Prologue
Kinsley
The jersey is heavy.
Not just in the literal sense, though the thick, professional-grade material weighs on my shoulders like a suit of armor I never asked to wear. It’s heavy, the name stitched across the back in bold hunter-green letters:MONROE.
A name that echoes through the halls of this university, a name whispered with reverence by girls who dream of being chosen. A name I have grown to hate.
And now, it’s on me.
His bedroom is cold, minimalist and obsessively clean, smelling of mint and something wild that is purely him. It’s the complete opposite of the chaos churning inside my chest. My own clothes, a simple dress, is a ruined, sodden heap on his polished floor; the casualty of a party, a crowd, and a perfectly aimed drink.
An accident he’d said, but nothing with West Monroe ever feels like an accident.
He stands by the door, arms crossed over a chest so broad it seems to suck all the air from the room. He hasn’t touched me since I walked in here, but I feel his presence like a brand on my skin. He just watches, his gaze intense and proprietary, the way a dragon might watch over a piece of gold it has just stolen.
“Better,” he says, his voice a low rumble that vibrates straight through me.
The jersey swallows me up. The sleeves hang past my fingertips, and the hem falls to my mid-thigh, a mockery of a dress. It smells of him; of ice, expensive soap, and the faint, animal musk of sweat. It’s intimate. Overwhelming. I feel like I’m suffocating in his very essence.
This is what he wanted. Not to help me, but to possess me. To erase me and replace me with his name.
I should be screaming, I should be fighting. The girl I was weeks ago would have thrown this jersey in his face and walked out into the cold in her ruined clothes without a second thought.
But that girl is gone.
She died the night I kissed him, a stupid dare that sealed my fate. She withered with every text message he sent that I pretended to ignore; she vanished completely the first time I saw the raw, violent jealousy in his eyes when another guy spoke to me.
He doesn’t care that I hate him; he doesn’t care that I told him no. He sees my defiance as a challenge, my fear as foreplay.
A slow, predatory smile curves his lips, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. They remain fixed on me, dark and knowing. He sees the tremor in my hands, the frantic pulse beating in my throat. He sees the war I’m losing with myself.
And he loves it.
“There,” he says, taking a step closer. The word is a final, damning verdict. “Now you look like you’re mine.”
I finally understand. West Monroe doesn’t want my heart. He wants to excavate it, to hollow it out and build a throne inside the empty space. He doesn’t want my love; he wants my surrender.
Standing here, swallowed up by his name, I realize with a terrifying certainty that he is going to get it. He was never asking. He was just taking.
One
Kinsley
“Ihate jocks.”
The words are a bitter poison on my tongue, spat under my breath. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to force the intricate pathways of the human circulatory system from my textbook to imprint on my brain. It’s a useless effort. The booming, obnoxious laughter from the other side of the library’s third floor could shatter glass, let alone my concentration.
I crack open an eye and glare over the top of myAnatomy & Physiologytextbook. Of course. A pack of Northern Tennessee University baseball players, their green and silver letterman jackets practically screaming their own importance. They aren’t studying. They’re holding court, taking up a six-person table with their sprawling limbs and echoing voices in a space meant for silence. They move through the world with the unshakable certainty that it was built for them, and the rest of us are just guests.
It’s the same swagger my brother Kane has, the same entitlement. The same way their eyes scan over any passing girl as if they’re browsing a menu. It’s a performance I’ve had a front-row seat to my entire life, and it makes my stomach turn.
“Hate is a strong word,” a cheerful voice says beside me.
My best friend, Chloe, drops her tote bag onto the table with a thud. She’s been my go-to partner in crime on campus ever since my childhood best friend, Blair, left last year. It wasn’t a dramatic exit; she just fell in love with my brother and followed him to his new NFL team.
“It’s the appropriate word,” I grumble, sinking lower behind my book. “They’re a plague on this campus. A virus of arrogance and cheap beer.”
