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And she blinks with the realization that he’s manipulating her all too fucking well.
“I told you what’s different.” Her voice is small, a vulnerability that has her clutching her water bottle with both hands, so tight that the lid should pop off and hit her in the damn eye. She looks down between them, the small bit of worn-down asphalt between the toes of their shoes. “It happens now, or at the end of summer. Now… I guess now is easier.”
His finger leaves the dip at the bottom of her throat and brushes around her shoulder. He grips the back of her neck and, with a squeeze, forces her head back, forces their faces to align. “You underestimate us. Do you think we are children again? That when I leave this town, we simply end until I return one summer years from now? Life isn’t a game anymore, Billie.”
“It was never a game…” Her trembling whisper matches her eyes that flicker to his, then away, then back, then away, like she can’t muster enough strength to challenge him in a mere stare.
His hand on the back of her neck tightens a tad more, enough that she bites back a hiss of pain. “Then stop playing us.”
Billie’s jaw clenches. It clenches so tight that, biting down on her back teeth, aches start to spring. “I can’t do this anymore. It’s over.”
He steps that one last distance between them, pressing her back harder against the door of the truck, bending her spine with the curve and his body coming to rest against hers. She’s pinned in place. And he doesn’t let go.
Dipping his head, he brushes his soft lips over hers. “Say that again,” he whispers, and she tastes the mint on his breath from those fancy mints he likes, combined with the hint of rich-people coffee and a hunger that twists her heart in her chest.
The moment she feels the pain rinsing at her heart, her eyes are quick to flood and spill stray tears. She shuts them, as though that’ll hide them from Preston somehow.
His mouth is warm on hers, but refreshing—always refreshing. Plump lips push against her own, slowly parting… Hers part with them.
The kiss is hard, deep. The moment her resolve shatters, he’s on her, his body pressing her back against the truck door, his hands on her cheeks, like if he holds her in place she can’t ever go—
With a mixed sound, something between a moan and a grunt, she shoves at him. Her hands smack into his chest with enough force to push him back a step.
She lifts her chin.
Wet lashes fringe her vision of him, the sun shining just for him on this barren parking lot, and her insides twist wretchedly.
All she wants is to throw herself at him, be swept up in his arms, the safest place from the outside world. To have him shove her up against the truck, hike her leg over his hip and fuck her right here, out in the open parking lot.
She wants his mouth, his body, his love—and his desperation.
But she can’t have it. And he just doesn’t understand why.
Touching her fingertips to her swollen mouth, her shaky voice manages, “It’s over.”
And she pushes from the truck door—
Makes it just one step before he grabs her elbow and yanks her to the side.
His long, thick eyelashes cast dark spidery shadows down his soft beige face, his cheekbones catching the sunlight in a way that makes them look like just-sharpened knives. Three stray curls brush over his forehead, and his mouth swollen from his attack.
His beauty is enough to punch the air from her lungs.
She swallows, hard. “I mean it,” she says, and her voice quivers, not with fear of him, but fear of her own weakness, her own heartbreak. She doesn’t want this. If he would stay here in Dosserport, she would be with him forever.
“I’m sorry,” she adds and tugs her arm free.
He lets her.
His hand drops to his side.
“I’ll always love you, you know.” She smiles something tight and grim at him. “I’ll hate you too, but … you’re always gonna be that one.”
His face shutters for just a second before it hardens all over again.
First time she’s ever said it.I love you.
They just… don’tsayit to each other. But they have it, all the same. They have love for each other strong enough to match the hate.
