“No,” I say. “Don’t kiss me.”
Nibbling her bottom lip, she teases her fingers at the seam of her sleep shirt, then pulls it up and over her head.
My cock doesn’t get hard, or even twitch. I don’t even want to palm her tits. I force my hand onto her chest, but freeze all over.
I don’t want to do this.
I can’t.
My hands slip away, and I stare up at her. “I love Blaise,” I say. “I can’t do this with you.”
“He doesn’t need to know.” She grabs my wrists and pulls them back to her chest at the same time as she climbs into my lap. “We can do this. I’ll make you forget.”
I gulp, shaking my head, but she fists my hair behind my head and forces her mouth on mine. The mixture of being stoned, drunk, and heartbroken, I struggle to fight her off as she pushes her tongue into my mouth.
In half a second, Mia is pulled off me, and a fist slams into my face so hard, I see stars in my vision.
I groan and squint up to see Blaise with a deathly look in his eyes. They flicker between a topless Mia and me on her bed, and he grabs Mia by the throat and throws her toward the door.
“Get the fuck out,” he orders, watching as she covers herself and runs out of the dorm.
He turns to me, dried blood on his face, grinding his teeth together.
And punches me again.
“Mia? Really?” I punch him again, if only to see his face snap to the side. “You were going to fuck my ex?” One more hard hit. My knuckles bleed. I don’t fucking care. What’s a little more blood at this point? I’m pretty sure my nose is busted and that I have a cracked rib or two. “You left me on the fucking football field. You beat me up, and you fucking left me there.”
Cole flies off the bed and shoves me back. “You were going to cheat on me,” he shouts, fisting my T-shirt before pushing me back again.
“Cheat on you?” I stare at him in disbelief. Cole starts pacing, tearing at his hair and kicking random items out of the way, like Mia’s bunny slippers.
“I mean nothing to you,” he snarls, his eyes flashing with hurt.
“You mean everything to me.Everything!”My voice breaks. Fighting with Cole is exhausting. It doesn’t matter what the fuck I do; I can’t win.
I can’t fucking win…
Cole puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head. He laughs bitterly and lifts his eyes to the ceiling. “I meaneverything to you, huh?” He glares at me. “Is that why you were meeting up with a masked stranger and letting him fuck you? I must be really special to you.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
Sucking on his teeth, Cole continues pacing back and forth. “You know exactly what I’m talking about. You were supposed to be with me, but you were more than fucking happy to meet up with a masked stranger.”
“But it was you?—”
“You didn’t know that!” he shouts, shoving me. “You didn’t know it was me. No, you thought it was someone else, and you were more than fucking happy to screw around on me. Who did you think it was? Did you imagine Jackson? Samson?” He shoves me again, and I stumble against the vanity desk, knocking over a lotion bottle and a tub of makeup brushes. “Did you hope it was Keith?”
Fury rises inside me, and before I know what I’m doing, I shove him hard, making him fall to the floor. “I knew it was you all along, asshole,” I spit. “I found the fucking mask in your bag during the ski trip!”
Cole stills, but the damage is done. He doesn’t trust me, and he never will. We’re a toxic mess, and we’ll never be good for each other. Cole must see the defeated look in my eyes. When I turn for the door, he scrambles to his feet and intercepts me before I can leave the room.
He blocks the doorway, and I come to a sudden stop. His chest rises and falls rapidly, his hair standing in all directions.
“Step out of the way.”
“No,” he says, bruises forming on his jaw. “I won’t let you walk out.”
My heart thuds hard as I pause. “Excuse me?”
