Текст книги "When We Met"

Автор книги: Christina Lee

Соавторы: Molly McAdams,A. L. Jackson,Tiffany King
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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

chapter ten

Misha

“Oh my gosh . . . stop!” I pled. Breathless giggles built up in my belly and rolled through my entire body before they spilled from my mouth.

My cries only encouraged Darryn. Hazel eyes gleamed with all that mischief, and his deft fingers made another assault on my sides, tickling my ribs. It might have hurt if being near him didn’t feel so good.

I flailed and kicked my legs, howling with laughter as I twisted and turned and tried to pull myself out of his reach.

Darryn only leaned in farther, pinning my back to the small table in the nook of his kitchen. “You asked for it.”

“You’re going to make me pee my pants,” I yelped, thinking that just might do the trick considering that our bodies were in a very compromised position, his overpowering mine as I struggled under him.

No such luck.

“Really?” he dared, leaning in a little farther, digging in a little deeper. “Come on, let’s see it, Misha.” His smell enveloped me like a big, huge hug. A hug that came with an overwhelming surge of desire. Because who could blame me?

This boy-man-god was mine.

He’d been mine for more than a month.

Was it wrong it’d been the single best month of my life?

Darryn pulled back a fraction, just enough to allow me to drag a gulping breath into my lungs. Even though he had me at his mercy, there was so much softness in his eyes, so much restraint in his hands, so much goodness in his heart, I knew he’d never hurt me. There was no mistaking it.

He pushed back and dragged the hem of my shirt up, exposing my stomach. His mouth went for my side, tickling me in a whole new way as he suckled at my skin.

I squealed, my hips doing their best to buck Darryn from me, but there was nothing I could do to stop him from leaving his mark.

He pulled back and glanced up at me with a smirk before he turned back to his handiwork. “Perfect,” he said, rubbing his thumb over the flaming skin that he’d exposed just above my hip.

I wondered if it could possibly be as red as my face.

So yeah, he was still a total punk. Arrogant and sly. But God help me if I didn’t like that about him, too.

He’d told me a month ago he just wanted to mean something to me.

Little did he know he was slowly becoming everything.

I sobered a little, reaching out to brush my fingers through the flop of hair that had fallen on his forehead. Slowly he helped me up to sitting, and he plopped down on a chair in front of where my legs dangled off the side of the table, wedging himself between my knees. He looked up at me, his expression so sweet it twisted something loose inside my heart. A smile pulled at his mouth, and he touched my chin, tilting it, quietly inspecting my face. “I love that blush,” he whispered, fluttering his fingers over it like he wished it were palpable, something tangible he could ball up in his hand and hide away.

I felt so exposed, yet so adored. “Do you know what I love?”

His eyes glimmered. “What?”

I ran my thumb across his bottom lip. “This mouth.” I leaned in and placed a kiss on it, so soft I hoped it spoke a thousand words that I wasn’t ready to say. Or maybe it was just three.

I love you.

It was there, screaming out from my heart. But even as I thought them, all those feelings of vulnerability came barreling in, warning me against feeling something so strong for someone I’d only been dating for a month. But I couldn’t stop my feelings or change them. I couldn’t help the way he made me feel. Couldn’t help that his arms were my favorite place. Couldn’t help that his mouth was my favorite flavor and his voice was my favorite song.

His tongue was all warm when he swept it against my mouth, and tingles spread through me like a wildfire. “Mm,” he moaned, “not as much as I love yours.”

I tilted my head and parted my lips, welcoming the rush of his heat as he took over my mouth, the way his tongue danced and played before he closed his mouth over my lips, before they opened again and the kiss only deepened.

With both hands, he palmed my breasts over my T-shirt, urging a moan from somewhere in the deepest part of my spirit, before his fingers hooked in my collar and pulled my shirt down to expose me.

I gasped.

Sure, I was wearing a bra. But that didn’t mean I didn’t feel laid bare.

I could feel the heat emanating from my chest, the burning red I knew was flaming on all that skin Darryn had just brought out into the light.

Darryn looked up at me, wetting his swollen lips with his tongue, hunger and hard-won restraint so vivid in his eyes. “Too much?” he asked as the worry floated into his strained voice, his question guarded as he let his hands wander over the lacy cups of my bra, so slowly, giving me time to react. Time to clamp my hands over his to stop him the way I usually did, when I’d beg him to be patient even though he’d never given me any reason to feel I needed to plea.

He always understood and never pushed me any further than where I wanted to go.

