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Pressing away from the wall slightly, I straightened my spine. “You mean what am I doing in the girls’ locker room? Nothing. I was just getting dressed.”
I tried to push past him, but he moved with me, planting his hands on either side of me again and boxing me in.
“Wrong guess, little dancer,” he murmured. “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. What do you think you’re doing with Finn? Are you really gonna try to get us all off your back by seducing him? You think slutting your way through this school will help you?”
My jaw dropped open, and I gaped at him in shock.
Seduce him?
That was fucking bullshit. I hadn’t tried to seduce anybody. We’d talked like normal people for once. That was it. I wanted to point that out to Cole, but it was hard to think straight with his body still hovering so close to mine, his broad muscles tensed and bunched.
I couldn’t stop picturing him in the woods, moving like some kind of machine or deadly predator as he systematically destroyed the other boy. He wouldn’t hit me—I kept telling myself that over and over—but it didn’t change the fact that in this moment, he controlled me completely. That thought made my breath come faster as fear mixed with a strange, irrational heat in my lower belly.
“I wasn’t trying to seduce him,” I scoffed, trying to affix a bored look to my face. “We talked. So what? It wasn’t a big deal. And it’s not even like we talked about sex or anything like that. Just football and… random stuff.”
“Are you sure?” Cole pressed in closer, so close our noses were almost touching, as his gaze flicked between my eyes, searching for the lie. His voice softened slightly, still thick and dark but slightly less gruff. One hand came off the wall, and he dragge
d a knuckle down the side of my face, running it along the curve of my jaw. “I’m giving you a chance to come clean here, Talia. Tell me what the fuck you were doing.”
“I’m sure,” I shot back, squirming as an ache built in my core. Jesus. Stop it, Talia. You fucking hate him. “Why would I want to seduce anyone, least of all him? That’s not the kind of girl I am, so just knock it off!”
Cole paused and drew back slightly, his fingertips still ghosting over my cheek as he looked me up and down. I was torn between conflicting desires to slap his hand away and to lean into his touch, as if the same thing that terrified me could somehow save me too. I clamped my bottom lip between my teeth, trying hard to slow my breath.
“Why the hell are you so turned on?” he asked, his voice throaty and deep. “Your body is responding to every word I say. Your pupils are blown out. Your skin is flushed. What? Did Finn not do it for you? You need more than that?”
“I didn’t do anything with Finn. And… I’m not!” I shot back, my voice almost as raspy as his.
His other hand came off the wall suddenly, moving down to grip my waist, and I jolted. I squeezed my legs together as my breath burst from my lungs in short gasps. Everything in me screamed of danger and dark desire in equal measure as he tugged me toward him lightly, making my chest brush against his. My nipples peaked, sparks of sensation zapping through me.
It wasn’t fair. How did such a fucking asshole make my body react like this? How did he break down every defensive wall I had?
“Then why are you breathing like that?” he asked, pressing his cheek against mine as his lips brushed my ear. “Why are your nipples so fucking hard they could shred that little piece of spandex you’re wearing? Why are you rubbing your thighs together like you wish there was something between them?”
Don’t do this, Tal. Fucking stop and think.
I wanted to scream at my body that it was attracted to the wrong things, the wrong people. There had to be some nice guys on campus who wouldn’t put my emotions through a meat-grinder every time I saw them. Decent guys. Regular guys.
So why did I find myself inexorably drawn to the four psychos who were hell-bent on making my life miserable?
What is wrong with me?
I tried to swallow, but my mouth was dry as a desert. Cole’s hand slid up my body, his fingers moving lightly over my ribs, the side of my breast, my neck, until he cupped my face with both hands, cradling it like something precious and fragile.
“Cole…” I whispered. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Make you tell the truth?” he whispered back.
The muscles of his broad jaw rippled, and his tongue darted out to lick his lips, making the ache in my body intensify. He lowered his head, moving in closer until our mouths were almost touching.
And then he waited.
The fucking asshole waited.
He made me come to him, and it was worse that way, so much worse. Because it took away my last defense—the ability to pretend I didn’t want this.
The chance to deny I had a choice when I thought about this later.
A whimper that sounded like defeat even to my own ears fell from my lips a half-second before I pressed forward, erasing the last bit of space between us as I kissed him.
