When We Met

by A. L. Jackson

  It wasn’t like we hadn’t been alone in my room a hundred times.

  But when Darryn pulled away, it was like he already understood what was holding me back from making my way up those steps. Anger darkened his eyes, just for a flash, before he raked a hand through his hair and sighed a heavy sound of surrender. “It’s fine, baby. You don’t have to explain anything to me. I get it.”

  It left me unsettled, because I knew he really didn’t get it. He had no clue.

  I shifted on the hard surface of the table, wanting to be brave and just tell him. Hating myself for being a coward and not saying anything.

  But the truth was, I didn’t want to lose him.

  Just the thought squeezed my heart.

  I reached out and cupped his cheek, my voice soft. “Please be patient with me.”

  He took my hand from his face and pressed it to his mouth. “I already told you I’d take whatever came with you being my girl. The only thing I hate is you being afraid of me. Because I promise, I’ll never hurt you.”

  But it wasn’t Darryn I was afraid of facing.

  I was afraid of facing the humiliation that had been born in that room. Hated that any moment I spent there with Darryn would be tainted by memories of Hunter.

  Darryn pulled me to the edge of the table and wrapped his arms around my waist, his head resting just below my breasts. He looked up at me, the gold of his eyes prominent in the rays of sunlight slanting in through the window. “I just want you to trust me.”

  I tickled my fingers down the back of his neck, and he released a raspy breath. And I did trust him.

  I knew it now. Knew he was different from Hunter. Knew Darryn cared about me, maybe the way I cared about him.

  I could feel him slipping deeper into me the way I felt myself falling further into him.

  I wanted to show him how much he meant to me.

  Tell him.

  But would he feel the same about me when he knew?

  I let him pull me ever closer, his hot body all pressed up to mine. Flames licked up the walls of my stomach, sending needy waves of heat through my body, a feeling I’d only ever experienced with Darryn.

  Indy had definitely been right. Hunter didn’t have anything on Darryn.

  Every part of me was begging for more of him.

  His hand clutched my side like he couldn’t bear the thought of letting go. “Can’t get enough of you, Misha,” he whispered, his nose making a pass along the underside of my breast. Shock waves jolted through my system.

  Soon I would give him all of me.

  The truth. My heart. My body.

  Because I knew Darryn would never make me a fool.

  chapter eleven

  Misha

  The doorbell rang and I skipped to the door. I swung it open to Darryn. He rested his shoulder up on the doorjamb, this boy-man-god larger than life, the sun swallowing him up from behind in a halo of blazing light as he stood as a silhouette in my doorway.

  My pulse stuttered.

  Oh God.

  So pretty.

  Darryn stepped forward, bringing his face into focus. He was biting at his bottom lip with all that mischief playing in his eyes. Damn him. He knew exactly the effect he had on me.

  Then everything about him softened, and he wound his fingers through my hair and brought his hand to the back of my neck. He tugged me forward to place a sweet kiss at the corner of my mouth. I shook a little as his nose slipped along the angle of my jaw. He breathed me in, and there was no mistaking the shudder that rolled down his spine.

  I felt a little giddy, struck light-headed by this joy. Guess I liked that I had the same kind of effect on him, too.

  “You ready to go, baby?” The words came out all low and rough.

  Uh, yeah. I’d go anywhere with him.

  I beamed up at him, picked my backpack up off the floor, and hoisted it farther on my shoulders. “Yep. All set. Let’s get this day over with. I have two exams and a presentation. I was ready for today to be over before it even started.”

  Darryn chuckled as he tossed his arm over my shoulders, guiding me out of the house and closing the door behind us, leading us in the direction of campus. “You’re going to do great.” He glanced down at me. “Don’t think I’ve seen anyone study the way you do. You make all the rest of us look bad.”

  “Pshh.” I waved him off, swaying a little into his side as we walked wound up in each other. “My classes are just rough. If I didn’t study this much, I’d for sure fail, and the last thing I want is to have to take any of these classes over again. No, thank you.”

  He kissed my temple. “Smart girl.”

  I grinned up at him. “I like to think so.” I attempted a wink, but I was pretty sure it was one long blink.

  Darryn howled, his laughter so thick I felt it seeping into my chest. “You are too much, Misha Crosse. You know that?”

  We walked like this most days, stealing a few moments close together before we both had to go our separate ways to our different classes. We grabbed just a few minutes together, laughing and goofing around. It was the perfect way to start the day, with his face one of the first things I saw every morning, before he tucked me to his side and walked us toward campus, like I was a piece of him and he was a part of me.

  I exhaled in contentment, and Darryn pulled me closer. I felt no hesitation snuggling farther into him. It was beginning to get colder, the fall air turning crisp, the leaves beginning to change. I lifted my face to the cool breeze and just relished the turn of the season, and this turn in my life.

  I’d been so fearful about coming back to school. And look at the way things had turned out. What if I’d refused Indy’s invitation and instead stayed in the suffocating safety of my parents’ house, attending a community college, giving up my kids, my goals for the future?

  Losing all that would be awful. But the most horrifying part of it all would be the fact that I would never have met this man had I not stepped out and been brave.

  I made the decision right then and there, that was what I finally needed to be.

  Brave.

  Darryn seemed to sense my inner turmoil, and he somehow managed to pull me even tighter to his body. “What are you thinking about?”

  I chanced peeking up at him. Nerves tumbled through my stomach, a chaotic scramble of fear and insecurities and hope. I smiled, and it felt almost forced. “Just thinking about you,” I said.

