Crown of Thorns by E.M. Snow

31

The soundof the alarm ringing bursts through the deep sleep I’ve been enjoying and tries to drag me into consciousness, but I resist.

“Noisy,” I grumble. “Kill it.”

I feel the bed dip as Phoenix shifts next to me, and the next second, the evil sound is turned off. Grinning with satisfaction, I snuggle further under the blankets, intent on dropping right back to sleep.

When Phoenix hand sneaks between my legs, however, my eyes shoot open, and I find myself staring at his smirking visage.

“You don’t get to go back to sleep,” he informs me. “You’re the one that set the fucking alarm, remember?”

I groan, hating past Josslyn Luna with a passion. He’s right, though. I shouldn’t let myself stay in bed. I need to get up and sneak back to the house before anyone else wakes up.

It’s been about a week since Phoenix took my virginity in my old bedroom, and since then, we’ve been sneaking around to have sex just about every chance we get. If I’m not spending the night in his cottage, he’s spending the night in my bedroom. A couple times at school, he’s convinced me to sneak away during lunch or homeroom to fuck in his car, or under the bleachers of the football field.

Very cliché of us, but incredibly hot nonetheless.

So far, I think we’ve done a good job of keeping what’s happening between us a secret from everyone else. It’s a bit strange, I’ll admit, working so hard to make sure no one finds out. I’m not ashamed—really, I’m not—but it’s … complicated. Things between Phoenix and I are so fucking complicated, but when we’re together like this, and it’s just us, everything else feels as though it doesn’t matter. And I know the second other people find out we won’t be able to hide from those complications anymore.

“Since when do you listen to me?” I mutter, cracking my eyes open to glare up at him. “I would think the idea of skipping school to stay in bed all day to sleep and do … this would be right up your alley of interests.”

He arches a brow and snorts. “You’d think, but unfortunately, the girl I’m fucking into oblivion all day would eventually start nagging my ass about letting her miss school. She’s a goody-two-shoes.”

“She sounds like a bitch…” My words trail off as I let out a long moan. He’s stroking me now. Over this past week, Phoenix has all but mastered my body and knows how to get me hot and wet within moments.

“She can be,” he agrees on a low growl. “But the sound of her screaming my name as I’m fucking her brains out makes all the bitching she can throw at me worth it.”

Whimpering, I roll to my back and spread my legs wider so he has easier access to my pussy. He slips a finger into my entrance and begins pumping hard before dropping his head to mine for one of his demanding kisses. He’s propped up on his side against me, and I can feel his cock hardening against my hip. If we have sex right now, it’ll put me at risk of being discovered leaving his cottage when everyone else is awake and moving about the house.

His fingers feel so good inside me, though, that I almost say screw it.

Somehow, reason manages to push through the cloud of lust fogging my mind, and I murmur against his lips, “I really should get going.”

“What happened to staying in bed?”

I grin at him. “You were right. I’d just bitch at you later for letting me skip. We can’t all afford college with scholarships and loans.”

He rolls his eyes. “Whatever. You’ll make it to school, I just need ten minutes.”

I scoff. “Ten minutes? Awfully selfish of you.”

Smirking again, he removes his fingers from me and moves above me before I can get away.

“You should know better than that, Luna,” he husks as he sinks his cock into me, making me gasp. “Ten minutes is more than enough time for me to make you a limp, gasping mess.”

“Not selfish … but so cocky,” I murmur, though I’m pretty sure he’s going to make good on his word. Whatever resistance I had quickly melts away as he begins to pound into me over and over again.

* * *

A few days later,I’m wandering down a hallway at school between classes, lost in thought. I can’t stop thinking about Phoenix, and I have to fight the urge to grin like an idiot as I recall everything we’ve done together over the last week. Everything we’ve done to each other.

I’m so out of it that I don’t notice the hulking figure standing in the hallway in front of me. Before I realize that my path is blocked, I slam right into the back of a beast of a guy. I stumble back due to the impact and the guy whirls around to face me with a scowl on his face. When his eyes land on me, it takes a moment, but then his gaze lights up with realization.

“You’re that slut fucking the Townsends, aren’t you?” he says.