And I knew he probably thought me a blushing virgin, the reason for all these pesky layers of clothing we had to maintain.

Which really wasn’t all that far from the truth. Except for that one monstrous mistake I’d made. As much as I wanted it all swept up and tossed away like forgotten litter from my past, I knew he needed to know, and things couldn’t go much further between us before he did. How deceitful would that be? Me leading this man into thinking I was some kind of unsullied damsel. Pure and clean. What a joke.

Darryn ran his hands up my sides, all those little darts of energy injected directly into my skin.

Oh God.

Did I ever want him to touch me.

Every day Darryn made me trust him more. Showed me why it was okay to give in.

Today, for the first time, I didn’t stop his exploration. I welcomed his hands that touched and caressed. Hands that I thought maybe even loved. Even if it were over the constraints of a flimsy piece of fabric.

But just then, I heard the sound of the front door banging open, and I stiffened. My hands clapped over my chest to cover myself up as one of Darryn’s roommates walked into their house. He was still in the front room, but he was close enough to burst the bubble Darryn and I had been floating in.

Darryn groaned and dropped his head to my chest, the chest that he’d discreetly covered back up. “Maybe we should take this up to my room,” he mumbled.

“I . . . I—I’m s-s-sorry. I can’t go up there.” I fumbled over words I couldn’t seem to form, searching for an explanation for why I was such a freak. “I—I . . .”

It wasn’t like we hadn’t been alone in my room a hundred times.

But when Darryn pulled away, it was like he already understood what was holding me back from making my way up those steps. Anger darkened his eyes, just for a flash, before he raked a hand through his hair and sighed a heavy sound of surrender. “It’s fine, baby. You don’t have to explain anything to me. I get it.”

It left me unsettled, because I knew he really didn’t get it. He had no clue.

I shifted on the hard surface of the table, wanting to be brave and just tell him. Hating myself for being a coward and not saying anything.

But the truth was, I didn’t want to lose him.

Just the thought squeezed my heart.

I reached out and cupped his cheek, my voice soft. “Please be patient with me.”

He took my hand from his face and pressed it to his mouth. “I already told you I’d take whatever came with you being my girl. The only thing I hate is you being afraid of me. Because I promise, I’ll never hurt you.”

But it wasn’t Darryn I was afraid of facing.

I was afraid of facing the humiliation that had been born in that room. Hated that any moment I spent there with Darryn would be tainted by memories of Hunter.

Darryn pulled me to the edge of the table and wrapped his arms around my waist, his head resting just below my breasts. He looked up at me, the gold of his eyes prominent in the rays of sunlight slanting in through the window. “I just want you to trust me.”

I tickled my fingers down the back of his neck, and he released a raspy breath. And I did trust him.

I knew it now. Knew he was different from Hunter. Knew Darryn cared about me, maybe the way I cared about him.

I could feel him slipping deeper into me the way I felt myself falling further into him.

I wanted to show him how much he meant to me.

Tell him.

But would he feel the same about me when he knew?

I let him pull me ever closer, his hot body all pressed up to mine. Flames licked up the walls of my stomach, sending needy waves of heat through my body, a feeling I’d only ever experienced with Darryn.

Indy had definitely been right. Hunter didn’t have anything on Darryn.

Every part of me was begging for more of him.

His hand clutched my side like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting go. “Can’t get enough of you, Misha,” he whispered, his nose making a pass along the underside of my breast. Shock waves jolted through my system.

Soon I would give him all of me.

The truth. My heart. My body.

Because I knew Darryn would never make me a fool.

chapter eleven

Misha

The doorbell rang and I skipped to the door. I swung it open to Darryn. He rested his shoulder up on the doorjamb, this boy-man-god larger than life, the sun swallowing him up from behind in a halo of blazing light as he stood as a silhouette in my doorway.

My pulse stuttered.

Oh God.

So pretty.

Darryn stepped forward, bringing his face into focus. He was biting at his bottom lip with all that mischief playing in his eyes. Damn him. He knew exactly the effect he had on me.

Then everything about him softened, and he wound his fingers through my hair and brought his hand to the back of my neck. He tugged me forward to place a sweet kiss at the corner of my mouth. I shook a little as his nose slipped along the angle of my jaw. He breathed me in, and there was no mistaking the shudder that rolled down his spine.

I felt a little giddy, struck light-headed by this joy. Guess I liked that I had the same kind of effect on him, too.

“You ready to go, baby?” The words came out all low and rough.

Uh, yeah. I’d go anywhere with him.

