Love Thy Enemy

Chapter 7: Party

Saskia has a house instead of an apartment, so the music tonight plays as loud as our ears can handle. The house is two stories high and only twenty minutes from the main town, on the other side of the train tracks. It is located on top of a small hill surrounded by a few trees and the grass cut short. Tommaso is already there and with an arm around Saskia while Marco laughs with a couple guys next to the stairs. Upon walking in, a hand touch my ass sending chills up my spine. I grit my teeth and swirl around with closed fists.

"Wow!" The guy behind me, the one who touched me, shouts wide eyed staring at my fist. "I was just trying to get through, you were blocking the entry" I move and let him stumble through as he murmurs the famous words "ice cold bitch".

Alessio hasn't noticed anything and is far gone, swallowed by the crowd inside. Taking a deep breath, I walk deeper inside, through the midst of people in an attempt to reach Tommaso. If my best friend still has a brain, he will ditch Saskia to talk to me for a few minutes. When I spot them, she makes direct eye contact with me before smirking and kissing him with everything she's got. It's slow and sensual, her hand on his thigh and his under her shirt. The chances of him forgiving me if I went over there to interrupt their display of affection are slim to none. So I turn around, grab a drink out of someone's hands and down it. It tastes like vodka and burns like the seventh circle of hell, the way all alcohol does, but it hits me just right.

Without bothering to look around I begin swaying my hips to the music. With my eyes closed the beat of every song runs through my body like electricity, or maybe its my fifth cup of vodka and coke. This time, when I feel a pair of arms wrapping around my midsection I don't jump, I force myself to embrace it. His body is solid and swaying with mine in slow motion as his hands make slow circular movements around my hips and lower. He holds me without force, allowing me to get closer or farther away whenever I wish. But I get closer, allowing my body to brush his with every note. I don't even know what he looks like but I don't care. We are each in our own worlds, making of the other a dream, a fictional reality. His hands move to my inner thighs, caressing them, moving up and down, every time slightly higher, allowing for a different feeling to take place altogether. I feel a chill run through my body, but am undecided on whether or not to walk away. A part of me is enjoying it, while another is shouting at me, telling me to run for the hills.

Before I can make up my mind, a body collides with me making all air rush out of my lungs. The boy I was dancing with is crushing me to the floor, laying on top of me weightless. I try to turn onto my back, but the weight of his body is so heavy I can't move, or breathe. And that's when I panic. I can't lose my cool, not here and not now. Breathe. Suddenly a man in a black jacket is standing in front of me. I arch my back to see who it is, but his face is too far up. All I see is his boot as it comes heavily on my neck, suffocating me. The boy behind me has noticed nothing, dazed in his drunken stupor. I am trapped. I can't breath and I am going to die. I free my hands and struggle to lift his heel from my neck.

Someone screams. It's so loud, I begin to cry, the room begins to spin.

The weight on my back suddenly disappears and I see the same black figure running outside the house through the front door. I look around to see if anyone has just witnessed what I have, or chasing the man, but they are all just staring at me. The screaming has stopped. My throat hurts. I stand up, quickly, dizzy by the sudden movement. My classmates have made a circle around me, alienating me. Everyone is just staring and the man who just tried to kill me is running away. I was the one screaming. I just saved my own life.

If I hadn't screamed and startled him I'd be dead. My legs move, speeding across the house until I am outside. The man in the jacket is running full speed across the street to reach that same car that drove by my house before I came to the party with Alessio. I run faster, but he gets in the car and it speeds out of the driveway.

"God damn it!" I throw my hands in the air, and fall to the ground in the middle of the street, exhausted and drained. People are trying to kill me and I don't even know why. Just as I begin to stand I hear the deep rumbling of a motorcycle riding up behind me. I begin moving out of the way, onto the sidewalk when I hear my name.

"Ana." He calls. His voice is hauntingly deep while his body is downright sinful. Straddling a Harley Davidson he looks incredible, with a leather jacket and jeans. He almost looks better than he does in a suit.

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"How is the party coming along?" he asks, taking off his helmet. His scar gives him a spark of crazed beauty that would have frightened the most treacherous of monsters.

"Someone just tried to kill me in there" I inform him, but why would he be here if he didn't already know that?

"Really?" he fakes surprise, annoying me further.

"What are you doing here?" Instead of answering, however, he does what he does best. He answers with another question.

"Would you like to join me for dinner?" I really want to punch him in the face.

"Did you know that man?" Still standing in the middle of the road I burn with fury because I know this is all his fault.

"What man, beautiful?" Valentino's eyes twinkle with delight. He is toying with me and we both know it. His smile isn't the same as it was the last time he offered me dinner. There is no gentleness, it is a ruthless smile, with a devilish twinkle, and a hunger for something more than food.

"Men like you shouldn't smile, it's frightening. Anyway, I know that you know, so don't lie"

"If you get on my motorcycle, I'll tell you what you want to know" He extended his hand to me but I don't take it.

"Promise?" I take a cautious step forward, careful not to get too close to the lion.

"Do you promise not to knife me at dinner?" Although his tone is mirthful, it holds some truth. Unconsciously, I giggle. When did I stop thinking of knives as simple cutlery? When did I start finding my ability to slice people's throats, a skill to be proud of? I am willing to do anything to survive, but more than that, anything to get what I want.

"I wouldn't be able to even if I wanted to" I take another step forward and I am almost in his arms.

"I think you'd be surprised at what I'd allow you to do to me." Something in my stomach flips at his words and I blush. If only he know how much I wanted him. I look into his eyes, and see the depth and the allure a girl like me would give anything to possess. But there is more, they are angry, and broken by a lifetime of loneliness and loss. My body seems to have a mind of its own tonight because I take his hand and squeeze it.

"You better be telling the truth about going to dinner. I'm starving" I smile feeling oddly feminine as I slid on the back of his motorcycle.

Instead of starting the bike right away he takes his time, moving his hands behind him, onto my thighs and down to my knees. Giving them a hard squeeze he pulls them closer to him, allowing me to press myself against his back. Valentino finds my hands, which had been carefully placed as far away from his body as possible, and guides them around his hard stomach. Once I am completely pressed against every fiber of his body he speeds off into the darkness, leaving me once again, without answers.

Oh, boy. I am in trouble.