Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
“Go on.”
“I pass. I get to take you on one date. And I get three kisses.”
“One.”
“Two.”
“One and a half.”
“Tongue.”
I shrugged.
“Deal.” He nodded. “But the catchy part is you have to kiss me the way you did in the library. You have to come at me. I’ll even keep my hands to myself. And the date has to be my choice for you.”
I crossed my arms. “This feels like a trick, either that or severe pity with a heavy dose of guilt on your end.”
He leaned in and thumbed my lower lip, then tapped my nose with that same thumb. “So what if it’s all of the above? Maybe I just don’t want you to feel forgotten, or maybe”—he started to back away—“I just trust too heavily in my ability to make any girl fall at my feet, bet or no bet.”
“And there it is.” I actually laughed. “Won’t be happening, Vaughan. I’m not getting on my knees for you.”
He frowned. “Tru, when have I ever wanted you on your knees when you deserve nothing more than to be worshipped in my arms?”
My heart literally skipped.
I had nothing.
No funny comeback, no words. I just stared and tried to get my heart under control. Why was it racing? I wanted to remind my brain and body what he did to us, how he broke us.
Instead, I felt like I was getting reminded why he cured me.
He backed away more and held up his cell. “Be ready for my text.”
“And if you don’t get an A on each test?” I countered. “What then?”
He shrugged. “I’m a fighter. I guess I lose out on sex, two kisses—and a date, but at least I tried. Besides, I’m doing this for you.”
My eyebrows shot up my head. “You’re doing this so you can possibly get drafted and graduate without your dad up your ass.”
“He’ll always be up my ass. No matter what I do, Tru, you know that as much as I do. So who else would I be doing this for than my favorite tutor…hey, where are we at with the librarian costume?”
“I don’t like it when you’re cute, Vaughan. I mean it. Cut the shit.” I turned around just as he called out behind me.
“You think I’m cute?”
I smiled the entire way to my class and told myself it was because it was a nice day.
It was sunny.
And he was an idiot.
And I was going to lose.
It wasn’t because part of my heart healed a bit.
It wasn’t because he sought me out.
Or that he was trying to make it right, which people rarely did.
It was the weather.
And just to be sure—I did an internet search about smiling and the weather because I needed to make sure it wasn’t that I was falling for my enemy again.
For the one guy capable of breaking me in half a second time.
Four hours later, my phone buzzed just as I was walking in the front door of the house.
The lights were off, which they rarely were since the guys were always in the kitchen eating or watching TV in the living room.
I went to flick them on when a hand shot out and grabbed my wrist and turned me in their arms. His mouth was on mine before I could protest.
It wasn’t a deep kiss.
It was a tease.
It was debilitating in the quickness, the soft press of his lips.
The innocence of it all.
“Number one,” he whispered.
And left me in the dark with my lips buzzing, heart pounding, and brain screaming, Not again, don’t do it again.
Don’t fall.
But I knew as I took the stairs.
I was already halfway there, and all he’d done was acknowledged me as a human.
How sad.
CHAPTER 27
TRU
Then
I loved him, and while he hadn’t said it back, I saw it in his eyes and in the way he looked at me. I shook the dark thoughts away and looked at myself in the mirror. It was the last party of the Hamptons season before everyone went back to the city, and I started college.
It was everything.
And it finally felt like things were falling into place. Even Sandra was being nice, which was weird on one end; on the other, I really didn’t know her well enough to gauge any reaction except that time on the beach she’d suddenly been falling all over herself to help me.
It was nice.
Really nice.
I still had my guard up, but it was good to have her involved in things, nobody usually cared about my day, and while her husband was always reading on his phone, she at least acknowledged I was present at breakfast.
My hopes weren’t up, but my pessimism had started to dissipate. I never realized how dark things had truly gotten until I was given a few sips of water from the river of common human decency and drank like I’d been thirsty for years.