“What happened?” She’s searching my face, her brows knitting together.
“I’m all right. Just tired.” She’s so damn close, our legs are touching, and my body is reacting so fast my breath catches. “Tess…”
I lift my hand and brush my knuckles over her smooth cheek. Her skin is like warm satin, so unbelievably soft. A redness on her jaw catches my eye. A bruise?
Before I know it, I cup her face in both my hands and lean in. I cover her mouth with mine, tasting her at last, and a groan rises in my throat.
Oh God, how have I lived without this for so long? I part her lips with my tongue and thrust it into her mouth. She tastes sweet and fresh, like cool water, and my thirst is still raging—a different kind of thirst that goes deep.
Desire hits me like a sledgehammer. I lick her mouth, and a moan vibrates through her. I feel it all the way to my bones. I feel it in my balls and in my aching cock.
Hell, I want her so bad I can’t breathe. I twist and press her back against the cushions, kissing her like she’s oxygen, and I’m suffocating without her. She arches her back, and I drop my hands to her coat, unbuttoning it and pushing the heavy material off her shoulders.
Underneath, she’s wearing a shimmery red dress with a plunging neckline that reveals the mounds of her breasts and a hint of red lace.
Fuck. My dick goes diamond hard in two seconds flat, enthusiastically pressing against my fly, sensing action ahead.
She tastes of sugared almonds and I can’t stop kissing her. My hands move to her neck, drift down to cup her breasts, and dimly I wonder if I’m about to come like that, just from my tongue in her mouth and my hands on her tits—when she pushes on my chest and tears her mouth away.
Pulling her hand back, she slaps me. “Get out.”
Whoa. The light sting on my cheek helps me focus my gaze. She looks furious, and like she’s desperately trying to hold back tears.
What have I done? “Tess…”
“Get out! Out of my apartment.” Her voice shakes, and her eyes are too bright. “I’m done with this. Is this all a damn game to you?”
“It’s not a game,” I say, but she doesn’t let me go on, pushing on me again. Not sure what I would’ve said anyway, because I don’t know what this is.
“You don’t love me, do you?” Her eyes harden. “You never have.”
I open my mouth to deny this, to tell her the truth, but what the hell am I doing? I shake my head.
“And I don’t love you, either,” she says, her voice broken. “So just go.”
Of course she doesn’t love me. I know this. It shouldn’t feel like a kick to the gut. That’s what I want. For her not to love me. For me not to love her.
For time to stop.
“Be careful out there,” I mutter, get up and turn to go. Somehow that’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done.
Chapter Five
Tessa
I’m leaving. Leaving Madison. Leaving everything behind, like my sister did.
Grabbing random clothes from my closet, I pile them into the open suitcase sitting on my bed. Underwear, socks, shoes, sweaters.
How do you move away from the only life you’ve ever known? Is there a trick? Is there a manual?
I sink on the mattress, next to my suitcase, and bury my face in my hands. My jaw throbs where Sean hit me, and my foot is sore. I reach down and stroke the Band-Aid Dylan put over the small wound. I can still taste him on my lips, smell his dark spicy scent.
Dylan. Why tonight, of all nights? Why, after all these years? Why did he kiss me and say such contradictory and confusing things? He doesn’t love me. And yet he acted like he cares about me. Protecting me. Driving me home. Patching me up. Kissing me.
Kissing me for the first time in years.
I lift my fingers to my mouth. It still tingles from the touch of his lips, and the memory of it—sweet, then hard, his tongue stroking mine, his lip ring scraping on my mouth, his hands on my body—makes my breath hitch and starts a throb low in my belly.
I shouldn’t have noticed that he’s more handsome than ever before. Like a promise fulfilled, the boy he was grew tall and strong, his shoulders miles wide, and his jaw so square you can cut wood with it. Those eyes… such a vibrant blue.
Then I remember how he stumbled and fell on the sofa, his face going white. Tired, he said. And all my worry for him, the concern that’s been eating at me for months and years, sharpens, cutting deep.
How can I be both worried for him and angry at him? How can I be so damn sad that I’ll be leaving him behind, when I’ve never really had him? When I finally made up my mind to put him far behind me and not look back?
I glance at my cell, lying on the floor among piles of clothes. I want to call my sister, talk to her, know if she was also tossed into our parents’ deals at some point, like a bonus. If that’s why she left.