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“I guess we have that in common.” A solemn look passes over his face and then Drake abruptly stands. His empty beer bottle clatters to the floor, but he barely seems to notice it. “I have to tell you the truth.”
A strange hollow feeling enters my chest. It’s impossible to know if I want him to continue or if I should beg him to stop. “What truth?”
“When I saw that car on the side of the road, heard the sirens, and realized that you’d been in a crash…fuck. That was the worst experience of my entire life.” He closes his eyes as I continue to stare at him, as if he can’t bear to look at me while he speaks. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to realize that you might be in love with someone at the exact moment that they could be dying?”
My mouth falls open. “Drake…”
He holds his hand up with a pained expression, as if he can’t bear to let me finish. “You don’t have to say anything. You probably shouldn’t. I definitely shouldn’t be saying any of this out loud. I completely understand that this is a one-sided thing because I don’t deserve even your forgiveness, much less anything else. I know it’s crazy and ridiculous and I don’t have any right to put this on you, especially right now, but it’s killing me to pretend that this is something different from what it is. When all of this inevitably goes sideways and you’re wishing you’d never met me, I don’t want you to walk away without the truth…I love you.”
“You love me,” I repeat slowly, too dumbfounded to say anything else.
“You’re stubborn, hot-headed and more than a little scary when you’re angry.” His smile is more than a little sad as he watches the play of emotions crossing my face. “You’re also the most loyal person that I’ve ever met. God, you fight even when everyone and everything is standing your way, like some warrior goddess from a legend. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head since the moment I laid eyes on you, even when I thought I hated you.”
The hollow in my chest has filled with a painful pressure, leaving me breathless. “You hurt me and betrayed me. You humiliated me in front of the entire school.”
He swallows hard enough that his throat jerks with the movement. “I know.”
I close the distance between us, driven by an urge that I don’t have the words to describe. “And I lied to you from the first moment that we met. You didn’t even know my real name until a few weeks ago. I came here with every intention of destroying you if I could.”
He gives me a sardonic smile. “Yeah, you did.”
My hand cups the hard line of his jaw, heat flaring between us. “Neither of us has earned any trust. Or forgiveness.”
“Evangeline…”
I silence him with a fingertip pressed against his lips. “My friends call me Gigi.”
When I kiss him this time, it doesn’t feel like a mistake.
It feels like finally admitting to myself what I’ve always known is true.
I don’t know if I can say the words that haven’t passed my lips since I was a child who still had a family. The broken part of me is like jagged glass that has left my heart in shreds, damage that might never truly heal. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to tell Drake how I really feel.
But I can show him.
My arms wrap around his neck. The edge of the bed hits the back of my knees. I let myself fall backwards, using the weight of my body to force him down with me.
Drake catches himself with his hands on either side of my head, his hips pressing hard against me.
And it’s obvious that he is very happy to be here.
“We don’t have to do this,” he murmurs against my lips, even as he hands glide under my shirt and lift it high enough that cool air blows over my belly.
I grind my hips against him until he lets out a groan. “Oh yes, we do.”
Frenetic energy bursts over me as our kiss turns even more heated. I open my mouth to the insistent pressure of his tongue as it tangles with mine in a dueling dance. My hips rise off the bed in a frantic rhythm as I try to get increase the friction where I need him most.
But my desperation has a calming effect on him.
“Relax,” he murmurs. “We’re not in a hurry.”
“Jesus, speak for yourself.”
He laughs as he kisses me again. “I like you like this. All hot and frantic.”
I need him to feel just as hot and frantic as I do, because I can’t be the only one of us who feels like they’re losing their mind.
“Maybe we should just save this for another time, since you’re not in a hurry or anything,” I suggest, voice low and sultry. Before he can stop me, my hand pushes beneath the waistband of his jeans until my fingers graze bare and overheated skin. When my palm wraps around the hard length of his cock, a shudder runs through him. “You probably want to get back outside before anyone misses you.”
