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But I took another deep inhale, and on the exhale, I said, “It reminded me of when my dad pushed me down the stairs at our old apartment complex.”
In my periphery, I could see Cole turn to face me, his stare burning into me.
“I was twelve,” I continued simply. “It was the worst he ever hurt me. Although ironically, I don’t even think he meant to that time. It was an accident. Not that that makes it forgivable.”
The heat of his gaze on me was like fire, like a laser aimed directly at my skin, and I shifted a little.
“Most the time, he used his fists. Sometimes his feet. Sometimes he’d stop for a while, and I never knew what made him start back up again.” Moisture tried to well in my eyes, but I blinked it back. I hadn’t cried about my dad in months, and I didn’t want to start now. But talking about what he’d done, putting words to it, made my chest ache in an unfamiliar way. I was used to keeping it all inside, hiding it. “I guess that was one of the worst parts. I never knew why.”
“He hit you?” Cole’s voice was a low growl, so full of protective anger it made a shi
ver run up my spine.
I finally wrenched my gaze away from the wall to face the blue-eyed boy beside me. His breathing had picked up, and his entire body had seemed to grow larger, barely contained by the fabric of his Oak Park uniform. He was staring down at me like he’d never seen me before in his life, like I had just snapped my fingers and inverted all the colors of the world.
Then he moved so fast I barely tracked the motion, pressing off the wall and pivoting toward me so we were face-to-face, our bodies almost touching. His palms landed on the white-painted wall on either side of my head, and I had a sudden memory of the day he’d trapped me in the locker room downstairs.
Just like that day, his eyes blazed and his body shook with barely suppressed anger.
Just like that day, his ginger and pine scent surrounded me, creeping into my nostrils like a drug.
But unlike that day, none of his anger was directed at me.
The muscles in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth, and when he repeated his question, his voice was like sandpaper.
“He. Hit. You?”
I nodded, my gaze trapped by the ice-blue of his. When he lifted one hand away from the wall to run his fingertips down the side of my face, I grabbed a fistful of his blazer, like I was falling off a cliff and that would save me.
“I know, Cole,” I whispered. “I know what it’s like. I know.”
Maybe it was stupid. I was giving away another piece of myself that the Princes could use against me if they turned on me. Handing over a piece of my heart for him to crush under his boot if he chose.
But in that moment, I didn’t care. In that moment, it was more important to me to make sure Cole knew he wasn’t alone than to hide behind the barriers I’d erected around myself.
His nostrils flared as he breathed hard and fast like a wounded animal in a cage.
Then he pressed his body against mine, pinning me to the wall—
And kissed me.
My hand flattened against his chest, and his heart crashed against my palm as his mouth moved against mine.
It was fierce, protective, and possessive, and like everything he did, there was a harsh roughness to it, reminding me once again how infused with violence this boy was.
But this violence wasn’t dangerous. It wouldn’t hurt me.
It would just consume me.
I gasped into his mouth, trying to catch my breath as he kissed me like the ocean buffeting a rocky shore over and over again. Slick wetness gathered in my core, and I wrapped my free arm around his back, trying to bring us closer together, to put out the fire burning inside me.
This wasn’t what I’d come up here for.
But maybe it was what we had both needed.
I could feel his hips pressing against me, the hardness growing there, and I made a plaintive noise that he swallowed up with his next kiss.
He rocked against me, an answering sound rumbling in his chest, even as his desperate kisses slowed and deepened. His tongue swept through my mouth, and his large hands clasped the sides of my face as he finally stepped back, tugging me away from the wall.
