When We Met

Which really wasn’t all that far from the truth. Except for that one monstrous mistake I’d made. As much as I wanted it all swept up and tossed away like forgotten litter from my past, I knew he needed to know, and things couldn’t go much further between us before he did. How deceitful would that be? Me leading this man into thinking I was some kind of unsullied damsel. Pure and clean. What a joke.

Darryn ran his hands up my sides, all those little darts of energy injected directly into my skin.

Oh God.

Did I ever want him to touch me.

Every day Darryn made me trust him more. Showed me why it was okay to give in.

Today, for the first time, I didn’t stop his exploration. I welcomed his hands that touched and caressed. Hands that I thought maybe even loved. Even if it were over the constraints of a flimsy piece of fabric.

But just then, I heard the sound of the front door banging open, and I stiffened. My hands clapped over my chest to cover myself up as one of Darryn’s roommates walked into their house. He was still in the front room, but he was close enough to burst the bubble Darryn and I had been floating in.

Darryn groaned and dropped his head to my chest, the chest that he’d discreetly covered back up. “Maybe we should take this up to my room,” he mumbled.

“I . . . I—I’m s-s-sorry. I can’t go up there.” I fumbled over words I couldn’t seem to form, searching for an explanation for why I was such a freak. “I—I . . .”

It wasn’t like we hadn’t been alone in my room a hundred times.

But when Darryn pulled away, it was like he already understood what was holding me back from making my way up those steps. Anger darkened his eyes, just for a flash, before he raked a hand through his hair and sighed a heavy sound of surrender. “It’s fine, baby. You don’t have to explain anything to me. I get it.”

It left me unsettled, because I knew he really didn’t get it. He had no clue.

I shifted on the hard surface of the table, wanting to be brave and just tell him. Hating myself for being a coward and not saying anything.

But the truth was, I didn’t want to lose him.

Just the thought squeezed my heart.

I reached out and cupped his cheek, my voice soft. “Please be patient with me.”

He took my hand from his face and pressed it to his mouth. “I already told you I’d take whatever came with you being my girl. The only thing I hate is you being afraid of me. Because I promise, I’ll never hurt you.”

But it wasn’t Darryn I was afraid of facing.

I was afraid of facing the humiliation that had been born in that room. Hated that any moment I spent there with Darryn would be tainted by memories of Hunter.

Darryn pulled me to the edge of the table and wrapped his arms around my waist, his head resting just below my breasts. He looked up at me, the gold of his eyes prominent in the rays of sunlight slanting in through the window. “I just want you to trust me.”

I tickled my fingers down the back of his neck, and he released a raspy breath. And I did trust him.

I knew it now. Knew he was different from Hunter. Knew Darryn cared about me, maybe the way I cared about him.

I could feel him slipping deeper into me the way I felt myself falling further into him.

I wanted to show him how much he meant to me.

Tell him.

But would he feel the same about me when he knew?

I let him pull me ever closer, his hot body all pressed up to mine. Flames licked up the walls of my stomach, sending needy waves of heat through my body, a feeling I’d only ever experienced with Darryn.

Indy had definitely been right. Hunter didn’t have anything on Darryn.

Every part of me was begging for more of him.

His hand clutched my side like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting go. “Can’t get enough of you, Misha,” he whispered, his nose making a pass along the underside of my breast. Shock waves jolted through my system.

Soon I would give him all of me.

The truth. My heart. My body.

Because I knew Darryn would never make me a fool.

chapter eleven

Misha

The doorbell rang and I skipped to the door. I swung it open to Darryn. He rested his shoulder up on the doorjamb, this boy-man-god larger than life, the sun swallowing him up from behind in a halo of blazing light as he stood as a silhouette in my doorway.

My pulse stuttered.

Oh God.

So pretty.

Darryn stepped forward, bringing his face into focus. He was biting at his bottom lip with all that mischief playing in his eyes. Damn him. He knew exactly the effect he had on me.

Then everything about him softened, and he wound his fingers through my hair and brought his hand to the back of my neck. He tugged me forward to place a sweet kiss at the corner of my mouth. I shook a little as his nose slipped along the angle of my jaw. He breathed me in, and there was no mistaking the shudder that rolled down his spine.

I felt a little giddy, struck light-headed by this joy. Guess I liked that I had the same kind of effect on him, too.

“You ready to go, baby?” The words came out all low and rough.

Uh, yeah. I’d go anywhere with him.

I beamed up at him, picked my backpack up off the floor, and hoisted it farther on my shoulders. “Yep. All set. Let’s get this day over with. I have two exams and a presentation. I was ready for today to be over before it even started.”

Darryn chuckled as he tossed his arm over my shoulders, guiding me out of the house and closing the door behind us, leading us in the direction of campus. “You’re going to do great.” He glanced down at me. “Don’t think I’ve seen anyone study the way you do. You make all the rest of us look bad.”

“Pshh.” I waved him off, swaying a little into his side as we walked wound up in each other. “My classes are just rough. If I didn’t study this much, I’d for sure fail, and the last thing I want is to have to take any of these classes over again. No, thank you.”

He kissed my temple. “Smart girl.”

I gri

Darryn howled, his laughter so thick I felt it seeping into my chest. “You are too much, Misha Crosse. You know that?”

We walked like this most days, stealing a few moments close together before we both had to go our separate ways to our different classes. We grabbed just a few minutes together, laughing and goofing around. It was the perfect way to start the day, with his face one of the first things I saw every morning, before he tucked me to his side and walked us toward campus, like I was a piece of him and he was a part of me.

I exhaled in contentment, and Darryn pulled me closer. I felt no hesitation snuggling farther into him. It was begi

I’d been so fearful about coming back to school. And look at the way things had turned out. What if I’d refused Indy’s invitation and instead stayed in the suffocating safety of my parents’ house, attending a community college, giving up my kids, my goals for the future?

Losing all that would be awful. But the most horrifying part of it all would be the fact that I would never have met this man had I not stepped out and been brave.

I made the decision right then and there, that was what I finally needed to be.

Brave.

Darryn seemed to sense my i

I chanced peeking up at him. Nerves tumbled through my stomach, a chaotic scramble of fear and insecurities and hope. I smiled, and it felt almost forced. “Just thinking about you,” I said.