My voice is so low I worry he won’t be able to hear me. “Why are you here?”
“Sebastian.”
So, I was right. He did invite him.
“You missed the ball dropping,” is what I choose to say instead of everything else I could pick from.
“Got held up.”
I try to imagine what that means. I consider the very real possibility of him being with another female, but that can’t be. He doesn’t even want mearound, so how could he possibly want someone else?
I push it away.
“Why were you hiding in here?” he asks.
“Would you have preferred I hide somewhere Sebastian or anyone else could have found me?”
“No.Have you been in here the whole time?”
Call me a love-crazed girl, but I secretly love that he asks if my lips have touched anyone else’s. It shows he still cares. My heart runs with that knowledge, despite my memories reminding me of the secrets he kept from me.
I nod even though he can’t see, then give him the honest truth. “I’ve hid in this closet every round. Pathetic, right?”
“Not quite the word I would use to describe you.”
My admission is a featherlight breeze across my lips. “I miss you.”
He squeezes my thigh just above my knee. My heart mimics it, clenching painfully. I can’t tell if it’s in reassurance or because he’s hurting, too. All of this is asinine. That we’ve repeatedly pushed each other away. That we can’t step out of our own way to be happy.
Desperation clings to me. All at once, I’m needy to keep him close. To keep him here with me. I’m not sure if it’s smart to do what I do next—actually, that’s a lie. It’s dumb, but I’m tired of tiptoeing around him, worried each move I make will send him farther away.
I carefully push his hand off me, feel for his shoulder, then swing my leg over his lap until I’m straddling him. My skirt pushes up my legs from the motion. His hands find me effortlessly, magnetizing to my hips. He tugs me closer. I can’thelp but notice the electricity zipping through my body at our connection, at the friction of us touching.
“I’m still me, Violet,” he murmurs, digging his fingertips into me and pulling me away from my admission. “I fucked up, and I’m doing shit that you hate. I don’t blame you for being pissed at me. And you sure as shit shouldn’t be crawling into my lap, but I promise that underneath it all I’m still the same person you got to know.”
The darkness requires us to forgo our sense of sight, which only enhances our touch. It’s all I can focus on as his fingers pinch into my waist. It’s encouraging,waytoo encouraging, and has me wanting to grind against him with a simple arch of my back as I ignore his reminders. I don’t but just thinking about it fills my stomach with undeniable arousal.
My hands skim up his shirt until they reach his neckline, the skin there so soft and smooth. My thumb traces up the center of his throat, curving over his Adam’s apple until I feel the scratchiness of his stubble. I go up, up, up until my fingers curve around his chin. Another centimeter or so and it’ll be his delicious lips against my fingertips. AndGod, I want to feel them. Not just on the pad of my fingers but everywhere.
My thumb moves until it stops over what feels like a cut. My brows push down in confusion and concern.The Battleground.I gently run along the rough skin and when he winces, I pull away.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
His hand finds my wrist so easily it’s like he has night vision. He presses my hand back to his neck. He wants this as much as me, and I could fucking cry, because this is so much better than him breaking up with me and constantly pushing me away. “You’re more than fine, Vi.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” is what he replies, but it’s a lie. When he showed up at my apartment busted up, he was so nonchalant over notbeing able to tell me. Like what happened was nothing, but if that were the case, he wouldn’t have been injured at all.
I don’t want to go through that same thing again.
“It’s not nothing. You’re hurt.”
His hand falls back to my waist. I love the weight of it there. “It’s expected when you get into fights with guys bigger than you.”
I try to say something, but nothing comes out. I hate the way my stomach sinks into a blackhole, wiping away the butterflies that were there a minute ago. “Why are you torturing yourself?”
“I told you…it’s helping me deal. My life is a clusterfuck. Mom dying. Finding out she was married to my dad all these years and never told me. On top of that, Aunt Bess knew and paid him off to stay away. And then there’s the fact that I have a half brother all these years. A brother, Violet. I had family out there and didn’t even know it. Tell me how I’m supposed to react to all that without losing it.”
