“Sean, get off me, you dickhead!” I squirmed under him but it was of no use. He had me pinned. His thighs trapped my hips into place as his laboured breaths blew down on me. I stopped myself from fidgeting as I became very aware of how intimately we were pressed up against one another.
Sean grinned down at me. “Dickhead?”
“Get off,” I bit out.
“Say you’re sorry.”
My mouth gaped open. Never! I told him just as much with my silence and a mega-death stare.
Sean leaned closer. “Amy. Say. You’re. Sorry!”
I yanked my head to the side, refusing to look at him, breaking away from his face that hovered above mine.
“Fine! You asked for it.”
Sean mercifully lifted his weight off me, but it was a short-lived relief as he yanked me to my feet by my wrists.
Grabbing onto my upper arm, he marched me back down the embankment, my feet skidding in resistance. My other thong slipped off my foot and lay abandoned behind us. Before I could let out another protest …
“Leave it!” Sean said. “You won’t need them where you’re headed.” He dragged me along in a fast stride, my feet barely keeping up as I padded along the grass barefoot.
“Where are you taking me?” I demanded.
But before he could answer, I became all too aware of where we were headed.
“Sean, no!” I pulled away, using all my strength and putting all my weight on the heels of my feet, digging into the sand. My heart raced as I breathed heavily, my breath laboured in fear. An all-consuming terror overcame me as he pulled me closer to the water.
“Sean, please stop!” I begged.
A group of teenage boys sat on the edge of a fence, laughing at the hilarious act of revenge. Sean marched towards the jetty. I was screaming now, pleading in mumbled forgiveness.
“I’m sorry, okay? I said I was sorry!”
“I’m afraid it’s too late for that,” he said as he pulled me along, my feed padding along the wooden boards of the jetty.
Sean whipped me around, smirking down at me as if this would be my very last time on dry ground before I went over the edge.
“Any last requests?”
By now I was shaking like a leaf, my eyes wide and watery with fear. It was no use voicing anything; I couldn’t have if I’d tried. My throat stung from screaming. I was that girl on roller blades being flung about all over again, except this time my fear was absolute. I shifted miserably from one foot to the next, the hot ground stinging my feet. My eyes bore into his good-humoured ones.
“Ready?” he said.
Before I could burst into tears, Sean threw me up over his shoulder and I closed my eyes. But as Sean started to walk my eyes flew open again. The world was awkwardly upside down but he wasn’t walking towards the jetty or the water. He was carrying me away from it, back towards the car park. Perhaps it was the blood rushing to my head or the new confusion of our direction and …
Did he just slap my butt?
I didn’t allow myself to breathe a sigh of relief – first off, because I didn’t trust a thing Sean Murphy did and secondly, because my stomach was constricted by being carried over Sean’s shoulder. Carried like I weighed nothing more than a feather. I heard the distant cat-calls and wolf whistles from the teenage boys as Sean carried me like a caveman.
We finally came to a stop by his car and Sean set me back on the ground. I pushed away from him and leaned against the passenger door, fighting to reel my emotions in.
I was seething, breathing heavily, my hair in disarray as I fought to stop the tears from spilling over.
He raised his eyebrows at me in surprise. “At the risk of being barred for life from the Onslow, I would never have gone through with it.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a real fucking gentleman.” I pushed him out of my way to walk past him. I didn’t make it two steps before he had snaked his hand around my arm and pulled me back.
“Yeah, well, you’re no lady with a mouth like that.”
My eyes flicked down to where his hand held my arm. “Let. Me. Go.” I was getting really tired of Sean flinging me around like a rag doll.
“No, not until I say I’m sorry.”
I started to demand again that he let go when … Wait, what?
“Unlike you, Amy Henderson, I’m not too pig-headed or proud to say I’m sorry.”
“Is that your version of an apology, is it?”
He studied the lines of my face, lines that were no doubt still etched with dread; I couldn’t help it. The thought of being plunged into the water was so debilitating I could feel my hands trembling in a mixture of anger and fear.
Sean gently released my arm and leaned one arm on the passenger car door beside me. It was almost as though I could hear the cogs of speculation turning in his head.