Wilde Card, page 22
“I. Want. Him.”
“...to kill?” Tia asked, dumbfounded and sarcastic. She knew it would only aggravate the girl, and it did. Muddy brown eyes narrowed and her hands twitched, as if she wanted to strangle someone, probably Tia.
“You're his best friend.” Chloe inhaled. “And I want to know how I can...get to know him more.”
She looked embarrassed to have even sat down at the table. Tia could only stare. Chloe was asking her...to give her tips...on how to flirt with Kal? Am I dreaming? The pinch she gave her inner arm answered that question swiftly. It wasn't that Chloe was unattractive - she was quite lovely when she wasn't scowling or twisting her full lips into a sneer. But since Tia had known her, she had never shown any sign of being a real human. She stomped around, hurling obscenities and insults, glaring at mostly everyone. How does she even know Kal? But then again, everyone knew Kal. He spent almost every day in the library or the study zone, trying hard to make a name for himself like his mother wanted. He was friendly to everyone - except Natalia - and he was quite popular for his loud and loving attitude. Plus he was one of the tallest, widest and most athletic members of the Rugby team.
Tia focused. “You like Kal?”
“Don't make me regret this.” Chloe looked away, her cheeks slightly red. “In fact, too late, I already do.”
She started to get up and Tia realised it couldn't hurt to have Chloe on her side. The girl obviously knew a lot, and she probably kept her ear to the ground - she could be of help in areas where Jay and Raghida couldn't. “Wait.” Chloe paused, finally looking Tia in the eye. “I don't know where or even how you know Kal well enough to have a crush on him...but I'll help you.”
Chloe, true to her nature, didn't thank Tia. She simply sat back down. Tia leaned forward, the journal crumpling under her elbow. “But hear this, Peters: if you so much as think about hurting my best friend, you'll regret it for the rest of your short, miserable life.”
Chloe’s expression was a mixture of surprise and begrudging respect, “Loud and clear, princess.”
Tia smiled encouragingly. “Now, time for you to help me.”
“With what?”
“Take me to Anya Daniels’ office.”
◆◆◆
If Anya was surprised to see Tia stride into her office, she hid it well. The heavy door clicked behind her and Anya looked up only briefly.
“If you're here to protest your disciplinary, you'll find no help here,” she said as she signed papers before her. Her office was cosy; a small and neat desk, a scuffed runner rug, a single frame jammed onto the wall behind her. It was a picture of Anya and Eliza, taken when Eliza couldn't have been older than 10. Tia took a seat without asking and waited for Anya to realise she wasn't there to talk about the disciplinary.
She finished signing the stack of paper in front of her, pushed them to the side and capped the pen. When she met Tia’s gaze, Tia felt a finger of anger raise the hair on the back of her neck. She delved right in. “When was the last time you saw my father?”
“Not that I owe you any answers after the way you've been behaving, but it was the day your parents left.”
Tia felt her eyes narrowing. Anya was lying. But why? Her face didn't change with the lie at all and if Tia hadn't read otherwise, she'd have had no reason to mistrust the answer.
“I have reason to believe otherwise.”
“Do tell.” Anya smiled lightly but it didn't reach her eyes.
“My father came to you for help and you didn't give it to him. You wouldn't even hear him out. Why? My mother was your friend.”
Her face became still, the dimples in her cheeks disappeared. She always looked so harsh until she smiled, and the dimples were so incongruous in the landscape of her features. She sat forward in her chair, all of a sudden much more interested in the conversation than she had been. “I'm sure you're just confused, Valentia-”
“You met in an abandoned church. All the stained glass windows had been removed and the pews were missing.” Tia watched her gaze become icy. She had been backed into a corner now, surely she would have to admit her lie.
Anya brushed her hair back from her face and blinked. “Your parents left the Rebellion. They deserve whatever happens to them but what they don't deserve is our help.”
