Hurt me like you need me novel Chapter 1

Sawyer’s POV

“We’ve been together for two weeks, Sawyer.” My girlfriend’s voice pitches high enough that the group of guys passing with a beer pong table turn their heads. “And you won’t even let me touch you. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Megan has me pinned against the hallway wall with her fingers hooked through my belt loops, and all I can think about is how badly I want to shove her off me.

“Nothing’s wrong with me.” I grab her wrists and pull them away from my waist. “Maybe I just don’t want your hands down my pants in the middle of a frat house.”

“It’s not just here. It’s everywhere.” She searches my face for an answer I don’t have. She is a pretty girl with brown hair, big green eyes, and the body half the freshman class would crawl over broken glass for. I feel nothing when she presses it against mine. “Are you not attracted to me?”

“Shut up, Megan.”

She shoves my chest, and my shoulders hit the wall again. Over her head, through the archway into the living room, I see him.

Cade Ellory, my nemesis, is on the couch in the living room. Center of it, obviously. Legs spread wide, arm slung across the back, sandy blond hair cropped short.

Megan moves into my sightline, blocking Cade with her entire body. Her nails dig into my forearm. “Sawyer. I’m talking to you.”

I’m not listening.

I’m watching Cade tip his beer back on the couch across the room, and I’m thinking about the summer he took my spot on the swim team. Spent three months whispering to Coach Harding’s son about my temper, my home life, my “attitude problem.”

By the time tryouts came, I was already cut. He found me in the hallway the next day and gave me this infuriating, closed-mouth smile that said I took it because I could.

I broke his nose for it. He bled on my fist and smiled even wider.

“Are you seriously ignoring me right now?” Megan slams both palms into my chest.

He’s got the same smile right now. I can see it from here.

My eyes zone into the way his throat moves with each gulp of his beer, jaw tilted up like he’s daring someone to hit it.

Should I accept the invitation? Drive my fist into that jaw until the bone shifts and his head snaps sideways and the blood comes?

I’ve broken his face before. Some nights I still flex my hand and miss it.

Two girls sit on either side of him like he ordered them off a menu. A guy leans against the armrest, talking close to his ear. Cade doesn’t flinch at any of it — the girls, the guy, the attention.

He fucks everything that moves, and everyone on this campus adores him for it.

I watch his mouth curve at something the guy says. His smile stops before it reaches his eyes. His eyes stay empty but nobody else catches it because they’re too busy choking on his dick.

My hand tightens around my cup hard enough to dent the plastic.

Megan grabs my jaw and forces my head back to her. “Look at me.”

I look at her. She deserves better than what I’m about to say, but I don’t care enough about her to stop myself.

I pull her hands off my chest and drop them with force. “Get the fuck out of my face, Megan.”

Her chin wobbles. She blinks fast, trying to hold it together.

“You’re such an asshole, Sawyer.” Megan’s voice cracks. She takes a step back. Then another. “Call me when you figure out if you actually like women.”

She turns on her heel and disappears into the crowd like she was never here.

I stand there for a minute with my back against the wall and my fists curled at my sides. My chest hurts because she’s said the thing nobody is supposed to say, and the fact that it hits means there’s a target there to hit, and I can’t afford that.

I grab a bottle of Jim Beam off the kitchen counter and drink straight from it until my throat burns. Lean against the fridge. Watch people filter past in various states of wasted.

When I look back, the couch is empty. Cade and the guy are gone. They are probably in some upstairs bedroom, and the guy is on his knees thanking God for the privilege.

Fucking disgusting.

He just holds my gaze as if he was… expecting me?

His head snaps sideways. Blood blooms from his lower lip, and he laughs — a short, breathless sound — and then he’s on his feet and we’re tangled together in the narrow space between the bathtub and the sink.

He catches my second punch and shoves me into the mirror. The glass cracks behind my skull. I drive my knee into his ribs and he folds, grabs my shirt, pulls me down with him.

We hit the tile hard.

“There he is.” Blood runs down his chin. His eyes are bright, dilated, alive. “I missed this version of you.”

“Shut your mouth.”

I slam my fist into his side, and he twists underneath me, and that’s when I feel it.

He has been hard this whole time. He never went down. And now his dick is pressed against my thigh — thick, unmistakable, twitching against me through denim while I’m pinned on top of him on the bathroom floor.

My body does something I will never forgive it for.

Heat floods my groin so fast my vision blurs. Every muscle below my waist tightens and my hips — my hips almost — I lock them in place so hard my thighs shake. My cock is thickening against my jeans and there is nothing I can do to stop it. Nothing. It’s happening three inches from where his is pressed against me, and if he shifts even slightly he’ll feel it.

He shifts.

His eyes snap to mine. The grin that spreads across his bloody mouth is the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

I hit him so hard his head bounces off the tile. Then again. And again. Then I shove off him and stagger to my feet.

I walk out without a word. Down the stairs, through the crowd, past Megan on the front porch sobbing into her phone. The night air hits my face and I keep walking until the music fades and the streetlights thin and the only sound left is my own breathing.

The heat in my stomach doesn’t fade. It sits there, low and patient, like it’s always been there and I’ve only just noticed.

I walk faster.