Page 42 of Make Me Pretty
I don’t look as ugly as I’ve always felt.
My face is blushed a bright, pink color, still vibrant from Peris’s slaps—which were surprisingly hesitant at first—giving a great contrast to his release drying on my skin. I follow my mirrored image with a rapt gaze as I reach up to touch what’s still wet on my chest, near my pierced nipple. My fingers find my mouth. I watch my lips part, tongue sneaking out to lap it up. It’s cold and tangy as I swallow. My larynx rolls.
Maybe… I’m not so worthless after all.
My nails scrape along the inside of my pocket as I dig my phone out. With a slightly shaky hand, I open the camera app and hold it out in front of me. Unnerved at the face staring back at me, I drop my eyes to snap a couple of photos, angling the phone so half of my face is cut off but all of my body is in view: stained and reddened skin, baggy jeans stained with my own release, and sweaty hair, now knotted from his fingers.
I can be pretty now… with his stain on me.
It takeslong minutes of scrubbing my face with paper towels that are the texture of literal fucking sandpaper to be able to leave the locker room. Can’t exactly walk around in the generalpublic with cum drying on my face—butI do leave the rest of the mess beneath my clothes ‘cause I like the dirty reminder.
With my bag slung over both shoulders in preparation for the walk home, I falter when I push through the front doors and see Peris’s car waiting by the curb, staticky bass thumping with a song I’ve never heard before. The passenger window rolls down as I draw near, gaze locked forward in opposition. The streetlamps down the road are dim and yellow, illuminating the sidewalk every few dozen feet or so.
“Get in,” Peris barks sharply. My feet stop short even as I bristle, clutching the straps on my bag like doing so will keep my legs from following the rest of his command all willy-nilly.
He may have ripped my hair out, slapped my face, and fucked my mouth until he came all over me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to magically start listening to his barking orders. I havedignity.And rules.And his jizz dried on my skin might beg to differ, but that’s neither here nor there.
“Now,runt.” He snaps the name like it means something, and damn everything to hell because itdoes.It’s demeaning and crass, and I, unfortunately, love every humiliating moment of it.
It’s gotta be the trauma. Some crisscross of wires in my brain ‘cause even as I look down at myself—paltry, a little freaky, and definitely unsightly—I’ve gotta admit the fucker is right. I really am a goddamn runt. The thought makes me snort, which draws a frown from his puffy lips.
With a sigh, I say, “If you try something, I swear I’ll?—”
His index finger taps the wheel twice before he twists around. “You’ll… what? Never suck my dick again? Ignore me to death?” Peris laughs mockingly, fingers curling around the wheel as he leans over, looking up through lashes boys like me are envious of. “We both know those are empty threats.”
They wouldn’t be—but I can’t even finish the thought because my face tingles with heat. I yank on the door handle,then stumble when it retracts back with a snap. Peris’s lips twitch as he reaches down and presses the unlock button.
The chug of the locks releasing is magnified between us—a sort of ceasefire, but only for the moment. I throw myself into the seat with a huff, arms encircling my backpack now against my front.
I’ve gone and showed my ass, and now, I’ve lost my advantage. The reality is… uncomfortable. And stifling. And his cum is itchy.
What’s supposed to happen now?
I think, maybe, I should have planned further ahead. But ever getting this far never seemed feasible.
“You piss me off,” Peris snaps as I slam the door, his words cutting off my train of thought. He doesn’t even wait for me to get buckled before he’s squealing out of the empty lot, quite literally burning rubber. I tear my gaze away from the rearview mirror to pin him with a glare.
“I didn’t even do anything,” I argue. “And your lack of respect for my safety is quite concerning,” I add dryly as I stare out the window, blatantly watching his reflection instead of the dull silhouettes of trees passing by.
Peris barks out a haughty laugh as he turns down the volume. “You just choked on my dick with no qualms that I wouldn’t let you breathe. I could argue your lack of respect for your own safety says a lot more about you than it does for me. I’ve never pretended to like or care about you in any capacity. In fact, I thought I made it abundantly clear I don’t.”
Well, he’s certainly not wrong about that—and my aching throat agrees.
“Even when I offered to be your fucking friend,” he sneers the word like the joke it is. As ifwecould ever be anything but this insidiousness. “But you, on the other hand,” he continueswithout even taking a breath, “just got in my car without any regard for the consequences.”
I hum quietly. It’s all so different now—to be on the other side. The side I usually dip out of immediately. Because this is the unknown. Unchartered territory I steer clear of, but it’s so obvious we’re already deep inside each other.
All I have to do is pluck a string, and he moves. I wonder if he’s realized that, or if he thinks the same, but reversed because he had me on my knees.
“As if there are any real consequences to sitting in a car with you,Peris.” Said car swerves, tires screeching at a decibel that makes my ears ring. I lurch in my seat as the car jerks to a stop, and my head knocks against glass. My eyelids flutter, and I mewl a pained groan. “Peris, what the fu?—”
Peris caresses my jaw with the backs of his knuckles, eyes soft, dark holes before they pin in a flash, and he shoves my face against the cool glass. I struggle against his hold, but he keeps me thoroughly pinned as he leans across the center console. His breath is the only part of him that gives away his true feelings—shallow and hot and unsteady. The strongest contradiction to the brute force he’s exuding.
I didn’t think my dick could get any harder, but low and behold, it does as his lips brush over my ear. “There aremanyconsequences to being around me,Abel.” He sneers my name, mimicking how I mocked his—heavy with heated disgust.
“Let me put it into perspective for you. No one knows you’re here. No one knows you’re locked inside a car with me.” His words send a cold rush through my bloodstream, honing the pain, making my dick throb. “I could do a lot with that kind of freedom.”
My eyelids fly open, one mostly shut while the other is pinned forward, stuck between two halves of a whole—the world outside this car and the very tiny one inside.
