With Every Heartbeat (Forbidden Men #4)(104)

Notching her chin high, she turned her back on the girl and stormed proudly from the room.

“That...” Ten pointed after Caroline with his jaw fallen open. “Holy shit, Ham. That was so f*cking awesome.” He turned to look at me, his eyes glassy with shock and admiration. “She’s totally f*cking awesome.” When he started to trail after her as if in a daze, I caught his arm.

“Whoa. Where do you think you’re going?”

“To kiss the f*cking shit out of her. I have to.”

“What about Noel?” I reminded him with an arch of my eyebrows.

He immediately blinked his gaze clear. Then, ripping his arm from my hold, he scowled at me. “Fuck you, man. Couldn’t you have let me daydream for half a f*cking second before going and saying his name?” With a sniff, he stormed away, but at least he took off toward the opposite door Caroline had used.

I blew out a breath and glanced at Zoey’s empty seat. I wished she’d been here to see Caroline. She would’ve been so proud and amused. And she probably could’ve cooled Ten down better than I had.

Unable to help myself, I pulled up my phone and found her number. I knew I should wait until we were face to face, but I couldn’t handle this a second longer. I needed some kind of contact with her.

So I typed in a simple, Are you okay?

Almost immediately, she answered. Are YOU?

Relieved she’d responded, that she wasn’t avoiding me completely, my shoulders loosened. I left class and made my way outside into the cooling late September day. I wished she had answered my question instead of posing another, but right now, I’d take what I could get. She was at least talking to me.

No, I typed. I’m absolutely freaking out. Too much is happening all at once and I can’t keep up. Most of all, I want to talk to you. In person.

I gnawed on my lip after sending that off, but instead of responding to it, she asked, Did I miss anything in art class?

Gritting my teeth, I lifted my face from the phone’s screen to calm myself, but when I did, I caught sight of Zoey up ahead, entering the library. Hurrying after her, I typed as I went. Yeah. Caroline overheard some girl gossiping about Aspen. She completely put her in her place. But now Ten’s more in love with her than ever.

I darted into the library and caught sight of her ahead, pausing to read my text. A smile lit up her face. I was actually asking if we had a new assignment, but WOW. I wish I could’ve seen that.

I wish you could’ve too. It was epic. Caroline was so cool and controlled through the whole thing. Are you in the library? I’m coming to talk to you face to face.

In front of me, she faltered as she read that. Then she zipped her head up and glanced around frantically before darting around a corner to evade me.

My heart tore open, knowing she didn’t want to see me. I blew out a breath, but kept on with my path. She could take any route she wanted; I knew where she’d end up. So I beat her there, to the same spot where she’d cried over her badly graded writing assignment.

Crossing my arms over my chest, I propped my back against the wall and waited. Two minutes later, she careened around the corner, not watching where she was going because she was too busy glancing behind her, making sure I wasn’t dogging her heels.

When she finally faced forward and caught sight of me, her eyes went round as she skidded to a stop.

“I guess this means you’re pretty mad at me, huh?” I said, gritting my teeth when my voice broke. “Leaving before I wake up, skipping classes we share, eluding me when I follow you into the library. I messed up big time. Didn’t I?”

Her face fell. “No,” she whispered as she pressed her hand to her chest and shook her head vigorously. “No, you didn’t. Not at all. I...I just didn’t know what to say to you. I don’t know how to apologize enough to—”

“Apologize?” I stepped away from the wall, because now that I was seeing her, I had to be closer. I don’t think I could ever get close enough to satisfy the urges raging inside me. “What do you have to apologize about?”

She lifted her gaze. Her eyes were so green and scared; my fingers rose to touch her cheek but she flinched, so I dropped them back to my side, ashamed that I’d scared her.

“I took advantage of you,” she whispered as if confessing a horrible sin. “You were drunk.”

An incredulous laugh left my lungs. Then it was my turn to shake my head. “If anything, I took advantage of you. I was the aggressor. I was the one with the experience. I knew where everything was heading.”

“But I...I wanted...I wanted it.”

When she bowed her head in shame, I moved in closer and lightly slid my hand down her arm. “I wanted it too.”

She looked up, her eyes hopeful. I probably would’ve kissed her then—my body was churning with arousal, being this close to her—but she took a step back and drew in a sharp breath. “Cora would kill me if she knew.”

Cora’s opinion wasn’t high on my priority list, but after her reaction to learning that I’d been with someone else, yeah, she probably would lose it if she found out that the someone else I’d been with was Zoey. She would not make things pleasant for Zoey. So, I nodded. “Yeah. She came to see me last night.”

Horror dawned in her eyes. She sank even further away from me. “So...she told you?”