My brow instantly furrows. Really? That’s the first thing that he thinks of when he sees me? “Jesus,” I hiss. “I was going to apologize for running into you, but screw that. You’re clearly an asshole.”

I begin to move around him, eager to get away, but he steps in front of me.

“Hold on,” he sneers. “There’s no reason to run off. Want to have some fun? You must be good if you’ve got a fucker like Phoenix Townsend thinking with his cock.”

I flinch back from him, a shot of anxiety rushing through me. “Get out of my way. Now.”

But the guy takes a step closer to me. I glance around, but no one else moving through the hall is even paying attention to us. Seriously? Am I really that invisible, or are they intentionally ignoring the fact that this creep is advancing on me?

Turning my attention back to him, I growl, “I won’t ask again. Move.”

He arches a brow. “What’s the matter? My dick’s not good enough for you or something? Kind of picky for a slut, aren’t you?”

Fury flares my nostrils. “I’m not a slut. You don’t get to talk to me like—”

“Like what? You going to sic Townsend on me, bitch?”

I clench my hands into fists at my sides. “I don’t need to. You don’t get to talk to me like that because you don’t know me, and I don’t deserve this.”

“Don’t deserve this?” He snorts, as if he thinks the notion is hilarious. “There’s a lot you don’t deserve, bitch, but you’re apparently able to get whatever you want with that pussy. Come one. Just give me a taste. I just want to know what all the fuss is about.”

He suddenly reaches out and snags my arm before I can make a move to get away. I wouldn’t have thought him capable of moving so fast, just based on his sheer size. Jerking my body away from him, I try to break his hold, but he’s too strong. I gaze around, panic rising within me as I notice a few people watching our exchange, but absolutely no one is making a move to stop him from assaulting me. Balling my hand into a fist, I punch his arm, trying to get him to drop his hold on me.

He just laughs at my efforts.

“Keep it up, bitch. I don’t mind if you fight me. In fact, I think it makes it way more fun.”

“Let me go!” I shriek, but his grip just tightens, shooting pain through my arm.

“How about we go and find a nice quiet spot somewhere, and you can show me just how good you are with that mouth—”

Suddenly, a first comes flying past my head and slams into the asshole’s face. He lets out a cry and stumbles back, his fingers loosening enough that I can slip my arm free. The next moment, the guy is slammed up against the lockers in front of me, Phoenix’s hand around his throat.

“The fuck you think you’re doing?” Phoenix snarls, sounding almost deranged he’s so furious. “You think you can touch what’s not yours and not suffer for it?”

For all his bluster when he was coming at me, my assaulter turns meek and terrified under Phoenix’s crazed and furious glare. “I…I’m sorry, man,” he stammers. “I didn’t realize you were into her like that…”

Phoenix slams him into the lockers again. The crowd around us is watching in shocked horror, but no one is daring to step forward to help the guy get away from Phoenix.

“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Phoenix hisses, squeezing his fingers and making the boy whimper. “Whether I hate her guts or not, she’s still mine to do with as I see fit. That fact alone means you do not lay a fucking finger on her. I see you come anywhere near her, and I’ll break every bone in your fucking body, you got that?”

The guy quickly nods as much as he can, given Phoenix’s tight grip on him. With a growl, Phoenix practically tosses the guy away. He doesn’t bother to watch him flee, turning and stalking to me with that fury still burning in his eyes. Is he angry at me? I didn’t do anything!

Without stopping, he grabs my wrist and pulls me after him as he stalks down the hallway.

“Where are you taking me?” I demand when I realize we’re heading in the opposite direction as my classroom.

He doesn’t answer me and continues to pull me along, and my ears burn when I hear a girl hiss, “It’s about time we give that bitch the full library experience…”

I’ve been threatened with that before this year, but there’s something about it that sets off bells in my head now. Unfortunately, I have zero time to think about the Angelview girl who was jumped in the library last school year. Not with Phoenix’s caveman act that will surely be the talk of the school for the next several weeks. We reach the doors to the auditorium, and he opens them, yanking me inside.

“What the hell, Phoenix?” I mutter in frustration. “You’re being more insane than usual.”

