The one who sinks onto the bed next to my head, making the mattress dip with his weight. My fingers brush histhigh.
“Annie. Drink the damn water.” There’s a note of worry in his impatience. “You can hate me againafter.”
I sit up and drink, studying him over the rim of the cup as he studiesme.
We’re closer than we’ve been in months, except for maybe the other day at my car when he moved down mybody.
But now he’s searching my face—not for emotions, but for marks, for trauma, for signs of something that shouldn’t bethere.
“You won’t find anything,” I murmur when I finish the water. His dark gaze comes back to mine. “Anything worth finding isunderneath.”
But he takes my chin gently in his hands, turning my head and brushing back myhair.
His fingers graze my cheek, and I flinch at thesting.
“He scratched you.” Tyler utters the words as if they’re vile, and I twist out of hisgrasp.
“I fell into a rose bush. It bit harder thanKellan.”
I reach past him to set the cup on the nightstand, but he takes it from me before Ican.
“It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would,” I informhim.
“Whatdoesn’t?”
I drop back onto the bed, my eyes closing before I hit the duvet. “Hatingyou.”
4
When I wake,my head’s on a pillow, and it smells likehome.
No. Home is a fabric softener brand. This pillow smells like sunshine andcedar.
Likehim.
Blinking my eyes open reveals I’m in a strangebed.
And I’m notalone.
Tyler Adams is stretched out across the sheets as if he owns them. He’s as beautiful asleep as he is awake. Maybe moreso.
His firm mouth looks more forgiving with his lips parted in sleep. His eyelashes are black and so long I want to trace them with a finger. Thick, dark hair falls across his forehead, shielding him from theworld.
I wonder what boys who have everything dreamof.
The sheet is twisted around his legs, and his chest is bare. I drink in the cut lines of hisbody.
What the hell am I doing here? Did I crawl into bed with him? Didwe...?
Please, God, tell me I didn’t sleep withhim.
Not that I haven’t imagined having Tyler Adams pop my cherry—back before he revealed himself as an ass who cares more about popularity thanme.
But, hello, that’s why we have dreams and the privacy of our own heads—so we can fantasize about stupid shit we’d never admit to ourselves in the light ofday.
He groans, stirring. When his lashes flutter, my heart leaps into mythroat.
Shit, shit,shit.