I beamed up at him, picked my backpack up off the floor, and hoisted it farther on my shoulders. “Yep. All set. Let’s get this day over with. I have two exams and a presentation. I was ready for today to be over before it even started.”

Darryn chuckled as he tossed his arm over my shoulders, guiding me out of the house and closing the door behind us, leading us in the direction of campus. “You’re going to do great.” He glanced down at me. “Don’t think I’ve seen anyone study the way you do. You make all the rest of us look bad.”

“Pshh.” I waved him off, swaying a little into his side as we walked wound up in each other. “My classes are just rough. If I didn’t study this much, I’d for sure fail, and the last thing I want is to have to take any of these classes over again. No, thank you.”

He kissed my temple. “Smart girl.”

I grinned up at him. “I like to think so.” I attempted a wink, but I was pretty sure it was one long blink.

Darryn howled, his laughter so thick I felt it seeping into my chest. “You are too much, Misha Crosse. You know that?”

We walked like this most days, stealing a few moments close together before we both had to go our separate ways to our different classes. We grabbed just a few minutes together, laughing and goofing around. It was the perfect way to start the day, with his face one of the first things I saw every morning, before he tucked me to his side and walked us toward campus, like I was a piece of him and he was a part of me.

I exhaled in contentment, and Darryn pulled me closer. I felt no hesitation snuggling farther into him. It was beginning to get colder, the fall air turning crisp, the leaves beginning to change. I lifted my face to the cool breeze and just relished the turn of the season, and this turn in my life.

I’d been so fearful about coming back to school. And look at the way things had turned out. What if I’d refused Indy’s invitation and instead stayed in the suffocating safety of my parents’ house, attending a community college, giving up my kids, my goals for the future?

Losing all that would be awful. But the most horrifying part of it all would be the fact that I would never have met this man had I not stepped out and been brave.

I made the decision right then and there, that was what I finally needed to be.

Brave.

Darryn seemed to sense my inner turmoil, and he somehow managed to pull me even tighter to his body. “What are you thinking about?”

I chanced peeking up at him. Nerves tumbled through my stomach, a chaotic scramble of fear and insecurities and hope. I smiled, and it felt almost forced. “Just thinking about you,” I said.

He chuckled, and he buried his face in my neck, leaving a little trail of fire where he nibbled his lips along my skin. “You better be thinking of me, since I can’t think of anything else but you.” He squeezed my side. “What do you say we make it a date night? Go grab a bite to eat and maybe catch a movie or something?”

“Yeah, that would be great.” I chewed at my lip, and the rush of redness I felt blossom on my face had nothing to do with the shyness that had plagued me my whole life, but instead was the stark evidence of the true worry I felt at finally telling Darryn. “I actually have been needing to talk to you about something,” I confessed quietly.

He frowned and slowed, stopping fully to turn and face me. His head canted to the side as he studied my expression. “I don’t think I like the sound of that, Misha. You aren’t letting me take you to dinner with the intention of breaking my heart, are you?” He said it causally, playfully, but I didn’t miss the undertone of fear that laced his words. His own insecurities were evident in the unease that sparked in his eyes.

I loved all of Darryn’s confidence, craved it almost, after all the years I’d lacked it myself. But the truth was, I liked the vulnerability he was now wearing, too. It made him seem real. Genuine. This boy-man-god, in all his glory, the one who stole my breath just as easily as he’d stolen my heart, was not just a figment of my overactive imagination.

“I couldn’t possibly break your heart,” I whispered, averting my gaze to pluck a piece of fuzz from his shirt.

It was my heart on the line.

With caution, I peered up at him, feeling so shy and exposed. But I had to finally lay it all out. Trust him so he could trust me.

Was I really ready for this? To lay myself bare? At his feet?

Would he trample all over my heart when he knew?

Was it worth the chance?

“You just need to know something about me before we go any further.”

His expression turned unreadable, but I felt every single one of the muscles in his body fire, rigid as they flexed, tension winding him tight.

For a moment, I thought he was . . . angry?

Darryn softened, and he lifted his hands, touched my face so softly. Still it scorched me through. “Nothing you can tell me will change the way I feel about you,” he promised, locking our gazes. My breaths turned ragged as he backed me up against the wall of the lecture hall building.

His promise infiltrated my spirit, and I swallowed hard, nodding before I lifted myself to my toes and pressed my mouth to his. It was meant to be innocent, sweet, but Darryn deepened it, swiping his tongue across the seam of my mouth. On a gasp, I opened, then melted as he pinned me to the wall with that glorious body. His tongue skimmed and danced and played against mine with an intensity that I wasn’t close to expecting.

