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“Why would I be upset?” I demanded, my voice trembling. “What in the hell is there to be upset about?”
River carved a hand through his hair. “I accepted Alabama. Officially.” He sounded as if he were passing on his own death sentence. “You can’t… I mean…”
The last of my hope trickled out.
“Come with you?” I asked, my voice sounding frail and pathetic. “Who the fuck said I wanted to? I told you I’d never ask you for anything. Ever.”
We told you, the voices said, rising up again. We told you we told you we told you…
“Holden…” River sounded agonized. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what? I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
What else am I supposed to do?
He started to speak but I cut him off. “The longer we stay in here, the greater the chance Evelyn Gonzalez is going to pop in, and the next thing you know, we’re on TMZ.”
“Holden—”
“So we’d better make this quick. Before we run out of time.”
I rushed at him and kissed him. I met a brick wall, and then River’s stiff lips relented with a frustrated growl. He let me in, kissing me back. Roughly. Desperately. We grasped and grappled, waging an invisible war. Lust and pain mingled as we crashed ourselves together while circumstance ripped us apart.
It doesn’t have to. He can change everything with one word.
But River was trapped in an impossible situation, and as much as it fucking killed me, it wasn’t up to me if he changed its course.
I knew that rationally, but the pain howled inside me anyway. Like a storm gathering power with every passing second, transforming into reckless, manic energy that churned like a tornado to keep the cold away. My kisses turned brutal. Biting. My hand slid lower over his shirt, down, coaxing his cock to an erection that strained against his jeans, just because I knew I could.
River groaned and brushed my hand away, even as he hauled me closer, clutching at me as if he didn’t want to let go.
But he will.
I untucked his shirt so I could get my hand inside the waistband of his jeans, to grip him and torture him. Punish him.
He caught my wrist.
“Holden…”
His words turned into a hiss of pain as I bit down into the hard rope of muscle between his neck and shoulder. He cursed and shoved me back.
“What the hell…?” He put his fingers to the indentation I’d left with my teeth and glared at me in a mix of hurt and disbelief.
I stared back, breathing hard, a mirthless smile curling my lips. They whispered behind my back that I was a vampire and now I’d marked River as mine. Except the bruise on his neck would eventually fade and no one would know I’d been there.
River’s anger melted and he moved toward me. “Holden…”
I stepped out of reach. “We’ve been here too long. It’s time to go.”
Without waiting for a response, I turned and walked out into the too-bright sun. Violet McNamara was walking toward us and froze, the phone going slack in her hand to see me with River following after.
Good, I thought cruelly. Let him deal with his fucking pretend bullshit life.
I smiled smugly and tipped an imaginary hat at her. “Lady Violet.”
I heard her and River’s low voices as I walked away but drove every thought out of my head except how to get my hands on some liquor as fast as humanly possible. The cold was closing in, and no college application, no sleepy town, no fruitless feelings for River Whitmore were going to keep it away. It was my constant.
Stupid to ever hope otherwise.
