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"I'm glad you're here. So damned glad."
"I am, too. But I know it's hard for you to be with someone like me."
"It's not hard."
"It is hard," she insisted. "Stuff like what just happened downstairs would never have happened if you were dating anyone else on campus. It's why I never really thought I'd be able to date anyone or live a normal student life."
"Of course you can." He didn't like the direction this conversation was going. Not when they were just starting to figure things out. Not when they were finally dating out in the open. And not when he was in love with her. "I don't care if we have to work a little harder at making things work. You're worth it."
"So are you," she said, "but are you sure you want to keep having to deal with things like this? With paparazzi randomly popping up so that you never know when you're going to run into pictures and clips of me that people--especially guys--are going to be looking at? Even your friends?"
"Do you know why I reacted the way I did down there? Not because you were in that video. Sure, I don't like knowing that my friends, that strangers, are drooling over you. But even if you hadn't been a model, I guarantee they'd be doing that. What kills me is knowing just how much you hate that video. What kills me is seeing you tighten up and your eyes cloud over like you're getting lost in a bad memory. I want so badly to be able to go back in time to save you from all of it, but I can't, Serena. I can't and I hate that no one else did, either."
"You know what," she said slowly, "you're right. You're not the only one who's going to need to figure out how to deal with it. I do, too."
"It wasn't fair," he said. "You were just a kid, and if you didn't want to do any of those things, you shouldn't have had to."
"But I did. And they're done. There's no going back in time to undo them. No erasing pictures and video clips that will be around forever." She could have played the victim, but didn't, and he was pretty sure he'd never respected her more than he did in that instant. "I never had anyone to talk to about any of this. Not until you. But at the same time--" She put her hand on his chest, pressing it flat over his heart which was still pounding way too hard. "--when you smashed the iPad--"
"I scared you." He covered her hand with his. "I didn't mean to. I just wanted it gone."
"I know. And I'd be lying if I didn't say I wanted that, too. But do you think that maybe..." She shook her head, but this time after a bit of a pause, she didn't finish her sentence.
"Don't stop talking to me now. I don't want you to be frightened of me because of what I did down there."
"It's not that," she said softly. "I'm not afraid of you now, and I wasn't scared earlier, either. Stunned, but not frightened. You would never do anything to hurt me, or to hurt anyone else, not if they didn't deserve it. It's just that this morning with the pictures...I accidentally pushed you too hard. Too far, too fast. I don't want to make that same mistake again tonight by saying the wrong thing."
His chest immediately clenched tight, even tighter than it was already. But he couldn't shut her out again. Not if he wanted her to actually consider sticking around.
And it was just how badly he wanted her to stay that made it possible for him to get the words out. "No one has pushed me for three months. Hell, all year." He'd thought it would be easier, better, if he buried everything and eventually forgot. But it hadn't worked out that way. "I can't guarantee how far into it all that I'm going to be able to go tonight. Or tomorrow, even. But last night you told me that you trust me in a way you've never been able to trust anyone else. It's the same with me, Serena. I trust you in a way I haven't been able to trust anyone else. So..." He took a breath, forced the oxygen into his constricted lungs. "Push."
She watched him carefully for a few seconds before finally saying, "When you threw the tablet across the room, even though I knew you were upset about the other guys watching the video, I couldn't help but wonder if your reaction--and the fury behind it--wasn't entirely about me. If, maybe, your friends watching the video was just what pushed you over the edge because of everything you've been keeping bottled up inside for so long. Ever since...ever since your mom got sick."
He had to work to let her words in, to force himself to actually think about what she was saying. For so long it had been instinctive to push away his emotions, his grief, the feelings of loss that only seemed to grow bigger each day rather than smaller. Fortunately, from the way she was looking at him, it seemed she understood that he was listening, even if he wasn't capable of responding just yet.
"I've tried to push away my past, too," she said softly. "And even though I know what I've been through is nothing compared to losing your mom, I'm just starting to see that maybe hiding from it hasn't worked...and that trying to turn away from who I've been will never work. I don't want to face it all head on, and it seems like it would be easier not to, but what if facing it is exactly what I've got to do? If I can ever be tough enough to do it, that is."
"You're definitely tough enough considering you just impressed the hell out of the guys downstairs when you laid it down straight for them."
She looked up at him, a small smile finally on her face. "I did, didn't I?"
"They're not the only ones who are impressed." He hadn't planned to tell her this tonight, but there wasn't anything else he could say now. Not when she'd just stripped his soul bare and made him finally face the truth. About everything. "I've fallen in love with you, Serena."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Serena felt more than a little overwhelmed by everything that had happened in twenty-four short hours. Spending her first night in Sean's bed. Having a huge fight over his mother's pictures.
And now, hearing that he'd fallen in love with her.
She might have stood there all night, speechless and stunned, but fortunately, Sean knew exactly what to do, and the next thing she knew she was lying beneath him on his bed, her arms around his neck while he traced her lips with gentle--and very arousing--fingertips.
"Did I just move too fast after all my promises not to?"
She wanted to shake her head, wanted to tell him no, but she couldn't lie to him. Not now. Not ever.
"I want," she said, her words seeming to come from somewhere far away, "so badly to believe that it's true, that someone like you could love me."
"How could you doubt it for a second?"
"You know how people have said my whole life that I was beautiful?" God, she hated the way this was going to sound, but she just couldn't hold back. Not anymore. Not with Sean. "That word. Love. Whenever I heard
it, whoever said it to me, it felt the same. Like it didn't really mean anything. Because they weren't saying it about the real me."
"But what if they were? What if everyone who ever said they loved you meant it?"
"How could they? How could any of them have ever meant it when no one but you has ever really known the real me?"
"I'll tell you why," he said in a deep voice that rumbled all the way through her. "Your beauty is so much deeper than the makeup, the outfits you wore, the part you played all those years. And your heart is so big, and so damned pure, that anyone would have to be blind not to see it. Not to see you and fall in love with you the way I did from the very start, from that very first night when you looked at me and saw everything."
"I think," she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper, "that I've fallen in love with you, too."
He didn't freak out the way she had when he'd said it to her. No, he simply smiled, a smile that got bigger and bigger by the second. "I thought you might have."
His gentle teasing made it easier for her to relax into the idea of loving...and being loved. "What tipped you off?"
He stroked her hair back from her face and looked at her in a way he never had before. A look so warm, so comforting, so sweet and yet so raw and real that it shot straight to the center of her heart. "Where should I start?"
She loved the slightly cocky edge to his words, the fact that they could laugh and love each other at the same time. She'd never known it could be like this, that passion and desire and deep emotions could be tempered so perfectly with such ease, and with friendship.
The truest friendship she'd ever known.
"Start right here, with this," she said, and then she kissed him, slowly running her tongue along his lower lip, from one corner of his mouth to the other. He was so delicious that one taste wasn't nearly enough, so she took another, this time of his upper lip, and then of his tongue as she slipped hers inside his mouth.
They were both still fully clothed, but she was already wrapped all around him, and his hands were holding her hips tightly. She rocked into him, and knowing exactly how good it felt to come apart against him made her feel reckless. Bold.