There was a moment where Tia thought that this was it; it was all over. Because she had leapt out of her chair so quickly that it crashed to the ground with a loud smack. The anger that swelled up within her was strong enough that she would have slammed Anya’s head into every inch of the clutterless desk had someone not prevented her. Strong arms grabbed her by the abdomen and yanked her backwards, away from the desk, away from Anya’s smug face. She struggled in the embrace but whoever held her was strong. He barely stumbled as she pushed at him.
“Let me go,” she screeched, reaching for Anya.
“Calm down,” a voice commanded in her ear. She realised that it was Jay. The knowledge didn't make a difference, she kept struggling up until the point when he dragged her out into the corridor. Anya was smirking even as the door closed in Tia’s face. A few people stared as they passed the scene but no one said anything; it was just another day in the Tunnels. Jay released her but caught her wrist in his hand as she tried to dart back inside like a cat with a bird in sight.
“Nuh uh, Wilde-cat,” he smiled. “You're coming with me.”
Why does everyone keep naming me after feral animals? Tia glowered at him but deep inside she knew that he was doing the right thing. Anya was a senior member of the council and a respected rebel. No one would understand why Tia was cleaning the floor with her face, not without an explanation of Andy’s death, and that wasn't something she was willing to disclose yet. She allowed him to lead her away by her arm, like a misbehaving child, whilst she seethed quietly. If she opened her mouth, she was almost certain he wouldn't like what came out. He wasn't even breathing heavily. Anya had looked at her like she was a cockroach crawling up the wall. She would never forget the way the older woman had spoken about Tia’s parents, like they were insignificant and unworthy of respect. Who does she think she is?
“Ouch,” Jay pulled his hand away and inspected the marks Tia had left in his skin with her nails. She'd barely noticed that her fingers had become claws as she replayed the scene in her head. And she definitely hadn't noticed that he'd pulled her into one of the many sparring rooms. It was always a new one with Jay, there were just so many nooks and crannies around and he seemed to know them all.
“I'm not in the mood to spar,” she scowled.
Jay cocked his head to the side, “Are you sure? Because you just tried to knock out Anya Daniels…”
“Well I didn't,” she snapped. He raised his eyebrows at her and she sighed. Okay maybe I do need to let off some steam. “How did you even know where I was?”
Jay put his hands into his pockets, shrugging. “I was looking for you and I bumped into Chloe. Initially, I was just gonna wait for you outside but I heard shouting.”
Good old Chloe. Jay had probably been looking to thank her for taking the disciplinary on her own chin, though he hadn't wanted her to. He already had a few misdemeanours and another wouldn't have done him any good in the eyes of the council. The ways of discipline down here were hazy to her, but there was one thing she was sure of: the Council could decide to expel you from the Rebellion if they wished. Whilst that didn’t sound like the life-ending result of the century, she knew that for some people, the Rebellion was all they had left; their source of love, their sense of belonging, their family. Tia sighed. She didn't want his gratitude anyhow.
She made a decision right then that she knew she wouldn’t be able to take back, and maybe she was just overwhelmed with emotion and she wasn't thinking clearly but she needed to do something. Her skin was crackling. She focused on the way Jay’s jaw clenched when he spoke, the way the different bones shifted with each syllable. She knew from memory that his jaw may look hard but it was soft under the press of her fingers. His dark eyes were completely focused on her. The birthmark on his temple looked like a smudge of light against his caramel skin. She reached out to touch it and was surprised to find that it didn’t feel any different to his skin. It was a part of him, no different to his mouth, or his ear, or his cheekbone. He smiled at her touch, and continued smiling even as she pulled her hand away. She shucked off her jacket and flung it into a corner of the room.
He followed her movements as he asked, “What were you doing in there, Tia?”
She glared, hoping that he would get the message: I don't want to talk about it anymore. He seemed determined to get his answers but she was determined to evade them. “I'll tell you later, Jay.”
