Not even for Elle.
It takes effort to fight my own body’s natural inclination and clear the thick emotion from my throat.
“I’m sorry, Elle. I don’t feel the same way.” The lie tastes bitter on my tongue. It’s difficult to force it out. “You’ve always been like a sister to me.”
It takes effort to steel myself so she doesn’t see through the fib, down to the truth buried beneath it. I don’t know what I’d do if she figured me out.
Her eyes widen. “But...you kissed me, and I could feel your erection.” The husky words are barely more than a forced out croak as her gaze drops to my groin. “Even now you have an erection.”
I don’t have to glance down to know she’s telling the truth.
I feel it.
I’m ridiculously hard.
Impossibly hard.
Painfully hard.
Any moment, I’m going to explode—and it’s all because of the dark-haired beauty who is telling me exactly what I’ve always dreamed of hearing. Before I can manufacture another lie, she reaches out. A hiss escapes from me when her fingers settle over my rigid length. It takes everything I have inside to knock them away instead of pulling her close.
“I’m a twenty-two-year-old dude,” I grunt. “I’m always hard. Don’t take it personally.”
She sucks in a sharp breath as her expression turns slack. “But I thought...”
I shake my head before forcing out a gruff response. “Sorry, you’re wrong.”
“Oh god...”
As much as I want to reach out and comfort her, I don’t. Instead, I ball my hands at my sides to keep from doing exactly that.
“I feel like such an idiot.” Misery laces her words and fills her expression.
It’s painful to observe.
A gurgle of despair escapes from her before she pushes past me and flies toward the exit, yanking on the knob and escaping from the room. The door slams against the wall and reverberates on its hinges. The urge to rush after her pulses through my veins, prompting me into action. I take a quick step toward the door before grinding to a halt. As much as I want to chase her down and tell her the truth, I can’t.
Dragging her away from the party was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened. I lost control and because of that, she’s hurt. I need to get it through my thick head that Elle Kendricks will never belong to me. No matter how much I want her.
I plow a hand through my hair in frustration and force myself to stay in the room. It takes a couple of minutes to wrestle all of my ferocious emotions back under control. One sweep of my tongue across my lower lip and the taste of her sweetness comes flooding back. I push out of the room and stalk down the darkened hallway, scanning the costumed crowd as I go. In the fifteen minutes or so that I was gone, the number of students crammed into this house has exploded. Everywhere I look, there are people making out, laughing, drinking, and dancing as if this is their farewell bash.
I should get the hell out of here before I can fuck up this night any more than I already have. But I can’t do that. I need to make sure Elle is safe. That she found her way back to her friends or—at the very least—Brayden. I force my way through the mob, searching each face as I go. There are a ton of girls dressed as Harley Quinn, but none are Elle. I scour the first floor of the house.
Twice.
And still manage to come up empty handed.
By the time I run into my teammates, there’s a pit the size of Texas sitting at the bottom of my gut, and I have the feeling I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life.
Chapter Seven
Elle
Embarrassment scorches my cheeks as I shove my way through the mass of writhing bodies crammed together on the first floor. Even though my costume is flimsy, I’m burning up inside. Any moment I’m going to spontaneously combust. Then again, maybe that would be for the best.
I have no idea how I’ll ever look Carson in the eyes again. It’s not like he’s some random guy at a party I can pretend doesn’t exist. This is Brayden’s best friend we’re talking about. The very same one my mother considers more like a second son. He turns up for holiday dinners and birthdays. I can’t stop by my brother’s rented house off campus without running into him. In the past, that’s usually been a good thing. I’m always secretly hoping to catch sight of him.
That’s no longer the case.
A groan escapes from me.
I can’t even fool myself into believing this isn’t anything other than a disaster. Not only did I blurt out that I’ve been saving myself for him, but then I groped the guy. My fingers tingle as I recall how his thick length felt beneath my hand. This isn’t an incident you live down. It’s the kind that forces you to change your name and address and relocate in hopes of starting your life over.