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“Look at me,” he urged again. “Hold my eyes. Don’t fight. Don’t rage. Don’t scream. Don’t give him your fear.”
“I am the eye of the storm,” he murmured again, and I was transfixed. “He did not happen to you, Emory. You expected it. It was supposed to happen. It was all part of the plan. You knew it was coming.”
“Always act as if you knew it was coming the whole time. Pretend it was part of the plan. You move with the storm, Emory. Calm, quiet, patient, and then . . . Then you happen to him.”
“He may hit you again,” he breathed out, “but he will never hurt you. You will smile, and then . . .”
“You’re Lilith,” he whispered against my skin. “You can’t be burned if you’re the flame.”
Lilith . . . His words drifted through my head. Was he Jewish? She was in our folklore. Adam’s first wife and cast out of
the Garden of Eden, because she refused to be subservient.
Something shifted off to my right, and we both turned our heads, seeing Will standing just inside the room.
He left and Will looked at me, shaking his head. He wouldn’t even stop me if I jumped on every dick in this house right now. He didn’t care, because he hated me.
“You, um . . .” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “You missed a Godzilla movie since you’ve been gone. King of the Monsters,” I told him. “It was pretty decent, except for the plot.”
“I couldn’t help but think . . . ‘Will would love this.’”
But I wasn’t asking for anything. I was taking it.
“You don’t even have to move,” I told him, pumping him slow and tight. “Stay right here, because I’m going to drain you dry.”
Water sprayed my hair, my chest, his stomach, and his face as he stared down at me, a cross between anger and excitement in his eyes.
“Taking advantage of a man who’s been in prison is low. Really low.”
“We’re at the lock-in, and we snuck off, so I could kiss you. Down here.”
Taking him back before I hurt him. Before he hurt me. Before all the shit and all the years . . .
“What else we gonna do?” he panted. “Before a teacher comes.”
I closed my eyes, the water raining down on us in the hothouse as I pictured all the fun we could’ve had if I’d just dived in all those years ago.
“You fucked me up,” he growled, pulling my nipple through his teeth. “And you fucked up,” I argued, tipping my head back up, the water running down my face as he nibbled one breast and moved on to the other.
“Because,” I whispered over his mouth. “Because I want to be your girl.”
“And you remember what that means?”
Me, coming home to him every night. Me, at his table and warming his bed. Me, making him a daddy.
I swallowed, the excitement coursing through my veins as I whispered, “It means you come inside me.”
“My little Em likes her little secrets. Little nerd by day who likes it a little hard at night.”
I wanted a shower, and I wanted sleep, and I wanted both of them with Will.
Not that I was ready for any kids right now, anyway, but he wasn’t telling me that because he didn’t want them. He was telling me that because he didn’t want them with me.
“You let them watch while he ate you out last night?” she asked.
“Girl,” she cooed, smiling with approval. “I knew you had it in you.”
“Alex?”
WHAT
CHAPTER 20
“He’s a joke.” I hugged her close as she wrapped her arms around my neck. “I’m your man now. He’ll have to get through me.”
Adam Scott died with her mother years ago. Caught in their car when the river flooded during Hurricane Finn that hit us head-on about five years ago.
In this moment, I was grateful she spared me any time, considering the bigger things she had on her plate. I was too hard on her.
But then I heard her speak. “Part of me wishes I could have you,” she said. “Part of me wishes you were my man, but . . .”
“Everything will be real tomorrow,” she told me.
“You’re going to remember this, Will Grayson,” she said, sounding all tough. “I blew your mind tonight. Even if for just a minute.”
“I love you,” I murmured.
How did she paint her back? Did her brother help her?
But then she whimpered, shifting away from me like it hurt.
The bruises on her legs that I saw in the swimming pool . . . The bruise on her leg in lit class. The overly baggy clothes and how she hardly ever showed skin.
Because later today I was going to find out what the fuck was going on once and for all.
CHAPTER 21
She’d watched us in the drawing room last night? She’d been here, hiding. For at least a day.
“Then why are you here?” I demanded, tightening the towel around me.
She’d packed for this. She knew she was coming here, unlike me.
Why wasn’t she talking?
I have no idea why you’re here, she’d said. So, she knew why she was here, then?
You need me.” I stood there, about ready to hit her again, but she was right. I had a much better chance of getting out of here with her.
tossing the duffel into the passageway again. “We guessed Will was sent here several months ago—maybe a year or more, we don’t know exactly. He’d been using and drinking, and we figured with his grandfather’s reelection coming up, Senator Grayson took matters into his own hands before Will became a liability.”
