“What the fuck, man? She was falling. I grabbed her. End of story.” He looks down at me with warm brown eyes. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Satisfied, he releases me and shoots a look at Lachlan before he heads into the gym.
“What the hell, Lachlan?” I fume. “I bumped into him and started to fall. He was helping me, that’s it.”
Anger simmers in my veins, because I hate his furious look.
“You can’t stop people from touching me,” I continue when he says nothing.
His nostrils flare but then the fight goes out of him. A breath whooshes out of him. Running his fingers through his hair, he turns his eyes to me, looking a bit ashamed, which he should be.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m an asshole. I think…” he looks away for a moment before centering his gaze on me once more. “I think it pissed me off seeing him touching you so freely, openly when I can’t do the same. Not without a guilty conscience.” His hand raises like he wants to touch my cheek, but he quickly drops it, clenching his jaw.
Tears sting my eyes. “I-I know this is complicated. But I’m eighteen. I’m an adult, Lachlan. I’ll be nineteen in a couple of weeks. I’ll graduate in June … it’ll be fine.”
He blinks at me.
“R-Right?” I say in a small voice.
He looks so pained, and it fucking
kills me that I’m the source of it. “I don’t know, Dani.”
“W-What’s there not to know?”
His hands come up, caging me against the wall with one on each side of me. “Everything.”
“Huh?”
His lips brush dangerously close to my ear and I shiver from the sensation crawling up my spine. “When it comes to you, I don’t know anything anymore, and I’m definitely questioning what kind of man I am.”
“Lachlan—”
He steps back. “Because from where I’m standing, I’m the worst kind out there. Taking something that shouldn’t belong to me.”
He walks away, disappearing into the gym, and I stand there lost, having to regain my breath.
I want to tell him he’s being crazy. He didn’t steal anything. I gave him everything.
My trust.
My heart.
My virginity.
My love.
All of me.
I gave it freely. He’s not a thief.
He’s not.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
My birthday falls on a Wednesday, which means I have to spend it at school.