Darryn, the one who’d saved something inside me.

And I felt it pumping, full of life, full of hope, my heart so full I thought it would burst right in my chest.

He pulled back, fisted his hands in my jacket collar, and jerked me toward him. His voice was fierce at my face. “Nothing,” he promised again.

Then he turned and left me standing there, panting, as I watched him disappear in the hustle of students emerging from another class.

Thankfully I had the support of the wall to keep me from dropping to my knees.

Dear. Lord.

I bit at my lip, fighting against the satisfied smile.

“You got some of that for me?”

The voice barely cut into my senses, and I blinked, wondering if it had really been intended for me, but something inside me was sure it had. I turned my head toward the sound of it, and a guy I’d never seen before stood ten feet away, looking directly at me.

“Should have known better than to have bet against Hunter, but something about you looking all innocent in the picture he had of you had me laying down my money in your favor.”

Hunter.

The mention of his name punched me in the gut. I clutched my stomach, bent at the middle. My heart careened to a stop, tightening in my chest in a ball and making it impossible to breathe. I tried to, but I couldn’t get anything down as the air got locked in my throat. I felt light-headed. Sick.

So long. It’d been so long and no one had said a word. I guess I had started to believe no one ever would.

I struggled to draw a breath into my lungs. But the air was gone as the realization of what this stranger was implying seeped into my consciousness.

“You owe me,” he said, like he had the right to even speak to me, and he took a step forward. Confidence dripped from him, that sickening kind that made people choke on it, it was so overbearing and wrong. “Why don’t you come back to my place and I can show you exactly how you can make it up to me?”

Horrified, I felt my mouth drop open in the same second that tears sprang to my eyes, so heavy they blurred my vision of the guy leering at me like I was a nothing, just a plaything to be used up and tossed aside.

Just like Hunter had made me out to be.

Finally something broke, and air raked into my lungs, and I struggled to speak. “D-d-don’t t-t-talk t-t-t-o me. . . .”

He laughed at my expense. “Don’t worry, baby, talking is definitely not what I have in mind.”

I had to get out of here. Escape.

I squeezed my eyes closed, wishing I could disappear, and instead forced my feet to work. I stumbled as I pushed from the wall, an overbearing weight crushing my shoulders.

It hurt. Oh my God, it hurt.

Frantic, I tore through a group of people standing in my way, desperate to keep myself together until I made it home.

“Hey, watch it.”

I didn’t even respond, just propelled myself forward, through the outer campus halls and out onto the street. I ran as fast as my feet could take me, my eyes blinded by tears and my heart broken by shame.

I flew into the house and upstairs. Slamming my door shut behind me, I threw myself on the bed. I buried my face in my pillow.

And I completely fell apart.

chapter twelve

Misha

“Baby, what’s wrong?”

Darryn rushed to my bed when I lifted my face. I’d been crying for so long my eyes hurt, my entire face puffy and sore and burning.

I didn’t want him to see me like this. “Just go,” I mumbled into my pillow as I turned in the other direction.

This afternoon, he’d texted me what seemed a hundred times, first to solidify our date plans, then with progressive worry when I didn’t return any of his messages.

But how could I face him? Tell him?

All that confidence I’d felt this morning was long forgotten. It had only been a fantasy. Because I’d seen the results of what Hunter had done, had seen it in the way that guy had looked at me back in the hall, as if I meant nothing and I could be used up any way he deemed fit.

How could Darryn see me any differently?

Darryn’s footsteps treaded tentatively across the room, and I could almost feel the force of his breaths as he heaved them from his lungs and out into the darkness of my room. I pressed my face deeper into my pillow, silently begging it to swallow me up.

I couldn’t do this.

The bed dipped with Darryn’s weight, and he placed a soothing hand on my back.

I shivered, wishing I had the strength to push him away. But all the comfort of his touch slipped along my skin, penetrating deep. I squeezed my eyes shut and choked over a sob brought on by the kindness in Darryn’s gesture.

He rubbed me up and down, all these soft little sounds tumbling from his lips. “Shh . . . baby . . . shh . . . it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

I thought I’d cried enough today that I’d used up all my tears. But no. Darryn showing up here only brought a new onslaught of them, these hot, fat tears that poured from my aching eyes, because God, this hurt so bad, Darryn here, making all these promises that seemed so impossible.

Not after today.

