*Kane's POV*
As I’m walking through campus, I don’t know why, but something compels me to look at the building to my left. When I do, I see a window with Violet and her friend from last night sitting on the other side of it. I don’t know why, but my feet are moving towards her on their own accord.
I walk up to their table and Violet looks up at me, shock written all over her face.
“Hello,” I say.
“Hi,” She replies quietly. She’s clearly still confused. And, to be honest, so am I.
“How did you find the rest of the party?” I ask casually, trying to glean any information on if she was as miserable as I was after our little exchange last night.
The blond starts, “Oh, she-”
“Enjoyed it. She enjoyed it,” Violet cuts her off and gives her a pointed look. Interesting. I wonder what that’s about. I search her eyes for answers but find nothing.
“Yeah, we had a great time. You know, played some games, did some drinking,” Her friend says but I’m not really listening to her. I don’t really care what she has to say. I see Violet drop her gaze to look at her nails and I know she’s lying. Maybe she did have as shitty of a night as I did.
“Mhm. I’m sure," I reply, not even entirely sure of what she said.
She looks back up at me through her eyelashes and my gut clenches and I feel my jeans tightening. God dammit, why is this happening to me?
“Do you need something Kane?” She asks me, evidently becoming irritated that she can’t figure out why I’m here.
“What, I’m not allowed to say hi to you?” I say to her as casually as possible.
“You told me to stay away from you yesterday. I guess that only works one way then?” She says back in a completely neutral manner. I don’t know what I was expecting to come out of her mouth, but that certainly was not it.
“I changed my mind.” I tell her.
“What?” She says, the shock colouring her face once again. Trust me I'm just as surprised as you are.
“I said, I changed my mind. We can’t avoid each other forever,” I say with a shrug, attempting to seem like I don’t care.
“Uh, yeah, I guess so,” She replies quietly. No surprise there. She’s too nice to tell me to fuck off like I did to her just yesterday.
I feel the tension between us creeping up and I realize I've got to get out of this conversation quickly before I say something really stupid.
“Alright then. See you around,” I say and then just walk away before she can reply.
When I get outside, I lean against the brick wall and run my hand through my hair. Why am I letting her affect me like this? This is so stupid. I hate her so much yet I find myself so drawn to her. And at the same time, I know that the more time I spend with her, the more dangerous it becomes for both of us.
Fuck, I wish there were fights tonight. I decide to just go to the gym on campus instead and try to burn off this energy. I run on the treadmill and then lift weights and then punch the shit out of the punching bags. None of it helps. It’s not the same as the rush from fighting another person. There’s no danger. It’s missing the adrenaline that comes from knowing you hold the other person’s fate in your grasp. Maybe that makes me sounds like a psycho but it's truly the only time I feel anything.
I go back to the frat house several hours later feeling very unsatisfied. I head up to my room and lock the door. I open my laptop and find myself searching Violet Shaw on F******k. I find her page but it’s blocked. I try i*******m and her profile is thankfully open.
I scroll through the pictures and the only ones she’s actually in are with a blond guy. I think she did mention something about having a boyfriend last time she visited. God he looks like a fucking loser. I catch my fists clenching on their own accord. The latest picture was from not too long ago. They must still be together. Not that it matters. I don’t care.
The only other person in her pictures is a red headed girl with a babyface who is tagged as Rebecca. Other than that, she has only pictures of books and coffee and plants and other artsy stuff. I go check her tagged photos and the first one is of her in a black dress with the blond girl she seems to always be with. According to her i*******m, her name is Stella.
I zoom in on Violet and take in her outfit again. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black dress look this good. The longer I look at the picture, the harder I get. Before my brain can catch up, my hand is in my pants and I’m jerking myself off to the image of her for the second time in 24 hours. Fucking Hell.
I finish quickly and then decide to put a movie on and just try and forget about it. About her. I waste the rest of the night on the internet and then fall asleep early.
Once again, I dream of her.
