Page 101 of Darkest Obsession

“I just wanted to find out your favorites, that’s all,” I say to Clover, crossing my heart with my right hand.

She told me her entire life was on the internet and it’s taken everything in my power not to look her up, not to learn every fucking detail about Clover Robinson’s life, which is entirely available for the public. I don’t think most people here even know what she sees as her dirty little secret. English people don’t care about celebrity like Americans — especially not posh English people who find that sort of thing gauche.

People from our background don’t tend to indulge in that sort of American obsession with nosing into strangers’ lives. We’d rather buy race horses, play polo or vacation in St. Tropez than concerning ourselves with Americans designer handbag collections.

“What were you thinking?” Clover snaps, her sassy little lecture beginning. “My friends are going to think there’s something going on between us.”

Isn’t there? Each time I kiss her, I want her more. Each time she resists me, I make impossible attempts to fall away. And aren’t we friends? We’re supposed to be staging a public fight, not a real one. But this is definitely a real fight. Or… it’s about to be.

“I was thinking that I fucking liked you, so I’d bring you flowers because you were having a hard time. Is that a bloody crime, now?”

“Yes!”

“Really? What crime is it?”

She folds her arms and I can see her scanning my torso for places to punch. I hold steady. This time, her flailing little fists won’t make me buzz off.

“No! I mean… Jesus Christ, Thomas! I don’t… We just… We just kissed.”

She knows bloody well it wasn’t just a kiss. That’s why she ran away. That’s why she’s always running. Something about us scares her.

“We kissed because I like you. We kissed because there is something here, whether you want to admit it or not.”

“There isn’t,” she hisses. “You said it yourself, I’m a slut, right? Maybe I go around kissing all types of boys in all types of bathrooms and you aren’t the first or the last.”

Blood courses through me. She knows how to get under my skin, how to upset me. I know I’m not the only man to touch her. I’m not her first. I’ll never be any of her firsts. But Clover can’t deny what she feels. I won’t let her.

“I might not be the first,” I say to her, my voice stern and brimming with the desire to show her just how fucking angry she makes me. I couldn’t bring myself to do anything to scare her. I can’t be the guy who thinks it okay to hurt her anymore. If I want her to treat me like a prince, I’d better start treating her like a princess.

I soften my voice. “Why can’t we talk about this?”

“Because… I don’t do this stuff, Thomas. I don’t do relationships.”

I want to throw something. I want to wrestle her to the bed and shut her up with kisses and my hand between her legs. I know she’s lying, but unless she lets me in, I have to stand here outside the ten foot walls Clover Robinson puts up around her heart.

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It means, I don’t have boyfriends. I don’t date. I don’t do that stuff.”

“Why not?”

“Because, I just don’t.”

“I think you’re scared,” I tell her, closing the distance between, nearly pressing Clover up against her bed. “I think you’re fucking terrified.”

“You have the bruises to prove I’m not,” she says. “There’s nothing going on between us. I kissed you to check it off a list.”

“Liar.”

“I’m not a liar,” she says. “I don’t like you.”

“Liar.”

“Stop it!” she yells.

I don’t. I can’t. I touch her face and kiss her. Clover kisses back and then remembers herself. She pushes my chest, but I can’t stop kissing her. I won’t let her push me off this time. I kiss her harder, raking my fingers through her dreads and wanting so fucking badly to take her into bed. Clover grabs my forearm and digs her fingernails in. Hard.

I pull away from her and she glares.