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“He’s in the basement!” she called over her shoulder. “He’s just sucking face with Briana. As usual.” She looked back at us. “The limo’s here.”

She rolled her eyes, turned, and left.

We looked back at each other, out of breath. My dress was covering his lap, but he was still inside me. My face stung from the shadow of his beard, my hair was tangled and sticking to my wet cheeks.

His eyes dropped to my mouth and he slid a hand into the back of my hair, but before he leaned in to kiss me again, I scrambled off him. “No,” I said, tugging my dress down.

I was so disgusted with what I’d done I couldn’t even look him in the eye. I’d just had sex with him, he was dripping into my underwear, and suddenly watching him do his belt buckle felt too personal.

I started to shake. I couldn’t tell if it was from the orgasm or the adrenaline or the soul-crushing disappointment in myself.

“We can never do that again,” I said, finally mustering the courage to look at him.

He blinked at me, rumpled from the sofa. “What?”

“I should have never done this…” I breathed. “It was a mistake. I’m sorry.”

The silence between us was like a vacuum. It wasn’t the cessation of sound, it was a world where sound didn’t exist. I couldn’t stand the way he was looking at me.

I was trying so hard not to cry. I didn’t want him to have to deal with Amy and my feelings too.

“You’re going to miss the limo,” I said, my voice cracking.

He shook his head at me. “I don’t care about the limo.” He started to get up. “Briana—”

I backed up. “No! Don’t touch me.”

It was amazing how clear his eyes looked now as he stared at me. Sharp and focused. Like a storm had passed and the sun was out and he was seeing every single flaw on my face. Every flaw in my personality.

Maybe he was finally seeing the thing that made Nick want someone else.

I couldn’t stand the scrutiny. I couldn’t stand the reality.

I ran to the bathroom and locked the door.

Chapter 40

Jacob

I was whiplashed. I felt like I’d been in an emotional car wreck and I’d been ejected. What the hell had just happened between us?

I stood outside the bathroom door not knowing what to do.

Briana said she loved me. She’d said it over and over. And then we were kissing and pulling at each other’s clothes and then I was inside her and it was the most amazing thing I’d ever felt—and then it was over, she was embarrassed, and it was a mistake? What happened?

I didn’t want to go in the damn limo. I wanted her to come out and talk to me. I couldn’t process this without more information. I couldn’t settle on how to feel until I knew what was going on with her.

How could it be a mistake? How could anything that felt like that be something she regretted? And it wasn’t just the sex. She had feelings for me. It was there. I felt it, I didn’t imagine it, I know I didn’t. She said she loved me. She did say it.

A long horn blared from the front yard.

I put a hand on the door. “Briana, please let me in.”

“Jacob, just go.”

She was crying.

What had I done? Had I done something wrong? I rested my forehead on the frame and squeezed my eyes shut.