lips, dragging the pad along the seams until it connects with a stream of wetness that's beginning to pour out of me. “Do I soak your thighs just from the mere thought of me touching you?” His digit twirls through my juices as if he’s trying to coat his whole finger, then abruptly surges inside my hole. “Or do you imagine more mischievous things I can do to your body?”
