CHAPTER SEVEN

ELLIOT

I must’ve fallen asleep because one moment I was lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling and the next moment my door nearly flew off its hinges as someone barged in.

I jolted upright, heart hammering, disoriented and angry before my brain could catch up. The room was dim, the digital clock on my side table glowing 11:30pm.

Asher slammed the door shut behind him with enough force to rattle the walls.

I blinked, adrenaline flooding my system as I took him in. He was breathing hard, chest rising and falling like he’d run here. His hair was a mess, his jaw tight, eyes burning with something that made my stomach sink.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he demanded.

My head throbbed. My body still felt heavy with sleep, slow to react. “Get the fuck out of my room,” I said, my voice rough.

“No,” he snapped. “I’m done letting you get away with this shit.”

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, irritation spiking. “What the fuck did I do this time? What do you want?”

His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “I should be asking you that. Playing pranks on me and sleeping with my girlfriend were not enough, you had to drag my mum into this childish nonsense. You made her cry. Again.”

Ah. So that was the reason for all this ruckus.

I rolled my eyes. “So? Is that the reason why you barged into my room at–”

I didn’t get to finish my sentence.

Asher crossed the room in two strides.

The punch came fast— too fast for me to react properly. His fist connected with my jaw, snapping my head to the side. Pain exploded through my face, white-hot and sharp, my teeth clacking together as I stumbled back.

“What the fuck–” I gasped.

I barely had time to recover before he was on me again.

He shoved me hard, and I hit the mattress with a grunt, the breath knocked clean out of my lungs. Springs creaked beneath my weight.

“You don’t get to use her kindness against her,” he snarled. “You don’t get to treat her like she’s nothing.”

I laughed, breathless and bitter. “What are you gonna do about it?” I jutted out my lower lip in a fake pout. “Are you going to cry too?”

His expression changed.

That fury snapped into something darker.

He lunged.

I reacted on instinct, shoving him back, my shoulder slamming into his chest as we tumbled sideways. We crashed into the floor, the impact rattling my bones. I twisted, trying to get leverage, nails digging into fabric and skin.

We wrestled like animals—no finesse, no restraint. Just anger and momentum and months of resentment boiling over. I almost expected our parents to come barging in from all the ruckus we were making.

Asher was stronger than he looked. Or maybe I was weaker than I wanted to admit.

I swung wildly, my fist grazing his ribs. He hissed, then shoved me backward again. My back hit the edge of the bed, pain flaring up my spine.

“Get off me,” I snapped.

“Shut up,” he shot back.

I kicked out, catching his thigh. He grunted but didn’t let go. Instead, he grabbed my shoulders and slammed me down onto the mattress again, climbing over me before I could scramble away.

I bucked beneath him, hands pushing at his chest, his shoulders, anywhere I could reach.

“Get the fuck off–”

He pinned my wrists above my head.

Hard.

The bed dipped beneath us, the weight of him pressing me down. My breath hitched despite myself. I twisted, tried to break free, but he held firm, muscles locked, face inches from mine.

We froze.

My chest heaved beneath him. His breath was hot against my cheek, uneven, furious. His grip was iron, but his hands trembled slightly.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

The silence was loud.

I stared up at him, my jaw throbbing, pulse roaring in my ears. My body felt painfully aware of him. His heat, his weight, the faint scent of his cologne, the way his knees pressed into the mattress on either side of my thighs.

This was bad.

This was very bad.

“You’re a real piece of shit, you know that?” he said quietly.

I scoffed, even though my heart felt like it was about to burst out of my chest. “Took you long enough to notice.”

His grip tightened for half a second before loosening just a fraction. “She didn’t deserve that. She’s done nothing but try.”

“That’s the problem. I don’t need her to do anything. She’s not my mother,” I snapped.

“I know,” he shot back. “And she’s not trying to replace her either, no matter how much you want to pretend she is.”

I turned my head away, jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

“Hurting everyone around you doesn’t bring anyone back,” he continued, voice rough. “It just makes you cruel.”

That landed.

I hated that it did.

“Get off me,” I muttered.

He didn’t move.

Instead, he leaned in and whispered in my ear, his breath hot.

“I’ve had it with you,” he said. “You want to destroy yourself? Fine. But you don’t drag my mum into it again. Ever.”

His words shouldn’t have affected me like they did. For fuck’s sake, he was angry with me.

But my body reacted to him anyway. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was because I could feel every inch of him pressed against me. Or maybe it was because, this close, I could see the golden flecks in his green eyes.

Or maybe it was his lips. They looked particularly soft and there was a little sheen of sweat on the bow that drove me crazy. I wanted to lick it off.

It could have been any of those things. Either way, what I did next was particularly embarrassing.

I moaned.