Boys Like You(41)

He scrubbed at his eyes angrily, pushing his hair off his face. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair because I’m sitting in a car on a hot summer night with a beautiful girl. I’m smelling her shampoo and imagining what it would feel like to hold her. I’m feeling things I shouldn’t be feeling, because I don’t deserve them.”

He swore again. “But what makes it worse is that I want to 167

BoysLikeYou.indd 167

11/19/13 10:02 AM

Juliana Ston e

be here with you and that makes me feel even worse. It makes me feel guilty. I feel…”

He looked at me, and my heart melted a little more when I saw moisture in the corners of his eyes. I undid my seatbelt and moved closer, my eyes not leaving his. My heart felt like it was gonna beat right out of my chest, it roared in my ears, heavy and strong and…

Alive.

I reached for him, my palm on his cheek, and my heart turned over when he leaned into me. He closed his eyes, and I gently wiped away the single tear that fell.

“What do you feel?” I asked so softly I barely heard myself, and at first, I thought that maybe the words had only echoed inside my head.

His hands moved into my hair and I couldn’t move if I wanted to. When my eyes focused, I gazed into his. I saw the pain that lay there. The anguish and the sorrow. But I saw something else.

“Do you have to ask?” he said hoarsely.

I stared into his eyes for so long that my vision blurred.

His fingers wrapped around my skull, tangling in my hair and pulling me even closer. I smelled mint gum and something subtle, but nice.

It was hot in the car, but his body heat made it ten times more so, and my dress clung to my skin, my hair to the back of my neck.

He rested his forehead on mine and drew in a ragged breath 168

BoysLikeYou.indd 168

11/19/13 10:02 AM

BOYS LIKE YOU

that I felt deep in my own lungs. Every single inch of me felt as if it was on fire. Hot. Achy. Tremulous.

I swear my limbs had melted into rubber the moment he touched me, and I was afraid that if he let go, I’d pitch forward.

My hands crept up his chest. I felt his beating heart and the heat from his body through his shirt, and he groaned a little when I continued upward until I wrapped them around his neck. I couldn’t think about anything other than getting closer to him. I shifted my hips and he moved so that I was practically sitting in his lap.

“God, Monroe. This is so wrong.”

No way was it wrong. It was so right.

I had to swallow that damn lump again, and when I did, I managed to croak. “Why?”

“It’s so wrong to feel, to be with you when Trevor is— ”


“Stop it,” I said loudly, pushing at him once and then again until he was forced to look into my eyes. “What happened is done. You can’t change anything, Nate. At some point, you’re going to have to forgive yourself and just…live again.”

Holy hell. If my therapist could hear me now, he’d be fist-pumping his way to the freaking moon.

“Is that what you’re doing, Monroe? Have you forgiven yourself?”

For a few moments, there was no sound other than the breeze buffeting the hood of the car and our breaths falling in short, hard spurts. Images I didn’t ever want to see flashed before my eyes, and I shook my head violently.

169

BoysLikeYou.indd 169

11/19/13 10:02 AM

Juliana Ston e

“I don’t want to talk about Malcolm.”

For a second, he said nothing and then he exhaled and I could feel him pulling away, but I needed something more. He needed something more.

“I haven’t forgiven myself. I don’t think I ever will but…” I paused as the enormity of the words in my head washed over me. They pressed into my chest and made it hard to breathe or speak.

When I spoke again, it was barely a whisper. “I’m learning to live again and that’s a start.”

“It’s hard,” he said, his dark eyes hooded, his gaze on my mouth.

My hands encircled his neck and I felt his fist in my hair as I bent forward. “I know,” I breathed into him, my mouth hovering above his.

Our noses touched and my breath caught at the back of my throat. I think I whimpered or maybe I sobbed. I don’t know. I couldn’t hear. I could barely function.

Because when he moved enough so that his lips were on mine, everything stopped except us.

There was nothing but Nathan and this hot Louisiana night.

There was nothing but the need to connect to someone so badly I felt it ache in every part of my body.

His mouth was warm, his lips firm as he slid them over mine. Bombs could have been going off for all I knew, because it sure as heck felt like it. My world was rocking and I was letting it.

170

BoysLikeYou.indd 170

11/19/13 10:02 AM

BOYS LIKE YOU

Nate’s scent, the feel of his hair between my fingers, his hard chest and legs beneath my body— all of it rushed through me.

And oh God, could he kiss.

I opened my mouth beneath his and he groaned into me, shifting yet again so that now I straddled him. I let him kiss me with all the ferocious need and anguish inside him, and I have no idea how long we were like that— connected on every level, touching each other, tasting each other— and when he broke away, I whimpered again.