He still doesn’t speak, just leads me down the aisle between the theater seats toward the large stage on the other side of the room. There are steps toward one side of the stage, and he stalks up them. I nearly trip as I try to keep up.

“I don’t think we’re supposed to be back here,” I insist as he leads me backstage. There’s lots of different prop furniture back here for the upcoming school play. He stops in front of a solid looking desk and turns to me at last. Grabbing my hips, he picks me up and places me on the edge of the desk.

“What are you…?” My question is cut off when he drops to his knees in front of me and shoves my skirt around my hips. “Oh my God.”

“Shut up, Luna.” Before I can say another word, he shoves my panties aside and his mouth is on me. “Just shut up because this is the only thing that’ll keep my mind off of killing someone right now.”

* * *

“So, you are with Townsend?”

I nearly jump out of my skin at Easton’s question when he slams into the chair behind me just before Mrs. De León starts Spanish. My body is still on fire from what had happened in the auditorium before, and I nearly wince aloud when I twist around in my seat to face him. I swallow hard at the expression on his face. He looks angry.

Angrier than I’ve ever seen him.

“It’s … complicated.” God, why do I feel so stupid saying that word.

He sneers. “Didn’t seem all that complicated when he was trying to rip out Ross Ferrell’s throat.” Before I can react to learning the name of my assailant from this morning, he bends his head closer to mine and adds in a soft voice, “Or when he was eating you out backstage in the auditorium.”

I recoil, my cheeks on fire. I’m grateful when Mrs. De León calls the class to order because I’m forced to direct my attention straight ahead, but Easton keeps talking. “He wanted me to see you with him.”

I barely recognize my own voice when I manage to squeak. “I-I don’t know what you mean.”

He waits until Mrs. De León is discussing our homework to continue, “The motherfucker knew I wanted you, and he wanted to prove a point. Why else would he have asked me to meet him there? Why else would he skip class today?”

My heartbeat speeds out of control. Because I believe Easton. Because the move is so typically Phoenix that now I’m seeing red.

Easton doesn’t speak to me again for the rest of class, but once the bell rings, I hear him slide from his seat. He stands over me, his brows dragging together in a furious line. “Do me a favor, Josslyn,” he says, and all I can do is nod. “Tell him that he fucked up.”

* * *

I’m notsurprised that Phoenix isn’t around to drive me back to the Townsend house after school, and I’m a bundle of angry nerves on the ride home with Reina. She chats the whole way about an art project she has due in a couple weeks, but I can hardly concentrate. When she slams her car into park right in front of the front steps, she casts me an appraising look.

“You okay, Joss?”

“I’m … fine,” I say, but she simply purses her full lips and blinks once.

“I hope you’re not letting what that shitbag sandwich Ross said get to you. Or those bitches threatening to pull that Mallory Ellis shit on you.”

I pause as I let that name stream through my brain. It’s familiar. So familiar. “Mallory Ellis?”

Reina gives a dramatic roll of her hazel eyes. “You know, the girl from Angelview. The one those bitches jumped in the library. Saint Angelle’s … whatever she was to him. Jesus, Joss.”

“Right.” But once again, my thoughts are buzzing. I manage a little smile as Reina murmurs an apology because she won’t be able to take me to see Nina today and then I stumble out of the car. “No, it’s fine. You’ve already done so much for me.”

Just before I reach the front door, Reina honks her horn. I glance over my shoulder to find her head cocked and a huge grin splayed across her features. “Cheer up, bitch! It can’t be all that bad since you got to ride home with my wonderful ass.”

I’m laughing as I wave her off, but my brain is still fixated on that name.

Mallory Ellis.

I’m barely three steps inside before curiosity gets the best of me and I’m Googling it. Pages of information pop up instantly, and my breath feels like it’s knocked out of my body when I realize who she is.

Saint Angelle’s … whatever she was.

The heiress to a billion-dollar fortune.

The daughter of Eleanor Mallory, the woman from the articles that Phoenix had sent me all those weeks ago to convince me my brother was a murderer.

And the same pregnant girl who’d given me her number and told me she was checking up on me for Jasper.