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Crouching down behind her, I gently rest my hand on her shoulder. The second I touch her, she spins with a growl, her face a mask of terror as she goes to punch me.
I grab her fist. “It’s okay. It's me. I'm not gonna hurt you.”
She blinks, pulling in a shaky breath before slumping back down against her bag. The dim light makes it hard to see her features clearly, but I can sense her relief. I can feel the tension passing between us.
Pain courses through me, overriding the heady relief when she murmurs, “I’m sure you want to, though.”
I shake my head, my voice coming out in a husky whisper. “No matter how pissed I get, I would never do that to you. I would never hit you or hurt you or…” My voice dries up as I relive that kick of ugly black emotion that tore through me when I saw that pervert van drive past my window.
“I know.” Her voice breaks and she sniffs, pressing the back of her hand under her nose before sitting up. “What are you doing here?”
“Baxter saw you. As soon as I heard where you were, I had to come.”
She nods.
“I saw the pervert van, and I thought—” I shake my head, balling my fingers into a fist and clenching my jaw as depraved images run through my mind, torturing me.
She lets out a soft sigh, her little fingers brushing over my knuckles. “They pulled in just after I arrived. Thankfully, they didn’t see me, and I managed to sneak around the building. For a second, I thought you were one of them.”
That look of panic washes over her face again, and I have to touch her. Cupping her cheek, I graze my thumb across her lip, my voice husky and pained when I ask, “What are you doing out here, Mick?”
She tips her head and shrugs. “What do you think?”
She left the house again. Walked out the door because of a fight with the sorority sisters.
Was it a fight about me?
Something stirs in my chest, and I drop my hand from her face, not sure I’m ready to forgive her so quickly. But my mixed emotions are going into battle. The logic that she played me wars with the hope that maybe she hadn’t meant to.
But do I really want to go down that path?
I never wanted romance at college anyway. This is my perfect out.
As I gaze at her face, my insides begin to crumple, and it’s only made worse when she sniffs and lets out this shaky laugh that does nothing to hide her vulnerability.
“At least I'm not camped outside the hockey arena, right?”
I huff out a laugh and stand up, reaching for her hand. “Come on. Let's go.”
“Where?”
Grabbing her fingers, I haul her to her feet. “You're not spending the night out here. You're coming back to my place.”
“But you don’t want me there.” She pulls out of my grasp and backs up against the building.
I let out a heavy sigh and snatch her bag off the ground. “I don’t want you out here, so let’s go.”
CHAPTER41
MIKAYLA
Liam’s waiting behind the wheel, spying me through the glass as Ethan pulls me over to his truck and opens the back door for me.
I give him a skeptical frown.
“Just get in,” he murmurs.
He’s still mad. He’s trying to hide it, but he can’t. And I’m not sure if I want to spend the night at his house.
