Deeper (Caroline & West #1)(12)

West just levels that stare at me.

“Not rutting beasts,” I add.

“I’m a beast,” he says slowly. “And we’re rutting?”

He doesn’t like the word rutting. He spits it out like he’s disgusted with it.

“What would you call it?”

“I don’t know what to call it. Maybe you should tell me what you’re chasing me around for.”

“I’m not chasing you. I just—”

A pissed-off male voice says, “Shh.”

Fourth floor. Shit.

When I open my mouth again, my thoughts have scattered like marbles, and I can hardly even look at West. He’s crossed his arms. His split knuckles are wrapped around his biceps. It looks hard.

Everything about West is hard.

Talk, Caroline, my brain urges. Words. Sentences. Go.

“I wanted to, um … About earlier. See, I heard from Bridget that—”

“Shhhhh.”

The same irritated voice again. I lose my words, flustered and ready to bail on this whole thing.

West says, very calmly, “There’s three other floors, buddy. Pick one or shut the f*ck up.”

“This is the quiet floor,” the invisible guy complains.

“Show me where it says that.”

“Everybody knows.”

West shakes his head. “I’m not everybody.”

There’s silence for a moment, then the resonant sound of a chair being pushed back. A backpack zipper. Footsteps announce the approach—a student glares at West with angry eyes—but he keeps going, and I hear the stairwell door opening.

A beat later, just before the door slams shut, the words stupid slut drift through it.

The ugliness of those words cuts into my hurt place, deep.

He’s not the first person to call me a slut, but he’s the first one to say it so I can hear him. And honestly? It doesn’t help that he says it right after I let West push me against the stacks and stick his knee between my thighs.

It doesn’t help that my panties are wet. I feel like a slut. I feel like I’m rattling apart, unable to stick to a direct line for more than five minutes.

Stupid cunt would spread for anyone, the men inside my head say.

I’d like to see him f*ck her. I’d pay good money to watch that.

I look up at West. I feel despised and powerless, and it’s so frustrating that he’s seeing me this way—that he’s watching so intently and really seeing what I try not to let anyone see, ever.

That I am right on the verge of falling apart. All the time.

His eyes soften, gentle with pity, and that makes it a hundred times worse.

Stupid, pitiful slut.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ve heard it before.”

“It’s not fine.”

I wave my hand in the air, pointlessly, because I have no response. It isn’t fine. But it’s my life now.

“Caroline, it’s not fine.” West puts his hands on my shoulders.

I shrug him off and step sideways to get out from under him. “I know, okay? You don’t have to yell at me. I know. He’s going to tell everyone, and then the whole campus is going to be whispering about how we were practically screwing on the fourth floor of Hamilton. I get it. I’m sorry, all right?”

I think his eyes could burn holes through me, they’re so fierce. The little flecks seem to flash. The grooves beside his mouth carve themselves deeper. “What are you sorry for?”

What am I not sorry for? I regret everything I’ve ever done with a guy. My first kiss, which took place after an eighth-grade dance, with a boy named Cody. My first French kiss, which was with Nate. Letting Nate take off my bra, put his fingers inside me. Sleeping with Nate and thinking we were making love. Buying lingerie for him, going down on him, letting him take the pictures when I thought it would bring us closer.

West, too. I regret what just happened with West.

“Everything,” I whisper.

It’s the wrong thing to say. His hands push into his hair, clenching. “Christ. I can’t even—what’s the matter with you, huh?”

“Nothing you can fix.”

“So why are you here?”

I take a deep breath. I can do this. “I need to know it’s not going to happen again. That you’re not going to go around punching people because of me.”

He frowns, a deep slash between his eyebrows. “Who said it was because of you?”

The question catches me off guard. “I heard—I heard you guys were arguing about me. Sierra told Bridget.”

“I don’t know a Sierra.”

“I guess she knows you.”

His face goes even darker. “It’s not her business. Or yours. It’s between Nate and me.”

“I think we’re way past the point where you can play the none-of-your-business card.”

That makes him even more agitated. He wheels away, stalking to the end of the row. Then he comes back and grabs the cart with both hands. He looks like he wants to shove it at me. “He pissed me off. That’s all you need to know.”

“Yeah, but—”

Head lowered, he kicks the toe of his boot against the cart. Not hard, but hard enough to make way too much noise.

“You have to tell me what happened,” I say, as calmly as I can manage. “Then I’ll leave you alone.”