*Violet's POV*After the strange encounter with Kane, we head back to the dorm and Stella tells me she’s going to have a nap so I decide I should probably take this chance to make some phone calls. I bring my laptop outside and sit underneath a shady tree and put my headphones in. I facetime Rebecca first.She answers right away and I can see that she’s sitting in her room. Her red hair is up in a bun and she’s got her glasses on.“Hey Vi, what’s up?”“You will never believe who is here.”“Who?”“Kane.”Her mouth drops open. “Kane as in your step-brother Kane?”“The one and only,” I reply with a fake smile.“Why? How did you even find out about this?”I explain the whole story at the frat party and she takes a few seconds to process this.“I can’t believe she didn’t tell you. Also I
*Kane's POV*Tuesday morning, I wake up to the sound of my phone ringing. The caller ID says it’s my father. Of course it is. I know it will only make things worse if I don’t answer so I click the little green button.“Hello,” I say, not trying to conceal the annoyance in my voice.“Hello son. How have you enjoyed your first couple days?” I calculate whether or not I should mention that I saw Violet. It is a small campus so it is likely we would have run into each other. But it is also probable we didn’t. Has she spoken to her mother? Maybe he already knows. I have no way of knowing so I decide to keep it vague.“Fine,” I say, continuing to give away no information with my tone.“Well, we’re going to invite your sister to come stay with us this weekend.” My stomach drops. “We figure since you go to the same school, you could carpool.”I’m in so much sho
*Violet's POV*No no no no. What did I just do? That was wrong on so many levels. He’s mystep-brotherand I have a boyfriend. Oh god, I just cheated on Jace. I’m such a horrible person. But why did it feel so good? Kissing Jace is nice, sure, but that? That was a whole other level. My body has never reacted that way before. It was like everywhere he was touching was on fire. No! Stop it! I can’t be thinking this way! I have a boyfriend who I love and who loves me. I will not screw that up!I don’t even know why he kissed me. It makes no sense. I have so many questions that I’ll probably never get the answers to. I do know two things for sure though. One: I cannot tell anybody about this. And two: it can never happen again.When I step into the room, Stella is on her laptop and she doesn’t look up when she asks, “So, how did it go?”I’m thankful she’s not looking at me because
*Kane's POV*I spend pretty much the whole day trying to distract myself from Violet, but I just can’t. The only thing that’s getting me through is the thought of the fights tonight. The day seems to pass in slow motion as I wait. By 9pm, I cannot wait any longer and I walk out the front door towards the car I have stashed in an alley.The 10 minute walk passes quickly and I hop in my car and head to the address on the piece of paper. When I arrive I see that I am at a strip joint not too far from Rex’s gym and it’s sitting on an unnecessarily large concrete pad. The neon sign out front is lit up and I suspect the strip club part is already open. I drive past it and park a couple streets over. It’s barely 9:30. I set my phone down and head in. Might as well enjoy some tits while I wait.I flip up my hood for the walk; the probability that I’ll run into somebody I know is slim, but one can never be too safe. When I open the doo
*Violet's POV*The rest of orientation week passed by rather quickly. I went to see my therapist on Wednesday. She seemed nice enough and mostly just asked me general questions about my file and my history.I told her about Stella and about Kane and my mother and the trip this weekend. She seemed to think it would be good for me to see her but I’m not so sure. I also left out the kiss between Kane and me. I keep trying to convince myself that if I don’t say it out loud, maybe it never happened in the first place.I spoke with Jace Wednesday after my therapy session and told him about this weekend. He had to cut the conversation short again because of football practice but told me that if I needed anything over the weekend to call him.By the time Friday morning rolls around, I am sitting in bed scrolling through social media, trying to stop myself from letting my anxiety take over and failing miserably.“Geez Vi, you’re gonn
*Kane's POV*After that stupid tour, I head to my room, or rather, the room they call mine and take out my laptop. I have an hour and it should only take me about 5 minutes to change.When I can no longer justify procrastinating any longer, I pull on black jeans and a white v-neck with a leather jacket. I don’t do dress pants and button up shirts. I push the sleeves up on my jacket to show more of my tattoos, knowing they piss my dad off.I walk out of my room and find Violet closing the door to hers. I can’t stop myself from raking my eyes up and down her body. It would be so easy to push her back against that wall, and fuck her in that dress. I want to put my mouth all over the exposed skin on her shoulders and neck.My eyes find their way back to her blue ones which are regarding me intently. I can’t decipher the emotion behind them. Her eyelashes flutter a little, and I snap out of my trance. We are in my father’s house. This c
*Violet's POV*I stand in the hallway, stunned. Did Kane just give me a compliment after ignoring me this entire day? His mood swings are giving me whiplash. It takes me a few seconds to regain my composure and open the door. Stepping into the room, I realize how much of a buzz I currently have going on from all the bourbon.When I finally make it inside, I strip the dress off and put on pajama shorts and a hoodie and put my hair up into a bun. I grab my little bathroom bag and then head out.When I open my door I see Kane closing his and stepping into the hallway.“Oh, sorry, are you using the bathroom?” I ask. He nods.“Okay, I’ll just go later.”“It’s fine, there are two sinks,” he says with a shrug.“Um, right, yeah. Okay.” He gestures for me to go first, so I do and head into the bathroom to the far sink, setting down my things. I wash my face first and when I finish dry
*Kane's POV*When I felt her hands creeping up my shirt to my back, it reminded me of the scars that sit there. Most of them from my father and some of them because of her. Because I took punishments for her. The hate and resentment that came along with that realization was enough to snap me out of whatever trance her lips had put me in.Leaning back on the door to my room after shutting it quickly, I try to calm my heart rate down. I sit on the edge of my bed and put my elbows on my knees, resting my head in my hands.Her touching my back triggered some nasty feelings to bubble over, but is it really her fault? No, I don’t think so. But at the same time, it’s safer for her to hate me. I realize that at some point since I first saw her at the frat house, my focus shifted and now, the thought that she hates me feels like a knife to the gut. Fuck. This is a problem.I try to think through my options and eventually I realize I need to apologize t