Bittersweet Symphony (Bittersweet #4)(2)

I follow the strategic rules that I always have in place to avoid drawing attention to myself. Sam plucks one of my pens up off the floor and examines it.

“These are rather nice pens. Where did you ever get the money to buy such a nice pen?” I almost roll my eyes, almost. For someone like him to get accepted to Berkeley and not use it to his full abilities just doesn’t make sense to me. Hell, I don’t even understand how he got accepted. He is about as dumb as dumb got.

All he has going for him is that his family has money, and he is halfway decent looking. However, to me, he just looks like a sad excuse of a human being. Looks will only get you so far, so when you are an * over and over again… Yeah, that is a major turn off.

“They’re just pens. I need them for school so give them back.” I’m not above begging. I do what I can to get by. In the end, I will be far more advanced in life if I do so. It doesn’t matter what you do in life or where you go; there are people like Sam everywhere. Grin and bear it.

“Are you already giving into me?” He chuckles as he advances toward me. His shiny, new shoes are directly in front of my face in a passing second. I reach out to grab the remainder of my belongings. Just as my fingers circle around the point of a pen, Sam’s foot comes down hard on my fingers. I stifle a cry of pain by biting my lip, willing myself to not give into his shitty behavior.

He isn’t above physically hurting me; he isn’t above doing it to anyone, male or female. He probably kicks dogs in his free time just for fun.

Here I am, on my knees, in the middle of the hall, and Sam steps on my hand. “Now, now, Kennedy,” he says, gripping my chin in his hand. I look at him with so much disgust that as he registers the look on my face, his smile grows larger and his foot presses harder onto my hand. Tears prick at the back of my eyes, and I blink them away, praying they won’t spill over. I refuse to allow him to see the hurt and emotion he invokes in me.

Pain shoots up my arm, and I let out a tiny whimper attempting to alleviate some of the pain, but it does me no good.

“Don’t be a baby, Kennedy. I know you like it rough. I know you dream about me.” If I could bite Sam, I would; if I could puke all over his stupid brand new shoes, I would. His eyes scan the halls, looking for someone I’m sure. His foot eases off my hand as he notices someone coming down the hall. I hear laughter and know my day is about to get fifty times worse.

“Pick up your shit and get the f*ck out of my way!” Sam yells at me, annoyance heavily lacing his words. I wiggle my fingers back and forth as the laughter grows closer. College is no different than high school, and I am dumb to think that I could get away from people like him. They are everywhere, lurking in all the deep corners of the world.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” A voice that sings to my blood, that has me feeling things I shouldn’t, sounds behind me. I tuck some loose strands of my blonde hair behind my ear and shuffle my papers back into their folder, ignoring the conversation that is about to take place.

“Just another girl throwing herself onto her knees for me,” Sam says smugly. As the f*ck if. Never, ever, will you find me on my knees giving him a blow job; and if you do, I won’t be giving him a blow job, I will be biting his dick off and feeding it to the sharks.

“I can see that. At least this one is pretty.” I turn around to take in the sight of the man whose voice I know that belonged to: Ryder Winchester. He is Berkeley’s most profound player and manwhore. He can have you out of your panties and panting with need faster than you can say “Give it to me hard!” because that’s all he knows. Less than six months here and he has become the king of *. Men want to be him, and girls want to be with him.

His eyes are a brilliant green, almost like the forest. His hair is a dismantled mess, but he always has this calm, cool, and collected attitude. He is intense and scary and way out of my league, but I still want to lick his jaw line that is so clenched sometimes, I wonder if the touch of my tongue would loosen some tension.

I stand, fixing my sweatshirt. I’m not anything to look at, so when I turn to walk in the direction Ryder just came from, I freeze. His eyes assault mine as he looks over every inch of my body. For a second, for one tiny little second, I think I can see him putting the puzzle pieces together as he looks between Sam and me.

“If I need anything from you, I’ll come find you,” Sam says, his voice filling my mind. Don’t go there, Kennedy, he’s probably a user and abuser.

I’m still not moving; my body needs to catch up with my mind quickly because I can feel the anger radiating out of Sam. Just as I’m about to take my first step away from him, I feel a hard push on my lower back. Shock courses through me. Did he just push me?

I turn around, glaring at him. I put every ounce of hate into my stare.

“Get moving. You’re no longer needed here.” My mind fills with so much irritation, I am surprised I can form a coherent word.

“Do not touch me,” I ground out. I never had the balls or time to reply to anything he said to me before. But this pushing thing, if I allow it to slide, he will just turn around and do something worse.

“Whoa, dude, you don’t push women. I don’t care how shitty the blow job was,” Ryder jokes. He sends me a panty dropping smile. His teeth are a brilliant white, and I can’t tell if his smile is to comfort me or not.

“She likes it rough, dude. Plus, if I tell her to do something, she should be f*cking doing it.” Sam is pissed, more than pissed. His eyes are black, and I know that I have just made a horrible mistake.