Where’s the Miss H I remember? The one who’d fight me off in those woods until exhaustion claimed her?
I guess that’s it. She’s got nothing left to give.
We took it all from her last night.
Her resistance.
Her vibrancy.
Her light.
She’s just a fragile, empty thing now. Easily shattered.
I rub my thumb over her puffy lower lip.
Fuck, how badly I want to kiss her. But what if she pushes me away?
This is how I felt all those times I had her in the frame of my phone camera. Wanting to make my presence known so I could join her in her car, at the diner, on her way to one of her classes.
But always too scared she’d reject me to take action.
Kind of sums up the entire downfall of our relationship all those years back.
“Let’s go while he’s still asleep,” I say, speaking right into her ear.
She flinches, tries to shake her head. “You want to leave?”
I twist her head to the side, forcing her to look at me. It’s like staring into the eyes of a dead thing.
“You want to stay here? With him?” I rasp, swallowing, hoping that will clear the fucking lump in my throat.
“I…I want to understand what happened last night,” she mumbles, a tiny frown between her eyebrows.
“What happened?” I scoff. “Jesus, Haven. It’s not rocket science. We were both fucked out of our minds on molly, and he…” I drag my fingers through my damp hair. “He took advantage.”
“I don’t think he did.” She stares at me for a beat, her eyelashes fluttering every time a drop of rain strikes near her eyelids. “I think…I think I liked it.”
I frown at her. “That’s because of the molly.”
Her gaze cuts back to Rooke’s house, and she shivers. From the rain, or from a memory? “I need to speak to him. I need to understand...” The last is barely audible over the rain slamming onto the cobblestones.
There’s a flicker in her eyes that, despite the complete lack of emotion on her face, makes me think she’s telling me the truth.
Who’d have thought? All it took to get her to stop lying was some rough fucking.
…it’s supposed to hurt the first time…
“Someone could have been torturing you, and you’d have enjoyed it. Now come on, let’s get the fuck out of here before he wakes up.”
The corner of her mouth crooks as if she wants to smile, but then flattens a second later as if she doesn’t have the energy.
“You think I’d go anywhere with you?” There’s a taunting edge to her voice that’s so fucking familiar, my arm hairs stand on end. “You really think I’d trust you?”
“Think I trustyou?” I snap back.
I barely, so fucking barely, hold back a ‘slut’. Many moments from last night still burn bright in my mind. Rooke so smugly explaining that Haven was a virgin is one of them.
He could be lying. Don’t know what the fuck it would gain him, but if anyone has a hidden agenda, it’s Rooke.
