When We Met

He chuckled, and he buried his face in my neck, leaving a little trail of fire where he nibbled his lips along my skin. “You better be thinking of me, since I can’t think of anything else but you.” He squeezed my side. “What do you say we make it a date night? Go grab a bite to eat and maybe catch a movie or something?”

“Yeah, that would be great.” I chewed at my lip, and the rush of redness I felt blossom on my face had nothing to do with the shyness that had plagued me my whole life, but instead was the stark evidence of the true worry I felt at finally telling Darryn. “I actually have been needing to talk to you about something,” I confessed quietly.

He frowned and slowed, stopping fully to turn and face me. His head canted to the side as he studied my expression. “I don’t think I like the sound of that, Misha. You aren’t letting me take you to di

I loved all of Darryn’s confidence, craved it almost, after all the years I’d lacked it myself. But the truth was, I liked the vulnerability he was now wearing, too. It made him seem real. Genuine. This boy-man-god, in all his glory, the one who stole my breath just as easily as he’d stolen my heart, was not just a figment of my overactive imagination.

“I couldn’t possibly break your heart,” I whispered, averting my gaze to pluck a piece of fuzz from his shirt.

It was my heart on the line.

With caution, I peered up at him, feeling so shy and exposed. But I had to finally lay it all out. Trust him so he could trust me.

Was I really ready for this? To lay myself bare? At his feet?

Would he trample all over my heart when he knew?

Was it worth the chance?

“You just need to know something about me before we go any further.”

His expression turned unreadable, but I felt every single one of the muscles in his body fire, rigid as they flexed, tension winding him tight.

For a moment, I thought he was . . . angry?

Darryn softened, and he lifted his hands, touched my face so softly. Still it scorched me through. “Nothing you can tell me will change the way I feel about you,” he promised, locking our gazes. My breaths turned ragged as he backed me up against the wall of the lecture hall building.

His promise infiltrated my spirit, and I swallowed hard, nodding before I lifted myself to my toes and pressed my mouth to his. It was meant to be i

Darryn, the one who’d saved something inside me.

And I felt it pumping, full of life, full of hope, my heart so full I thought it would burst right in my chest.

He pulled back, fisted his hands in my jacket collar, and jerked me toward him. His voice was fierce at my face. “Nothing,” he promised again.

Then he turned and left me standing there, panting, as I watched him disappear in the hustle of students emerging from another class.

Thankfully I had the support of the wall to keep me from dropping to my knees.

Dear. Lord.

I bit at my lip, fighting against the satisfied smile.

“You got some of that for me?”

The voice barely cut into my senses, and I blinked, wondering if it had really been intended for me, but something inside me was sure it had. I turned my head toward the sound of it, and a guy I’d never seen before stood ten feet away, looking directly at me.

“Should have known better than to have bet against Hunter, but something about you looking all i

Hunter.

The mention of his name punched me in the gut. I clutched my stomach, bent at the middle. My heart careened to a stop, tightening in my chest in a ball and making it impossible to breathe. I tried to, but I couldn’t get anything down as the air got locked in my throat. I felt light-headed. Sick.

So long. It’d been so long and no one had said a word. I guess I had started to believe no one ever would.

I struggled to draw a breath into my lungs. But the air was gone as the realization of what this stranger was implying seeped into my consciousness.

“You owe me,” he said, like he had the right to even speak to me, and he took a step forward. Confidence dripped from him, that sickening kind that made people choke on it, it was so overbearing and wrong. “Why don’t you come back to my place and I can show you exactly how you can make it up to me?”

Horrified, I felt my mouth drop open in the same second that tears sprang to my eyes, so heavy they blurred my vision of the guy leering at me like I was a nothing, just a plaything to be used up and tossed aside.

Just like Hunter had made me out to be.

Finally something broke, and air raked into my lungs, and I struggled to speak. “D-d-don’t t-t-talk t-t-t-o me. . . .”

He laughed at my expense. “Don’t worry, baby, talking is definitely not what I have in mind.”

I had to get out of here. Escape.

I squeezed my eyes closed, wishing I could disappear, and instead forced my feet to work. I stumbled as I pushed from the wall, an overbearing weight crushing my shoulders.

It hurt. Oh my God, it hurt.

Frantic, I tore through a group of people standing in my way, desperate to keep myself together until I made it home.

“Hey, watch it.”

I didn’t even respond, just propelled myself forward, through the outer campus halls and out onto the street. I ran as fast as my feet could take me, my eyes blinded by tears and my heart broken by shame.

I flew into the house and upstairs. Slamming my door shut behind me, I threw myself on the bed. I buried my face in my pillow.

And I completely fell apart.

chapter twelve

Misha

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

Darryn rushed to my bed when I lifted my face. I’d been crying for so long my eyes hurt, my entire face puffy and sore and burning.

I didn’t want him to see me like this. “Just go,” I mumbled into my pillow as I turned in the other direction.

This afternoon, he’d texted me what seemed a hundred times, first to solidify our date plans, then with progressive worry when I didn’t return any of his messages.

But how could I face him? Tell him?

All that confidence I’d felt this morning was long forgotten. It had only been a fantasy. Because I’d seen the results of what Hunter had done, had seen it in the way that guy had looked at me back in the hall, as if I meant nothing and I could be used up any way he deemed fit.

How could Darryn see me any differently?

Darryn’s footsteps treaded tentatively across the room, and I could almost feel the force of his breaths as he heaved them from his lungs and out into the darkness of my room. I pressed my face deeper into my pillow, silently begging it to swallow me up.

I couldn’t do this.

The bed dipped with Darryn’s weight, and he placed a soothing hand on my back.

I shivered, wishing I had the strength to push him away. But all the comfort of his touch slipped along my skin, penetrating deep. I squeezed my eyes shut and choked over a sob brought on by the kindness in Darryn’s gesture.

He rubbed me up and down, all these soft little sounds tumbling from his lips. “Shh . . . baby . . . shh . . . it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

I thought I’d cried enough today that I’d used up all my tears. But no. Darryn showing up here only brought a new onslaught of them, these hot, fat tears that poured from my aching eyes, because God, this hurt so bad, Darryn here, making all these promises that seemed so impossible.