Her voice was purposely silken, the polar opposite of the look she gave him. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted to do less right now than talk. Though he began to protest her evasiveness, her jumper swiftly followed the jacket into the corner. And then she was standing in front of him in just a vest and her jeans. His words trailed off at the sight of so much skin. His eyes were wider. She was aware that her figure was accentuated in the tight material; the flimsy vest clung to her chest and the indent of her waist, which was why she only ever wore it under jumpers. His gaze was glued to her, as she had hoped it would be. He was very expressive with his face, this loud and confident boy. He didn’t hide anything - he didn’t bother to - and she found it refreshing. All her life she had been the girl who didn't have fun, the girl who studied, the girl who did what was right. And where had it gotten her? What had being nice gotten her?
He swallowed heavily. “You want to wear that to spar?”
Tia remembered the look on Anya’s face, the absolute glee, as she made it seem like Tia’s parents were worth nothing. She would have been glad to scrape the smug smile right off Anya’s face. If Jay hadn't stopped her, she didn't know what would have happened. It could have gone either way, but it hadn't gone any way...and now Tia’s veins were snapping with unspent electricity and she wanted to feel weight under her hands. She took a deep breath and tried to refocus on Jay. He looked nice in a dark blue shirt that fitted to the lines of his body and made his eyes look like they were shining in the light. His hair was mussed up like he'd been running his hands through it and she was hit with the sudden urge to run her hands through it. She liked it when he wasn’t wearing hats, when he let his curls spring up all around his head.
“Who said anything about sparring?” She demanded, approaching him. He looked startled and made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. She was breathing hard, from the anger, or the feeling of being trapped, but he didn't need to know that. She placed her hands on his wide chest and slid them up where she looped them around his neck. “In fact, who said anything about wearing anything?”
She wanted to be bad. For once, she didn't want to be that girl. His skin was hot, there was so much heat coming off his body that she could feel it through the material of his shirt. As he breathed, looking down at her, she felt the warm air fan across her cheeks. A grin was creeping along his face and it didn't take him long to catch on. Jay shrugged off his own jacket, dropping it to the floor where Tia nudged it out of the way. She liked the way he was looking at her now, with desire snapping in his lidded eyes. Last time she hadn't wanted to give him too much, too quickly, but now wasn't the time for thinking. Now was the time for not punching members of the Council. Her body was telling her that now was the time for action.
Tia wouldn't have considered herself brazen before. She liked to think of it like this; if she knew she wanted something, then why shouldn’t she go out and get it? She didn't see the point of stepping tenderly, didn't understand why people spent their whole lives staying under the radar for no reason other than they didn't know how to stand up for what they wanted. I'm a forward thinker, that's all. Jessie had told her stories once of women who were looked down upon for taking what they wanted, of laws that prevented birth control and men who decided what they could and couldn’t do with their bodies. It had made her angry. Maybe the war had shook the world up so much that men began to understand they had no right, because things weren’t like that anymore, not now. There had been a time where her education had been the most important thing to her, and she had aced it. Now? She had a new agenda. She wanted to enjoy herself.
“What are you waiting for?” Jay asked under his breath. He was watching her closely, waiting for her to make a move. He had been the one to take control and now it was her turn. She liked that - she wanted to be in charge anyway. He would be careful with her, she could tell by the way he was looking at her; like she was delicate - the soft downing of a dandelion she had touched once in her dreams. He wanted her, but he also didn't want to overstep his boundaries. He was a nice boy, Jeremiah Brooks, the kind who knew his Ps and Qs. He didn’t have daddy issues, that was for sure. She wondered if his parents had ever lied to him his whole life, about anything, anything at all.
“Tia. What are you waiting for?”
“For you to bow to your queen,” she chuckled before side swiping his legs and taking him down. She rode his body to the ground where he landed gently enough - she made sure he didn't bang his head by strategically placing her palm under his head. By the time he even realised what had happened, Tia had thrown her leg over his waist and was straddling him. The whole manoeuvre took less than 5 seconds.
“Oof.”
