I stared at the screen. The words sat there, each one a carefully placed knife.
My stomach dropped. That voice of doubt that had been whispering all night suddenly started screaming.
See? Even she knows you’re not good enough. You wasted your time. You embarrassed yourself. Everyone here is celebrating you for nothing.
I shoved the phone back in my pocket and grabbed my drink, taking a long pull to buy myself time.
“Em?” Cam’s voice was quiet, concerned. His hand tightened on mine. “What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t look at him. If I looked at him, I’d shatter. And I couldn’t shatter here, under the neon lights, in front of everyone who thought I was a success story.
“I need to go,” I whispered, the words scraping my throat.
Cam didn’t ask. He didn’t hesitate. He stood up, pulling me with him, and addressed the table. “Hey guys, sorry to cut it short, but Em’s crashing. Adrenaline drop.”
“Oh, no!” Mia started, but I was already turning away.
“Love you guys, sorry, bye!” I chirped, the fake cheerfulness sounding brittle even to my own ears. I practically sprinted for the door, needing the dark, needing the air, needing to outrun the text message burning a hole in my pocket.
The drive to Cam’s house was a blur of passing streetlights and suffocating silence. He tried to speak once, but I shut him down with a sharp shake of my head. I was holding myself together by a single, fraying thread.
The second the front door clicked shut behind us, that thread snapped.
I turned on him, kissing him hard, all teeth and desperation. My hands were already tearing at his shirt, needing to feel something, anything, other than the crushing doubt that was consuming me.
“Emily, wait.” He caught my face in his hands, pulling back. His eyes were dark, searching. “You don’t have to?—”
“Don’t.” I shoved at his chest, backing him toward the stairs. “I don’t want to talk. I just need…”
He read the frantic need in my eyes. The way I was trying to crawl out of my own skin.
“Okay,” he roughed out.
He didn’t make it soft. He swept me up, my legs wrapping around his waist, and carried me up the stairs with a purpose that made my brain finally, blessedly, go quiet.
We barely made it to his bedroom. I was already unbuttoning my jeans, kicking off my shoes. He watched me with dark eyes, his chest rising and falling fast.
Then his hands were everywhere, rough and demanding. My back hit the mattress and he followed me down, his weight pressing me into the bed.
“Tell me what you need,” he said against my mouth.
“This.” I arched into him. “Just this.”
He stripped off the rest of my clothes and his own in quick, efficient movements. Then he was kissing me again, his hands pinning my wrists above my head while his body covered mine completely.
The first thrust made me gasp.
Hard. Deep. Unrelenting. And so fucking perfect.
I lost myself in it. In the feeling of him pounding into me, the stretch and burn and fullness that pushed out every other thought. His grip on my wrists was firm, grounding, keeping me present when I wanted to disappear into my head.
“Look at me,” he commanded, and I opened my eyes without thinking.
His gaze was intense, focused entirely on me like he was trying to read every thought I wasn’t saying out loud. Like he could see straight through to the broken parts I was trying to outrun.
He shoved into me again, over and over.
I came hard, the orgasm ripping through me with an intensity that felt like breaking open. He followed right after, his forehead pressed to mine, our breathing ragged in the quiet room.
