So not just pissed at Devon, but me too. If he were capable of it, he would be sending out streams of smoke from his nose right now.
“Carter,” I begin. “I know this is an overwhelming situationand a lot of information to absorb. You’ve dealt with it really, really well.” Absurdly well, even. “But I don’t have a choice—”
“You do,” he says fiercely, leaning toward me. “You can just leave. Run. Make a new life somewhere else.”
“They’ll find me eventually,” I say, lifting my hands helplessly. “And I can’t leave everyone I care about here—”
“So you’ll force them to see you suffer instead?” he demands.
I wince. “Look, I get that none of this makes sense to you. It barely makes sense to me, honestly. But I have to—”
He stands abruptly. “I can’t do it. I can’t watch you go through this. I never signed up for this.” He turns away from me and the couch, staring out at the sliding glass door across the room.
My heart sinks, a cavernous opening taking hold in my chest.
“I never asked you to,” I say stiffly. I can’t stop myself. No matter how pathetic it sounds.
Carter turns to face me, heightened color in his cheeks. “No, you never would. Because you never wanted to admit to having feelings that might require commitment—”
Fury whooshes to life inside me, and I push to my feet, ignoring the swirl of dizziness. “You must be joking right now.” I jab a finger at him. “I’mnot the one who ignored you for the better part of a semester unless there was a convenient closet or laundry room available.”
He grimaces. “That was a mistake. I’ve apologized for that. I didn’t know, and it seemed too good to be true.” His gaze flips to my face. “Youseemed too good to be true.” He hesitates, then adds. “I was—and still am—afraid of screwing up your life.”
That might have softened me, once. Not anymore. “So you say,” I snap. “You never asked me out, never wanted to be seen in public. Pushed for us to be friends instead. To protect your career.”
He turns on me, and we are face to face, nose to, well, throat, the tension straining between us. “Do you do relationships, Jocasta?” He bites off the question. “Do you? Pretty sure you told me otherwise.”
Heat soars up through my neck and into my face at the memory of those early whispered conversations, punctuated by gasps and heated moans muffled by his hand over my mouth.
“I took what you seemed willing to offer,” he says. “While, yes, making sure we were both protected from the fallout.”
“Please,” I sneer. “Don’t do me any favors. I deserve somebody who wants me, all of me. Not just whatever is convenient.”
He rakes a hand through his hair. “You are the furthest thing from convenient, Jocasta. Believe me.”
“I don’t even know what I’m still doing here.” Hot tears flood my vision. I shove past him to get around the corner of his ridiculous couch. “Where are my shoes?”
“I am in love with you.”
I freeze, hand clutching the back of the sofa for support.
“And it is the best thing and worst thing that has ever happened to me.” He sounds as if he’s both sad and angry about it.
I might have been insulted, except I know exactly what he means. I turn around so I can see his face.
“Does the girl who gave you a hickey know that?” I ask, hating the wobble in my voice. The mark is gone from his jaw already, like it never existed, but I remember.
Carter advances on me. “I told you, it was a bruise. I have never lied to you.” He pauses, with a conflicted expression. “I’ve kept things from you. My feelings, among them.”
I’m not sure I have room to argue about him keeping secrets; I’ve certainly kept a big one from him.
“But I’m telling you the truth now. There’s no one but you,” he says, closing the distance between us until I can feel the heat radiating from his body.
I want to touch him, to run my hands across the smooth fabric of his shirt across his chest, drag my fingertips across the rough velvet of his worn jeans, where previous experience tells me he’ll be hard and waiting before I’ve even laid a hand on him.
But I refrain, just vulnerable enough in this moment to want him to move first.
Carter reaches out and cups my jaw, his thumb running over my bottom lip. My breath catches.
