I jerk my eyes up to his face and find his mouth curved into a gentle, sideways smile. His eyes seem to twinkle. Is that a smug look? Happy? His smile widens and I realize that it’s both. He’s pleased with himself, and he looks also pleased with me. I had you, and I liked you. Yeah, you. That’s what his face says.
My leggings are draped around one of his forearms; there’s a tissue in his hand. He steps to me. I tell myself to look down at my feet, but my eyes look to his eyes. Low-lidded. He looks satiated. His hand, clutching the tissue, raises.
“I would have cleaned you up.” He trails the tissue along my chin, the motion soft and teasing. And he smirks. It’s... intimate, that smirk. As if he knows me.
“I’ll take care of you while you’re with me. You’ll like it,” he says. He drops a light kiss on my forehead, and I take a step back.
“When I’m with you, my ass.” I hold my hands out, as if his tissue will hurt me. “I’m not going with you! I’m not going to your house. I can’t do this. This.” I wave wildly at the room, then snatch my leggings from his arm. “I’m not a crazy person, Kellan Walsh, you make me feel crazy!”
When my eyes return to his face, I’m surprised to find he looks thoughtful—almost relaxed; the bastard. “You’re a person who likes pleasure,” he says, reaching for my shoulder. I step back, though it doesn’t get his eyes off mine. “What’s so crazy about that?”
I blink at him, because it’s too hard to explain. “I know guys like you,” I stammer. Guys like Kellan Walsh are bad for girls like me. It’s a cliché, even. “Doing this in here—” having wild sex in the library—“it’s not my thing. I’m not that kind of girl. I know you’ve been with tons of them. You’ve got the wrong girl, Kellan.”
He chuckles, tilting his head a little to one side. He folds his arms. “Oh, Cleo. You have no idea what kind of girl I like. You are my kind of girl. And you know what I think?” His sea blue eyes look through me. “I think you’re surprised how much you liked what we just did.”
It’s true. There is nothing I can say to deny that, and I’m too strung out to lie. I shake my head. “I told you, I don’t like surprises.”
“I thought surprises were okay as long as they’re good,” he says. His face is hung between emotions, totally unreadable to me. So I’m honest. I tur
n slightly away and yank my leggings on as I say, “Maybe they aren’t. Maybe they’re never okay.”
I turn back around to face him just as his face tightens, unreadable to gravely serious. “Someone hurt you,” he says, low. “Tell me who. Did you lose someone, Cleo?”
“What are you talking about?” My voice rises, then cracks.
He blinks, and stares right through me. Right down to my bones. “It was a surprise, wasn’t it? Was it your dad?”
My throat knots as my pulse goes haywire. “How... do you know that?”
“The poem in the painting.” His eyes blink again. “That Plath poem. A Post It note from ‘Mom’ was in your textbook, so I know she’s still around.” His gaze pulls at mine as his lips fold down, apologetic now, remorseful. “It was just a guess.”
Uncanny. I push the thought away and focus on his chest. His stupid, gorgeous chest. “I don’t like you guessing.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like you.”
He steps closer to me, moving cautiously, as if he knows I’m a flight risk. “I don’t think that’s true.” He wraps an arm around my back and spreads his hand over my shoulder blade. He brings me gently against him, so my breasts press against his warm, hard abs, and then—before I can move away—he smooths his thumb along my jaw, tipping my head up. His mouth finds mine. He kisses me so gently I drift toward the ceiling. I grab onto him, his elbow, and pull away panting.
His thumb brushes my lips. “Three weeks, Cleo.” His eyes burn. “Three weeks you’re mine. We’ll start tomorrow.”
I whirl away from him and push through the door, spin back around to grab my bag. He stands there, fastening his pants, although his eyes are stuck to mine. My mouth flails as I throw my bag over my shoulder; tell him “no” again. But I can’t breathe. I’ve got no moves, no words—but I can feel his eyes on my back as I flee.
I jog the whole way to the Tri Gam house, pulling all my leg muscles and making my chest over-tight. When I reach the top of the stairs, I find Milasy holding the brick.
THE BREEZINESS OF THE afternoon is gone. The night is heavy and still. It’s neither cold nor hot, but tension warms me as I stand on the balcony outside the windowed room, watching the treetops as they sway.
All I can think about is Cleo.
Tomorrow, I will bring her here.
It hasn’t been like this before. Not the urgency. Everything is different now. I am different now.
Cleo is a relapse. Bringing Cleo here is letting go. No more logic. No more restraint. Finished. The word swells to fill my head. I let it have me—giving myself over as I shut my eyes and touch the cement railing.
Moments later, the phone rings. I pull it from my pocket and blink at the name I knew would flash across my screen: PACE.
I never answer on the first ring, even though I always know when he’ll be calling. I want Pace to feel that I am difficult to contact—always one ring out of reach. It’s important: the control. Not just because I enjoy control, but because Pace is so closely aligned with Robert.