And I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with that.
Chapter Seven
DREW
I layawake on the oversized couch long after the rain stopped.
The fire had burned low, nothing but embers now, casting a soft orange glow across the living room. I hadn’t moved us upstairs. She’d been too heavy with it all—the crying, the exhaustion, the way her body finally gave out on her—and I hadn’t been willing to let go of her long enough to carry her to my bed.
So we stayed right here. Her in one of my old Stanford shirts, curled on her side. Me wrapped around her from behind like I could keep the whole damn world off her if I just held on tight enough.
Her hair was spilled across the arm in dark, messy waves. I’d cleaned her up after warm cloth between her legs, another across the mess I’d left on her. Every time I remembered it, something dark and satisfied twisted low in my gut.
She was out cold now. The kind of sleep that only comes after you’ve cried so hard your body taps out. Her breathing was slow and even against my arm. One hand tucked under her cheek.The other resting on top of mine where it was banded across her waist.
I should’ve been asleep too.
Instead I was wide awake, staring at the back of her neck, breathing her in. Rain and my detergent and that sweet, addictive scent of her skin that had been fucking with my head for months.
My cock was half-hard again just from having her this close. From remembering how she’d sounded when she came on my tongue. From the way she’d moaned in Spanish like she couldn’t stop herself. From the way she’d looked up at me, wrecked and wanting, right before I pulled back and finished all over her stomach instead of inside her where I really wanted to be.
Making out and getting each other off hadn’t fixed a damn thing.
If anything, it made everything worse.
Because now I knew what she tasted like. Now I knew the exact sound she made when she came. Now I knew she kissed like she was starving and still somehow managed to taste like heartbreak the whole time.
And she was still in love with Tristan Vale.
My jaw locked tight. I pressed my face into the back of her hair and exhaled slow through my nose, trying to keep the anger from waking her.
I wasn’t stupid. I’d seen it the second she answered that call from her mother. The way hope flickered back to life even while she was still crying over another man. The way she’d looked at me after — guilty, torn up, like she wanted to want me but couldn’t quite shut off the part of her still bleeding for him.
I hated it.
Hated that she was this cut up over a guy who’d wanted someone else the entire time. Hated that Tristan had looked at Stella Cortez like she was the only thing that mattered and stillkept Isa on a string long enough to break her. Hated that her own mother was already in her ear, coaching her on how to play the long game and win him back.
But mostly I hated how much it still hurt her.
Because I’d wanted her for a long time. Longer than the flowers. Longer than the Thai food runs and waiting outside her practices. I’d wanted her since the first time she rolled her eyes at me and called me a caveman. Since the first time she let me walk her home and didn’t tell me to fuck off when I got too close.
I’d wanted her the way Tristan had wanted Stella.
And that sat like a stone in my chest.
She stirred in her sleep, a small sound catching in her throat. I tightened my arm around her waist without thinking, pulling her back against me until her ass was tucked against my hips and her back was flush to my chest. She settled again with a soft sigh, one leg sliding between mine.
My hand spread wide over her stomach, fingers brushing the hem of my shirt where it had ridden up. Something primal and possessive curl low and mean in my gut.
Mine.
The thought came vicious and uninvited.
I wasn’t going to let her keep running from me.
Not after tonight. Not after the way she’d clung to me in the rain like I was the only solid thing left. Not after the way she’d come apart on my mouth and still looked at me like she didn’t know what the hell to do with any of it. Not after she’d let me mark her and then fallen asleep in my arms like some part of her already knew this was where she belonged.
I brushed a strand of hair off her cheek with the backs of my fingers. She didn’t wake.
