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“I’m not here because of that,” I said.

“Whatever,” said Jace, and he threw open the door to his house and stalked inside, leaving the door wide open to me.

I stepped inside.

I shut the door behind myself.

Inside, it opened immediately onto a large living room with skylights and long, narrow windows. There were exposed, polished beams crisscrossing the cathedral ceilings. That, however, was where the elegance ended.

The room itself was kind of a mess, takeout containers littering the coffee table and the leather sectional couch. Crumbled cans of soda were on the floor, and blankets and pillows were strewn on parts of the couch like people had been sleeping out there.

Damian stepped into my line of sight. “Leona. You came.”

I fiddled with the edge of my shirt. “I shouldn’t have.”

“You really shouldn’t have,” he said. “Not with my kids…” He squared his shoulders. “Maybe it’s better.”

Because he’d be able to control himself? Because he actually could control himself? Because all that business about not being able to was a sham? Was Opal right about him?

He turned and went into the living room area and started clearing off the couch by throwing things from one section of the couch to the other. Eventually, it was done, and he looked up at me, eyebrows raised.

I lurched over to sit down next to him. I stared at the coffee table, not at him. On top of it, there were paper plates covered in remnants of mac and cheese and pizza crusts.

“Did you read it?” I said to the mess.

“Told you I didn’t,” he said.

“So, you don’t know what she says about you in it.”

“She say it was all my fault?” he said.

I turned to look at him. “She contradicts herself a lot.”

The corners of his mouth pulled tight. “So, sometimes she blames me, sometimes she doesn’t.”

“Did you go to her after our first time and say you thought you raped me?”

He swallowed, looking away.

It was really quiet.

“Here, all this time, for me, it was this magical thing, and for you—”

“Magical?” He turned to look at me as if I was crazy.

That hurt even more. I got up from the couch. “Could you have stopped yourself, Damian?”

He looked up at me. “Magical?” he said again.

CHAPTER TWELVE

I WAS FIFTEEN. He was sixteen. We planned it.

He said he wanted it that way, that he thought I deserved it to be deliberate and to have thought through all of the things. He wanted it nice for me, he said, not fumbling around in a backseat somewhere, not under a sleeping bag in the woods. He wanted to get us a room, but it was really hard to get a hotel room when you didn’t have a credit card, which neither of us had.

So, we did it at one of the cabins that no one was staying in that week. I think it was owned by one of Damian’s friend’s parents, maybe Jimmy, maybe Rafe, I’m not sure. We had to bring in our own bedding and take it away, I remember that.

But he did all of that. He had everything ready when I got there. He had lubrication in various kinds (and flavors) and he had a little bullet vibrator that had an elastic belt that meant it could be on my clitoris with neither of us holding it there (though this really didn’t work in practice—it was still a nice gesture). He had flowers and candles and incense and it was all very romantic and he was really… alpha about it.