I touch him.
I touch the furious lines of his features, rub my thumbs over his arched cheekbones and the hollows of his face. I even touch him with my body, crash my softness against his harsh surfaces, his hard and heated muscles.
He shudders and I can’t stop the undeniable relief that floods through my veins at getting to touch him when I thought that I never would.
Going up on my tiptoes, I tell him, “It’s okay, Reed. I swear I was fine. I swear —”
“Was she though?” he asks, cutting me off. “Was she all red and puffy?”
That throb in my core grows and becomes a current, strong and thrumming. “A little. But —”
“Was she swollen too? All bruised up.”
“Reed —”
“Was she?”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
I press my hand on his face even harder, press my body into his as I answer, “A couple of days. I couldn’t…”
“You couldn’t what?”
“I couldn’t sit in class,” I whisper.
His nostrils flare and his jaw jerks under my palm. “You couldn’t —”
“But it was fine. I promise. I went to the nurse and I got medication.”
“You got medication.”
I nod. “For the pain, and so it was fine.”
I did.
I kept throbbing between my legs so I went to the nurse and told them I had a headache. Which wasn’t that far from the truth anyway. Every part of my body was hurting back then.
I didn’t mind the soreness between my legs though.
During all those miserable days, that soreness was the one thing I didn’t wish away. And now that it’s gone, I wish it back.
I want it to come back, that fullness, that delicious stretch, that hurt, so he can make it better. Because for all my hate and anger at him, I can’t see him like this.
I can’t see him regret our night, what we did, what I wanted to happen.
“I took care of myself, see?” I continue, looking into his eyes, reassuring him. “I told you. You don’t have to protect me all the time. It’s not your job.”
Anger ripples through his features then.
As if like ‘save,’ the word ‘protect’ is his trigger as well. As if he hates that he doesn’t get to do that for me.
“Not my job,” he pushes out before glancing down.
At my belly, and I suck in a breath.
I pull my hands away from him. I pull myself away and go back down on the floor.
He lifts his eyes and I have to press my spine against the dresser again. Because that possessive light is back. It’s dark and bright and hot and it makes flutters move inside my belly.
It makes me think that he knows.
He knows.
“For the last three weeks, I’ve been trying to track you down,” he says, his gaze coming back up. “I’ve been waiting by the side of the road. I even went to your fucking fence, wanting to scale it. I’ve been going to your favorite places. To your pink cupcake shop, and I talked to the most boring people I’ve ever met in my entire life. Just so I can ask them about you. Because —”
And then I have to ask him, how can I not, “What boring people?”
“I don’t know. Some waitress.”
“Teresa,” I breathe out.
“What?”
“Her name is Teresa. The waitress you were talking to.”
His eyes narrow. “How the fuck do you know?”
“Because I was there,” I confess, lowering my eyes. “I saw you. I thought you’d moved on or something. And when I saw you with her, I —”
“You ran.”
I look up at him through my lashes, at the anger in his expression, and nod. “And I know about the fence too. I-I was there last night. I hid behind a tree.” He grinds his jaw as I go on. “I didn’t want to see you. After… you know.”
His jaw tics for a few seconds. “Yeah, I do know. Good thing though I found you here. Because I’m done fucking around. I’m done being played with. Because if I hadn’t found you here, this time when I went to your fence, I was about to climb up. I was about to hunt down your dorm room. And make no mistake, I would’ve found you. I would’ve woken up your whole fucking school to find you. I would’ve broken into your dorm and carried you out of there on my shoulders, you understand? Because I’m running out of patience now and we’ve got things to talk about.”
I know.
I know.
I know we do.
But he has to understand that I don’t know how. I don’t know how to tell him that…
I take a few fearful breaths as my stomach churns. Bile rises up my throat but I somehow manage to whisper a lone word. “I’m…”
Before I trail off.
Before I have to swallow and breathe out.
I can’t say it. I can’t. I can’t.
I…
And he breathes out too.
As he studies my face, as he probably studies the fear on my features.