These Thorn Kisses (St. Mary’s Rebels 3)

Of course my threats don’t scare him.

Of course he ignores them like they don’t matter. And why wouldn’t he?

Nothing I do matters to him. Nothing I do makes a difference.

Nothing I do will ever make a difference, will ever make him see that I’m more than a teenager.

That I’m more.

And I was stupid, so stupid to think that he came here because he missed me.

“I’ve been very patient with you,” I tell him, my hands still up and my feet still moving back. “Extremely patient. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Because you’ll never look at me as anything but a teenager who needs parental supervision.”

In an epic role reversal, he’s the one still moving closer to me as he says, “You are a fucking teenager.”

His words pierce my skin, my heart as I say, “I know. I know I am, and what a huge crime it is that I am, isn’t it? What a huge fucking crime it is that I’m eighteen.” I throw my hands up and let out a broken laugh. “And if I could do something about it, if I could do something about my age, I would. Trust me, I would. I would make myself whatever age you think is appropriate for you. Because I’ve done everything else. Everything else. To make you see that I’m more than just a teenager. I mean, I’ve done everything that you’ve asked for. I stand there every morning, doing your bidding, reading my letters out loud to you to show you that I’m more. And all you do is punish me for it. And you don’t even deign to kiss me. And you won’t, will you? I realize that now. Because you’re prejudiced and judgmental and an epic asshole. You’re an ageist. That’s what you are and I hate you. So you need to leave or I’m going to throw such a teenage tantrum the likes of which you’ve never seen in your entire thirty-three years of life, Coach Thorne.”

With that I spin around, ready to leave.

Ready to go up to my room and cry.

And cry and cry.

Because I don’t think I’m going to stop any time soon.

Crying.

For myself. For my age. For the fact that I’m in love with an asshole who will never see me as anything but a teenager. And I…

My thoughts seize up then.

Because I feel him at my back. I feel his heat, sudden and jarring, his breaths, and then I feel his grip.

I feel his fingers grabbing hold of my bicep and then I feel them squeezing my flesh, putting pressure on it until he spins me back around, pulling me toward him. And I go crashing into his chest.

And then I both hear and feel him growl, “Stop fucking walking away from me.”

I’m ready to push him away like I was ready to leave and cry.

I am.

I even plant my palms on his wildly breathing chest so I can shove him away.

But at the last second, like a fool, like a fucking fool, I look up and blurt out, “If I was older,” I ask and lick my lips. “Would you kiss me then?”

His eyes are sweeping over my features with the same urgency again. Although this time I think his urgency has a different flavor.

A different edge.

This time his urgency is laced with a strange desperation.

“No,” he whispers, shaking his head slowly.

So now is the time then.

Now is the time to push him away since I have my answer.

But for some reason I can’t look away from that desperation in his glinting eyes. “Not even if I was nineteen?”

His fingers on my bicep flex. “No.”

“Twenty?”

“No.”

I should stop now.

I should.

Every no is such a knife to my heart. Every no makes me bleed. Every no pricks me like a thorn.

And yet, like a pathetic masochist, I keep going. “Twenty-one?”

“No.”

I finally gather the self-preservation to push him away but by then I’m already trapped.

By then, his other hand is in my hair and the one that was grabbing my bicep has grabbed onto my face.

And he’s dug his fingers into my body.

He’s dug his stinging, scrape-y, perfect fingers into my hair and my cheek and that desperation has leached into his voice as he says, “The other day you told me something. You told me that if I went looking for you across campus, you’d be easy to find. But you lied, didn’t you? Because when you didn’t show up this morning, to stand there and do my bidding and read those rosy pink letters of yours, I went looking for you. I looked for you in the hallways, in the cafeteria, in the library. I looked for you in every classroom. I searched every inch of those snow-covered grounds. But you weren’t there. You were here. You were on your useless goddamn campus tour.”