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“I’m a nice guy.” He sort of scoffs after saying it, like that’s a demeaning characteristic.
“Nicest thing a guy has ever done for me,” I admit, watching him wipe the excess shaving cream off his face with a bee-patterned towel and rinse the razor.
“I’d say you must be hanging around the wrong guys…but you’re from Alleghany. So it seems implied.”
I shouldn’t smile at that, but I do.
“Holy shit.” He turns off the faucet and reaches out, his thumb running across my lower lip. “Was that a smile?”
“Had nothing to do with you,” I lie.
“Uh-huh.” He doesn’t move away, and neither do I.
We’re close. Way too close.
I can hear commotion downstairs and outside. But it suddenly feels like the world outside the white tiles and cheerful towels of this bathroom don’t exist.
Liam takes another step closer, caging me between the marble counter and the heat of his body. My lungs struggle to pull in air and my heart races.
Fuck, I think.This is bad.
He tilts my chin up, studying whatever expression I’m wearing. I’d guess it’s some mixture of yearning for him and disappointment in myself. What I want and what I should want are two conflicting desires right now. He’sLiam Stevens.
“How much do you hate me right now, Natalie?”
“Lots.”
“I think you’re lying.”
“You’re the one who was hard last night.” I lean closer. “I barely eventouchedyou. Imagine if—”
He kisses me first.
But I respond instantly, my body primed to react to his. We make out like we’re waging war with our mouths. Heated and hurried. Rushed and desperate.
It’s a stolen moment. A pause in reality. And it ends before it really begins.
A split second after Liam lifts me onto the edge of the counter, his name is called.
“Liam!” Parker shouts. “What happened to you?”
Liam’s hands tighten on my hips. But his mouth moves away, far enough I can focus on his face.
“Liam!”
“Yeah. Be right there!” he calls back.
I try to move, but I can’t shift very far until he steps away.
“We can’t do this, Natalie. You and me. Nothing can happen. Iwantit to—but itcan’t.” His voice is low and rough, like tires crunching gravel.
“If nothing can happen, then you shouldstop kissing me, Liam,” I snap.
He exhales. “Yeah. You’re right. Nothing anyone will ever know about, though?”
All traces of lust are gone. Liam studies me like a scolding authority figure with a total handle on the situation. In complete control and expecting obedience. A captain controlling a cadet.
I want to shake his steely confidence. “I don’t date guys from Glenmont, and I go for football players who actually win, so suffice to say you’re not really my type.” I smile, the sweet, fake one that belongs to the bitchy Prom Queen. “No offense, of course.”
