After (After, #1)

by Anna Todd

“What are you doing to me, Tess,” he says softly, and rubs his thumb over my bottom lip. “I don’t know…” I answer truthfully into his thumb, which still traces over my mouth.

This is me, I think, not some wild girl swimming in a punk boy’s T-shirt.

Hardin’s dad left when he was ten, just like mine, and they were both drunks. We have more in common than I thought. This wounded and drunk Hardin seems so much younger, so much more fragile than the powerful person I’ve known so far.

Hardin is like a drug; each time I take the tiniest bit of him, I crave more and more. He consumes my thoughts and invades my dreams.

“You… you make me want to be good, for you… I want to be good for you, Tess.”

“That is precisely the problem here, isn’t it? That I can’t stop looking at you.”

“That I want you. More than I have ever wanted anyone or anything in my entire life.”

“I don’t just want to be friends… I want more.” His words knock the wind right out of me.

“You aren’t my type, just the way that I am not yours. But that’s why we are good for each other—we are so different, yet we’re the same.

“This has been me for so long, I have never wanted to be any other way. Until now, until you.”

I somehow know it is the calm before the storm, but right now Hardin is my anchor. I just pray that he doesn’t pull me under.

“Don’t ever leave me, Tess,” he whispers and falls back into sleep. My heart nearly explodes at his plea, and I know that as long as he wants me here, I’m here.

“Do you remember when you asked me who I love the most in the world?” he asks, his lips inches from mine. I nod, though it seems so long ago, and I didn’t think he was even paying attention. “It’s you. You’re the person that I love most in the world.”