A Gorgeous Villain (St. Mary's Rebels 2)

“Ask me how I know that,” he says when he reaches me, the predatory quality in his tone so thick that I can taste it.

“How?”

“Because you blush,” he rasps, watching me, his face dipped. “Now ask me why I do it. Why I talk dirty to you.”

I grab hold of the counter at my hips. “W-why?”

“So you can tell me not to and get all hot and bothered, while blushing like a daisy-fresh schoolgirl.”

I don’t know what to say to that.

I don’t know how to respond because my heart is right there, in the back of my mouth, beating and beating. And then, he decides to send it to the tip of my tongue.

Where it sits precariously, on the edge of a deep and deadly fall.

When he raises his hand, the hand that I’ve been so fascinated with, and runs a rough finger down my cheek.

I feel something swirling in my blood. Heat. So much of it.

A current, a pulse.

But more than that, I feel relief, because this is the moment when I also realize that along with letting his predatory side sleep, he also hasn’t touched me.

It’s been weeks, actually, since he’s touched me like this.

I mean he has touched me, of course. But it has mostly been out of necessity, protection, an arm around my waist to help me stand up after a bout of nausea or a hand on the small of my back to usher me inside the exam room.

But not like this. Not since that night in his Mustang back in October.

He’s been holding himself back.

It’s all clear as day. When I see the relief that I’ve been feeling on his face. In his loosened shoulders, his parted lips. In the way his eyes home in on my cheek.

And God, I have to tell him. I have to say it to him now.

So he’ll touch me more.

“I liked that,” he whispers, breaking my urgent thoughts.

“What?”

“When you laughed. This weekend. With Pest.”

His finger is on my parted lips now. “Oh.”

“Haven’t seen you laugh like that in a long time,” he murmurs, still watching his finger. “Back when you’d come over to the house. And you and Pest would be gabbing about something in her room and suddenly you’d burst out laughing.” He pauses and a muscle jumps out on his cheek. “I’d hear you and I’d stop whatever I was doing and I’d think…”

I don’t know how I manage to string words together but I do and I whisper, “You’d think what?”

He looks into my eyes, his finger tracing the curve of my lips. “She laughs like a fairy too.”

My stomach hollows out and I grab onto his wrist with both hands as I say, my body melting, “I forgive you.”

He, on the other hand, goes rigid. “What?”

That’s what I wanted to say to him. That’s what I’d decided this weekend.

That I’d tell him that.

And so I do, even though he’s gone all rigid, all unforgiving. “I-I forgive you. For everything.”

He studies my face with a gaze that has hardened, much like his body. “Everything.”

I was afraid before, to say it.

To actually say the words and make them real.

But I’m not afraid anymore.

I’m not afraid to tell him that I’ve forgiven him because it is the truth. It has been the truth for some time now. Even though he doesn’t look too happy about it. He doesn’t look like he wants to hear it.

I dig my nails into his wrist. “Yeah. I forgive you for breaking my heart two years ago. For lying to me. For using me. For breaking your promises to me and for choosing your vendetta against your dad over me. I forgive you for all that.”

This time his silence is much, much longer.

During which the muscle in his cheek beats like my own heart. It beats like it will rip out of his skin like my heart will rip out of my chest.

“Why?” he asks after a while, somehow with his finger still on my lip, still as tender as ever, so in contrast to his harsh demeanor.

“Because my heart doesn’t hurt anymore,” I whisper, staring into his pretty eyes. “Because ever since you broke it, my heart, two years ago, I’ve been in pain. I’ve been in so much pain, and that’s why I stole your car, to stop it. That’s why I asked you for closure the night when… when we had sex. For the last two years, all I’ve wanted was for the pain to stop. I just wanted my heart to stop hurting and it has. I don’t feel it anymore. The pain. It’s gone.”

“Why?” he asks again. “Why is it gone?”

I go up on my tiptoes to reach him because he looks so far away right now. “Because you took it away. You made it go away. I asked you to do it and you did.”