“Tell me what happened,” he murmured in encouragement near my ear. His breath felt cold against my skin where it met with the endless streams of fiery tears flooding down my face. He leaned in closer, sweeping his mouth across the wetness, gathering my tears up with his lips.

I shuddered.

Oh God.

I couldn’t handle this, but I wanted it all the same. Wanted him to take care of me. To make it better.

My avenging angel.

Sent to rescue me from all the wrongs of this world.

He kissed me on my neck, his voice so sure as he released it against the shell of my ear. “I’m here now, baby. Nothing can hurt you. I’ve got you.”

Grief shook my chest.

Darryn slowly rolled me onto my back, and I stared up at him staring down at me. He watched me with all his compassion.

My voice was hoarse. “It h-h-hurts,” I tried to get out, my mouth so dry as I forced the admission from my tongue.

It hurts.

For a flash, the hazel of his eyes pulsed with aggression, an imprisoned rage. But his expression was contrary to what flamed in his eyes. The lines edging the set of his grim mouth promised me it didn’t matter. That like he’d promised me earlier, no matter what I had to say to him, it wouldn’t change the way he felt.

But I no longer felt like telling him.

I couldn’t. Not now.

I just needed him to make me feel better, to cover up all the ache.

I gripped him by the back of the neck and pulled him down to me, desperation behind the ferocity of my kiss.

Darryn froze, then made a veiled attempt to push away, but I just pulled him closer. “Please. Make me feel better. Take this away from me. Just for tonight.”

His nose was an inch from mine, his eyes frantic as they roved all over my face, everywhere and nowhere at once. Confusion and fear lined his, like maybe he felt compelled to save me from myself.

From this decision.

But this decision had already been made.

I wanted him to have me. No words could assuage the hurt and humiliation, the shame Hunter had brought on my name.

No one else but Darryn—his touch, his mouth, his body.

I needed it.

“Please,” I whimpered, arching up. My hips met his like a plea. Please.

Agony twisted up his face for the briefest moment, before he succumbed and dropped to his elbows, caging me.

And I knew . . . knew I’d never be free of him.

And I didn’t want to be.

A frenzy lit in him as soon as our bodies aligned, and he rocked against my core. Need spiraled through my stomach, dropping low, throbbing a discordant beat between my thighs. I felt myself grow aroused. Wet. And I wanted to be embarrassed because I thought maybe he could feel it. But with him? I couldn’t. With him I didn’t feel ashamed.

“Oh God,” I moaned, my hips lifting from the bed to meet him, the roughness of the seam of his jeans rubbing against me. “Please.”

Darryn ran his hands down my sides and slipped them under my shirt. His palms were hot and desperate, and I didn’t stop him when he lifted it and slowly pulled it over my head, for the first time allowing him to peel a piece of clothing from my body.

Darryn shifted his weight to his knees, hovering over me, taking all of me in. His eyes dropped from my eyes, to my mouth, before they roamed over the redness that burned my skin.

My fingers were shaking as I dragged them down his back and to the hem of his shirt. I pulled it over his head. Darryn dropped back down, bringing his skin flush against mine. He felt both soft and hard, rippled muscle and strength that eased over me like a downy blanket, sent to comfort and protect.

My whole body sang, the horrors of this afternoon clashing with how safe Darryn made me feel. Trust flowed from my body in waves, as it arched and begged and bucked into his.

“I need to feel you . . . need to feel you everywhere,” I pled, raking my greedy nails down Darryn’s back.

He groaned, his hoarse voice vibrating against my neck. “Fuck, Misha . . . baby . . . God, I need you, too. You don’t know how much.”

His thick erection strained through his jeans, and I rubbed against it, letting him know that I understood, promising my intentions were the same.

I needed him.

All of him.

He rolled onto his back and pulled me on top of him. He pushed me back so I was straddling his waist. Darryn stared up at me, keeping almost all of his attention on my face, but he kept stealing these glances down my body, at the bra that was still covering up my breasts, at my chest that heaved and my stomach that clenched.

I reached back and flicked open the clasp on my bra, and my head tipped back as I let the straps slide down my arms.

Because I wanted him to see me. All of me. To understand that he was the only one I ever wanted to see me this way. That all of this should have belonged to him and I never should have given it away.

Regret filled up every crevice of my heart, and I wished . . . wished it’d been him, that the first time I’d had sex it hadn’t been all a ploy to bring me to my knees, just a wicked game played by wicked boys.

I wished I’d been cherished.

Loved.

Like I was sure Darryn was loving me now.

Darryn moaned as he grabbed me by the hips, pressing me firmly against him. “Can’t wait to be inside you.”

