CHAPTERTWENTY-SIX
Stella
“Argh,” I scream, throwing my cell across the room. It hits the curtains and drops with a thud to the floor.
Toby is ignoring me, and it’s annoying the shit out of me.
I should let it go, but the look on his face in that one image won’t leave my head.
He looked utterly devastated by my actions, by the state I’d got myself into. And I know that apologizing won’t really do all that much in the long run. Clearly, he’s never going to look at me the same again, but still, I need to try. I need to do something. I can’t leave him believing that I’m the total waste-of-space whore Seb’s trying to make me out to be.
I wanted to reach out to him yesterday, but that fucked-up exchange with Seb that I regretted instantly—even if I did drag my vibrator out of my drawer and get myself off—pretty much killed me off, and I passed out still wrapped in my towel and with wet hair.
I wanted to say I woke up feeling better, but that knot was still in my stomach, and the events of the previous forty-eight hours were still spinning in my head.
Calvin found me in the basement a few hours later, beating the shit out of the punching bag that I was imagining was Seb’s face.
He put me through my paces and taught me some new techniques—ones that I can’t wait to try on Seb at the first possible opportunity I get.
I’m pretty confident that I could break his nose now with one punch, and I really want to put it into practice.
I bet he’d still look drop-dead gorgeous with a busted-up nose.
I shake the thought from my head and banish him from my mind as I try to focus on my homework, but it’s hard when my cell continues to taunt me from the floor.
I’ve had a few messages from Dad this weekend just checking in. I have no idea where he is, and I don’t expect to find out anytime soon unless Calli happens to overhear where her parents have been, because I’d put money on them being together.
The more I think about all the secrets and lies, the more my anger begins to poison me. The betrayal from the one man I’ve always trusted stings more than I ever could have thought.
The sun’s sinking behind the trees at the bottom of our backyard when I finally give it up as a bad job and close my computer. I’ve done everything that’s due for the beginning of the week. I’ll just have to hope that tomorrow will be a better day and I’ll be able to focus.
I grab my cell and check the screen, but there’s still no response from Toby—just a message from Calli excitedly telling me that she’s spent all day messaging Ant. Even through her typed words, I can tell she’s buzzing about meeting him next weekend, and it’s enough to convince me that I did the right thing by agreeing to go. I’ll just have to set Enzo straight from the moment that we arrive that I’m there for Calli and not him, because I have zero intentions of bringing another guy into my life. I’ve got enough to deal with right now. I don’t care how good looking he is, or what he might have to offer. I’m firmly off boys for the foreseeable future.
I’ve got two vibrators that do the job almost as well as any guy, and that’ll do me until I get all this bullshit sorted in my head and can actually embark on finding a decent guy who isn’t only interested in shaming me in front of his equally douchey friends.
After tossing and turning and forcing images of him and the feelings and pleasure he manages to drag from me out of my head, I finally fall asleep, twisted up in the sheets.
But my attempt to put a barrier up between the two of us seems to vanish the second I drift off.
The sound of my door opening startles me, but the second I discover who it is, my panic subsides as I roll onto my back, pulling the sheets away from my body, I invite him in, forgetting everything I’ve told myself about what I’d do to him the next time I see him.
Reaching behind him, he drags his shirt up his body, revealing his toned stomach and sculpted chest to me. The tattoos that cover both his arms ripple and pull as he drops his shirt to the floor and starts working on his pants, ripping the button open and shoving the fabric over his hips, showing me that he’s bare and hard beneath.
Oh hell yes.
If I have to put up with his presence, I’ll more than happily take it like this.
His knee presses into my mattress, the entire bed dipping under his weight and making me slide toward him a little as he reaches out and cups my breasts, pinching my already hard nipples beneath my thin tank.
“Seb,” I moan wantonly as a bolt of pleasure shoots to my core.
Pulling one of my knees up, I widen my legs in the hope of enticing him exactly where I need him.
As much as I’ve tried to push it from my mind, the memory of how he works my body into a frenzy is never far from my mind.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful,” he breathes, his voice softer than I think I’ve ever heard it before, and I melt.
His lips find my neck, kissing and sucking, driving me to the brink of insanity before he drags the neck of my tank aside and sucks my peak deep into his mouth, dragging his teeth over it until my hips start writhing on the bed with my need for him to touch me.