He had automatically grabbed hold of her hips as he fell, an anchor for a drowning man. She liked the feel of his big hands on her body, the heat burning through the thin material of her vest. His hands alone almost covered the expanse of her waist. Just like her first kiss, she'd never had the experience of someone holding her, not like this. She saw the way Jay looked at her and she knew he’d been thinking about wrapping those fingers over the bone of her hip for a long time. She had seen him looking at her like that before, dating back to their silent study sessions in the library, when she would take a seat at his table even though they had never exchanged a single word. He would peek at her over his textbooks, when he thought she wasn't paying attention, and watch her read. She never said anything but she had always kind of liked it - it made a nice change from the other kinds of looks she usually received. Somehow she had always been able to tell that he didn't mean it in a perverted way; it was as if he couldn't help but to stare at her.
He looked up at her now through thick eyelashes, his mouth parted. Why hold back? She laughed tightly before she bent forward and kissed him. Last time he had tasted like orange juice but this time he tasted like warm bread rolls and sugar. As soon as she allowed her lips to touch his, he was reaching out for her, hands sliding from her hips up to the edges of her shoulder blades. She let him pull her down until she was flush against his warm body. She could feel his heartbeat against her chest, slow and steady, like the careful pressure of his mouth on hers.
Her hair had come free from its band and fell around their faces like a curtain. He smiled against her mouth as he sunk his fingers into her roots. Tia had always loved the feeling of having someone brush her hair, and usually it was Jessie. But this was different; Jay was running his fingers through the waves, slowly massaging her scalp, all the while sliding his tongue along hers. She wanted to relax into him and never have to think about people like Anya ever again.
“My queen,” Jay murmured cheekily. Before she could respond, he flipped her so that she was suddenly beneath him. His body slid along hers. She felt him like a second skin. Her hair fanned out around her and he swept it to the side so he could lower his head to the skin beneath her ear. She was looking towards the door as he began to kiss her neck, and she wasn't prepared for the sensations of his velvety mouth. She’d never experienced anything like this. She gasped softly and felt her eyes flutter. It felt like little sparks of pleasure were shooting along her veins, moving in time to the swoop of his lips. She grasped at his shirt, pulling it up so she could slide her hands along his smooth back. He shivered and bit down gently on her neck. A myriad of sensations exploded inside her chest.
“Jay,” she groaned, her nails digging into his back.
He laughed against her skin. “Shh, baby.”
Briefly, she registered that he had called her baby without her permission, but then his tongue was drawing patterns on the skin behind her ear and she lost all train of thought. She found his mouth again and dragged his lip between her teeth. Though he was the first person she had ever kissed, she knew she was learning fast by the way his fingers were gripping her skin, tight then loose, tight then loose again. He wanted to lose control but he wouldn't. He was behaving himself. He liked it when she bit him - he growled into her mouth, so she did it again, marveling at the reactions she could get out of him.
She realised that she wanted to feel his skin on hers. She wanted to get closer to him, to fully immerse herself into another being, to forget the outside world for a while. Sitting up, he kneeled over her. Once he had figured out what she wanted, he yanked his shirt off and it disappeared across the room, where it belonged. She took a second to admire his body properly; the broad shoulders, the smooth pectoral muscles, the narrowing hips, the dusky trail of hair that led from his navel to the waistband of his jeans...she felt her heart leap.
“Like what you see?”
“Don't talk,” she said, sliding her hands up his chest. His muscles were stone beneath her palms, hot and tight. He shuddered at her touch, reached for her vest, and then stopped. He was hesitant, understandably, after what had happened the last time. Frustrated, she tugged the vest off herself. She lay under him in a rose pink bra, a bra that he liked, if his rounded eyes were anything to go by. Slowly, he drew his hands up her sides like she was made of glass and hovered on the underwire of the bra. Goosebumps had risen on her arms, anticipation, excitement. Her heart was pounding. Was she really going to do this? Here? With him?
“What's the matter?” she asked.
Jay had a look of regret slowly developing on his face. He was breathing hard, as if he'd just sprinted a mile. He met her eyes. Dropped his hands. Sat back on his haunches.