All that energy fired, pinged across the confines of my room, and clashed in an all-out war with the hurt of this afternoon. Everything felt so heavy and light. Blinding.

I wanted Darryn to take it all away.

I rocked over him, and on a ragged hiss, he gripped me tighter. Darryn pinched his eyes closed as if he’d been tripped, caught somewhere in his own painful thoughts.

“Wanna kill him, Misha . . . wanna hurt him for making you feel this way. For making you think you need to be ashamed.”

His words slammed into my consciousness. Images flashed. Me in a position so much like this, my breasts bared and my head thrown back.

I knew what it looked like in the video. Like I was lost in passion, like I’d wanted to be exposed, set on display. Like I was desperate for attention.

But I’d been in pain, both physically and emotionally. It had been my first time and Hunter had just rammed inside me before I was ready, after he’d persuaded me to ride him because he said that was the only way he liked it.

All of those warning bells had been going off, and I knew something was so off, because I didn’t feel loved or safe.

The worst part of it all was that he’d convinced me to let him take a picture. At least that was what I thought it was, because he’d actually been recording me.

A bet that he could get a virgin on top and a picture to prove it.

That’s all it’d been. A joke.

Horrified, I felt like every cell in my body froze, before it began to shake uncontrollably. I fell forward, keeping myself braced on the strength of Darryn’s chest before I crumbled.

I wanted to blink away the image, to assign it to coincidence.

But there was no mistaking Darryn’s words. He said he wanted to kill Hunter . . . for making me ashamed.

Darryn knew. He’d lied to me.

His eyes flew open as if he’d just realized the slip he made. He looked up at me with panic strewn all over his face.

“What did you just say?” I demanded, dread whipping through my entire being, a cold chill biting my skin.

I shivered and did my best to swallow down the nausea that rushed up my throat.

Rapidly, Darryn blinked and shook his head, as if he were searching for something to say.

For an excuse.

Oh my God.

No.

I scrambled in an effort to get away. Darryn grabbed my wrist, trying to yank me back onto the bed, but I jerked it away and fell to my knees on the floor. “Don’t touch me. Don’t you dare touch me.”

I fisted the edge of the sheet and ripped it from the bed, clutched it to my front as if it could shield me from all the pain that tore me in two. Violently.

If I thought I hurt this afternoon? Or that night months ago when Hunter had stood there, laughing at me, taunting me, telling me I was nothing but a fool?

It didn’t come close to touching this.

I forced myself to climb to my unsteady feet, backing into the wall with the thin sheet crumpled in front of me.

Darryn slowly stood from the bed but stayed there at the edge, his shoulders dropped low as if it would give him some sort of edge, fool me into thinking he wasn’t just as vicious as the rest of them.

“You knew?” I begged through a whisper, praying he’d deny it, all the while knowing if he did, it would be another lie.

His throat bobbed heavily as he swallowed, and he nodded. “Yes.” The word was rough and ripped through my soul.

A cry shot from my throat before I could stop it, and I slammed my hand over my mouth, trying to keep it in.

But there was no keeping this heartbreak from pouring free.

“Misha . . .” He took a step forward. “Listen to me. I knew, yes, but—”

“Just sh-sh-shut up. Shut up!” My voice cracked. “I c-c-can’t believe you’d do this to me. C-c-can’t believe you’d stoop so low.”

“Misha,” he pled, taking another step forward. “It’s not what you think.”

“Did you bet?” My chin quivered with the question.

Remorse made a slow pass through his body, and he shook his head. “No . . . of course not. But I need to be honest with you . . . I was there the first night he made the bet with all the guys.” He swallowed again. “And I was there two days later when he brought the video over. I watched it with them.”

Agony twisted up my face, and I attempted to take a step back, but only backed into the wall. “Y-y-you . . . you were there? You laughed with them? While they made me a joke?”

Was that the kind of guy he was? Just as cruel, just as mean as the others?

“No” flew from his mouth. “Never. The night the bets were made . . . Hunter was drunk, spouting off his mouth like he always does. He started talking shit about how easily he could have this new girl he started dating, claiming you were a virgin. Then he showed us a picture of you and you were so sexy. Beautiful. And I thought there wasn’t a chance that you hadn’t been with someone before. I didn’t believe him. I just thought it was more of his stupid games, so I didn’t give it a second thought. All the rest of the assholes at the party tossed in money, saying he didn’t have a chance with you. It got out of hand . . . all of them started throwing out different things he had to make you do.”