Seven
You tried to hide your disappointment. Yet another day passed with Niall completely ignoring you. It was nearing 5 days in a row.
It wasn’t the cutesy, joking ‘oh I didn’t see you there’ or the ‘can you tell her to give me this please’, deal. No, it was the complete ice out. He stayed away from you. His eyes never landed on you. He avoided situations where he would be near you in group settings.
Even the other campers started to notice. They weren’t blind, they thought you two liked each other and they enjoyed the light banter that would pass from the two of you. It seemed like they could notice the obvious tension between the two of you that Niall was pretending you didn’t exist. The girls gave you sympathetic looks after Niall ignored your request for help putting away the Lake inflatables. He just walked away and you were left there with no help.
At first it amused you and you thought he was doing it to just get on your nerves, but soon you realized that he wasn’t playing. Your actions must have bothered him more than you previously thought and that made you angry.
Was he really put out by your teasing enough to pretend you didn’t even exist? You haven’t been a jerk to him since that encounter at the showers after capture the flag. Actually you behaved quite friendly towards him and he just shut you out. You didn’t really peg him for a quitter and his actions were really starting to anger you. Was he really so sensitive all of a sudden? Did his ego bruise so easily?
"Hey, can you grab that rope for me over there for tug o’ war?" His voice filled your ears as you stood near the supplies shed talking to one of the other girl campers. You looked up, blinking in surprise as his cold blue eyes looked past you towards the girl you were with. She looked between you and Niall for a beat, before nodding and heading towards the shed leaving you standing in front of Niall.
He turned the opposite way, toying with his hands as he waited for her to return with the rope, pretending to be observing the others setting up the challenge for the day.
"You are acting like a child." You said suddenly and you watched his muscled back tense. He ignored your words and you crossed your arms, talking louder. "I didn’t think your thick ego was bothered so easily."
You knew your words were getting to him as his fists clenched at his sides but he remained silent.
"Maybe it is a good thing you are acting like this. It’s good to know how much of a quitter you really are in the face of a challenge." you huffed and his head snapped up, turning to you. His pupils were growing and his breaths were becoming more shallow as you tilted your head to him, cockily. "And to think I thought you would be a man. I thought you would be good at something and here you are acting like a little boy. It’s good to know now before anything went any further. I’d hate to find out you were such a disappointing fuck after all that big talk you had about yourself. That’s all you are. Talk. Hot air. No substance. Not enough balls to back up your game. You couldn’t handle me. You couldn’t handle shit."
That got to him, breaking his apathetic facade that he had plastered on his face for the past few days. You didn’t believe what you were saying for a minute, but you wanted to get a rise out of him. For some reason, you were really good at getting to him and you knew it pissed him off as he took a few quick steps up to you, positively seething. His brow was furrowed, his lips thin, and his face was flush in anger as he reached out to your arms and pulled you roughly against him, moving your head to the side so that his hot breath was against your sensitive ears. Shivers went down your spine straight to your core as his lips found your ear and he licked it lightly. You bit down on your bottom lip, suppressing a moan as your body readily responded to his touch. You missed his hands as they gripped you tightly and his voice as it came raspy and angry in your ear.
