I step between her legs and gently wonder, “So what was so special about Toby?” She doesn’t lean away from me, but she doesn’t lean into me either, even when I reach down to clutch her dog tags. “Look, it’s not that I’m salty or mad. I get people having a past, it’s not about that. I just really fucking need to know why you tried for him, but not for me.”

Her face puckers up angrily. “Fuck you, Sebastian. I am trying. No one here has touched me as much as you.”

“Every time I ask, you shut me down,” I point out, fighting the urge to just take. “And that was fine—I was okay with waiting. Only now I know there’s a fucking Toby, and you apparently told him yes, so I’m just wondering.” I don’t know what she sees in my eyes—frustration, need, more patience than I probably possess—but it deflates that tight, bristling anger in her posture.

“It wasn’t always like this, okay?” She looks away, eyes troubled. “It’s always been bad, but lately, it’s just… worse. There was a time I could handle being touched. I didn’t like it, but I could push through it. And then…” But she trails off, leaving it hanging.

I already know it’s useless to ask, but I try anyway. “What happened?”

To my surprise, she meets my gaze, and there’s steel there. There’s bitterness, too. “I met some asshole.”

Fuck, I don’t want to voice it. I don’t want to even think about it. Part of me is scared of my own goddamn head, like what if knowing sends me off the edge of something that’s too hard to pull back from? I don’t back down from facing it, though. That’s not how I’m wired. “Did he do… things to you.”

She looks so taken aback that her face twists in a way that might be comical if I weren’t basically asking if she’s been raped. Then, she barks a quick, incredulous laugh. “Jesus, no. He just punched me in the fucking face.”

Now it’s my turn to be taken aback. “Wait—what?”

“I don’t know why,” she says, eyes dropping to my hands. “Just after that night, it’s been un-fucking-bearable. It’s not like you mauled me. And it hurt—of course it hurt—but it wasn’t so bad. It just made it all worse.”

I let go of the chain, stepping back. “This is my fault?”

“No,” she says. “Not really? It’s like I said, it was already bad. You just—”

“Made it worse,” I finish dully, turning to stare out over the lake. Like it wasn’t already bad enough that I hit her, now I bear the blame for this, too. Pretty fitting, I guess. I’ve always been good at fucking things up—making things worse—before even realizing that I want them.

Her voice is gentle when she says, “I know you didn’t mean to.”

“That doesn’t exactly help you, does it?” I give her a tight smile, but inside my head, there’s all this shit brewing. Because I couldn’t leave it alone before, but now that I know that I’m at least partly to blame? Fuck. “Let me try.”

“I can’t.”

“I’ll be so fucking careful, Sugar. If it’s bad, I’ll back off. I’ll—” When she shakes her head, I plead, “At least think about it?”

“Think about it?” She lurches up from the car, eyes wild. “You would not fucking believe how much I think about it! It’s all I’ve thought about for weeks! I’ve tried before, Sebastian. It never ends well.”

Determined, I argue, “You’ve never tried with me. Maybe I’m different. Maybe that’s why I can kiss you and touch your hair. If I made it worse, then it’s fluid. Maybe I can make it better, too.”

Softly, she says, “You can’t fix me.”

“Not if you don’t let me try.”

“Jesus Christ,” she mutters, burying her face in her palms. “You’re like a fucking dog with a bone.” Her hands fall, slapping loudly against her thighs, and she’s got this look on her face. Like she just tasted something bad but she’s about to go in for another bite. “You know what? Fine.”

18

Sugar

“Fine.”

His jaw, which has been tight with frustration, eases as he asks, “What? Really?”

“Yes, really,” I agree, holding my arms out wide, smile tight. “Let’s do this. Where do you want it? Up my shirt?”

He looks taken aback. “I was just thinking like… little touches, on the reg. It doesn’t have to be one big thing.”

Jesus, the thought is horrifying. Not that Sebastian wants to touch me regularly, but that I’d have to feel the repercussions of it so often. “You want a shot to prove yourself, then let’s go for it.”

He shuffles around for a second, and if it weren’t because he’s about to put his hands on me, it’d almost be cute—Sebastian looking all bashful and shifty, like a kid about to shoplift for the first time. “Uh. Okay.”

Tags: Angel Lawson Boys of Preston Prep Romance
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