Stained

Chapter 7

I get up from my knees, and Damien follows suit, not once removing his hand from mine. I feel a foreign tightness in the pit of my stomach from his touch. I don't know what it means, or how to feel about it or the fact that he's touching me. All I know is that my body's not turning into stone like it usually would. Why isn't it?

What has my life come to? Instead of being happy about my body not betraying me for once, I'm waiting for the moment it does. I should be ecstatic that a males presence — touch isn't scaring me. Yet my irremediable, bleak body won't let me.

He keeps his eyes pinned on mine as if daring me to drop the book and walk away. But I hold my ground. This newfound exposure feels exhilarating. Freeing. I never want to let it go. Yet, that hopeless part in me tells me it's faltering.

"Damien," I breathe. My gaze flits down between us as he secures his grip on the book over my hand. His large hand engulfing my small one, he brings the book up between my thighs.

My lips part, my suddenly deprived lungs desperately grasp for any and every shred of oxygen redeemable. My eyes jerk up to his blue-greens as he slowly edges the book upward.

When the edge meets the junction between my thighs, I suck in a sharp breath. My chest heaves out with the movement and touches his.

The book between my legs is distracting, and it's causing a strange tingling sensation that's getting more and more uncomfortable by the minute... and not in a bad way.

I try to step away from him, but the table at my back bars my way.

As if reading my mind, he clamps his hand down on the table near my hip, trapping me. He steps close until our chests touch once more.

What is he doing? What am I doing? I need to get away. I need to leave this classroom. I'm mentally panicking but my outside demeanour is calm, collected. A lie to the war raging on inside of me.

"Wh- what are- what are you doing?" Every time his breath fans out across my neck, I lose all sense of thought.

He leans forward in the same second his hand comes up. I flinch back on autopilot.

Damien drops his hand, his eyes narrowing into tight slits as he takes a step back, away from me and in doing so, depriving me of his heat and touch. He lets go of the book and it drops between us. But the  look of self-hatred marking Damien's features stops me from picking it up.

"I wasn't going to hit you," he grumbles.

My eyes widen and I shake my head without even knowing it. "I didn't." It's a first instinct. A male will come close to me and I'll—

He's already turning on his heels and leaving, slamming the door shut on his way out.

My body sags against the table behind me. I place my palms flat on the table to keep myself upright, trying and failing to calm my rapid breathing. He just caught me off guard.

In chemistry resit, I meet a pretty girl called Katie Louis, she has short dark brown— almost raven hair that it is up to her shoulders, and she has the most beautiful amber eyes. She's a year older than me and tells me she changed her course this year because she's indecisive.

I wish I could do that, but I have to focus on one thing and one thing only, and that's medicine, but I'm happy for her. She's sweet and tells me a bit about the school. But I couldn't even concentrate on half the stuff she was telling me, because my mind kept drifting off to Damien and our encounter in the classroom. Hell, I couldn't even concentrate on the teacher. I have a motive, to put my head down and not let anything distract me. So why am I letting some boy — rude boy at that — distract me? I still take notes though. I just hope this is a one-time thing because if it keeps going like this—and it's only the first day — I'll be repeating year twelve.

When lunch comes around, I still haven't been able to get him off my mind, mainly because guilts been piercing my chest like a sharp blade. I didn't mean to flinch. I didn't think he was going to hit me. I didn't. I really didn't.

The girls are talking within themselves when I get up to fill my water bottle at the water fountain. Unfortunately, there's a couple making out near the closest one so I decide to go to the one near the main office. It's a bit of a walk but it's better than doing it next to a couple who are two seconds away from eating each others faces off.

I walk up the stairs, bottle in hand and am about to approach the water fountain when I stop dead in my tracks at the sight of Damien leaning over it. He's so tall he has to bend at an awkward angle to reach it. For some strange inexplicable reason, seeing him trying to drink the water has my stomach erupting in butterflies.

Stop it, Hazel!

I turn around, ready to bolt, but stop when I hear his deep voice.