  He chuckled, and he buried his face in my neck, leaving a little trail of fire where he nibbled his lips along my skin. “You better be thinking of me, since I can’t think of anything else but you.” He squeezed my side. “What do you say we make it a date night? Go grab a bite to eat and maybe catch a movie or something?”

  “Yeah, that would be great.” I chewed at my lip, and the rush of redness I felt blossom on my face had nothing to do with the shyness that had plagued me my whole life, but instead was the stark evidence of the true worry I felt at finally telling Darryn. “I actually have been needing to talk to you about something,” I confessed quietly.

  He frowned and slowed, stopping fully to turn and face me. His head canted to the side as he studied my expression. “I don’t think I like the sound of that, Misha. You aren’t letting me take you to dinner with the intention of breaking my heart, are you?” He said it causally, playfully, but I didn’t miss the undertone of fear that laced his words. His own insecurities were evident in the unease that sparked in his eyes.

  I loved all of Darryn’s confidence, craved it almost, after all the years I’d lacked it myself. But the truth was, I liked the vulnerability he was now wearing, too. It made him seem real. Genuine. This boy-man-god, in all his glory, the one who stole my breath just as easily as he’d stolen my heart, was not just a figment of my overactive imagination.

  “I couldn’t possibly break your heart,” I whispered, averting my gaze to pluck a piece of fuzz from his shirt.

  It was my heart on the line.

  With caution, I peered
up at him, feeling so shy and exposed. But I had to finally lay it all out. Trust him so he could trust me.

  Was I really ready for this? To lay myself bare? At his feet?

  Would he trample all over my heart when he knew?

  Was it worth the chance?

  “You just need to know something about me before we go any further.”

  His expression turned unreadable, but I felt every single one of the muscles in his body fire, rigid as they flexed, tension winding him tight.

  For a moment, I thought he was . . . angry?

  Darryn softened, and he lifted his hands, touched my face so softly. Still it scorched me through. “Nothing you can tell me will change the way I feel about you,” he promised, locking our gazes. My breaths turned ragged as he backed me up against the wall of the lecture hall building.

  His promise infiltrated my spirit, and I swallowed hard, nodding before I lifted myself to my toes and pressed my mouth to his. It was meant to be innocent, sweet, but Darryn deepened it, swiping his tongue across the seam of my mouth. On a gasp, I opened, then melted as he pinned me to the wall with that glorious body. His tongue skimmed and danced and played against mine with an intensity that I wasn’t close to expecting.

  Darryn, the one who’d saved something inside me.

  And I felt it pumping, full of life, full of hope, my heart so full I thought it would burst right in my chest.

  He pulled back, fisted his hands in my jacket collar, and jerked me toward him. His voice was fierce at my face. “Nothing,” he promised again.

  Then he turned and left me standing there, panting, as I watched him disappear in the hustle of students emerging from another class.

  Thankfully I had the support of the wall to keep me from dropping to my knees.

  Dear. Lord.

  I bit at my lip, fighting against the satisfied smile.

  “You got some of that for me?”

  The voice barely cut into my senses, and I blinked, wondering if it had really been intended for me, but something inside me was sure it had. I turned my head toward the sound of it, and a guy I’d never seen before stood ten feet away, looking directly at me.

  “Should have known better than to have bet against Hunter, but something about you looking all innocent in the picture he had of you had me laying down my money in your favor.”

  Hunter.

  The mention of his name punched me in the gut. I clutched my stomach, bent at the middle. My heart careened to a stop, tightening in my chest in a ball and making it impossible to breathe. I tried to, but I couldn’t get anything down as the air got locked in my throat. I felt light-headed. Sick.

  So long. It’d been so long and no one had said a word. I guess I had started to believe no one ever would.

  I struggled to draw a breath into my lungs. But the air was gone as the realization of what this stranger was implying seeped into my consciousness.

  “You owe me,” he said, like he had the right to even speak to me, and he took a step forward. Confidence dripped from him, that sickening kind that made people choke on it, it was so overbearing and wrong. “Why don’t you come back to my place and I can show you exactly how you can make it up to me?”

  Horrified, I felt my mouth drop open in the same second that tears sprang to my eyes, so heavy they blurred my vision of the guy leering at me like I was a nothing, just a plaything to be used up and tossed aside.

  Just like Hunter had made me out to be.

  Finally something broke, and air raked into my lungs, and I struggled to speak. “D-d-don’t t-t-talk t-t-t-o me. . . .”

  He laughed at my expense. “Don’t worry, baby, talking is definitely not what I have in mind.”

  I had to get out of here. Escape.

  I squeezed my eyes closed, wishing I could disappear, and instead forced my feet to work. I stumbled as I pushed from the wall, an overbearing weight crushing my shoulders.

  It hurt. Oh my God, it hurt.

  Frantic, I tore through a group of people standing in my way, desperate to keep myself together until I made it home.

  “Hey, watch it.”

  I didn’t even respond, just propelled myself forward, through the outer campus halls and out onto the street. I ran as fast as my feet could take me, my eyes blinded by tears and my heart broken by shame.

  I flew into the house and upstairs. Slamming my door shut behind me, I threw myself on the bed. I buried my face in my pillow.

  And I completely fell apart.

  chapter twelve

  Misha

  “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  Darryn rushed to my bed when I lifted my face. I’d been crying for so long my eyes hurt, my entire face puffy and sore and burning.

  I didn’t want him to see me like this. “Just go,” I mumbled into my pillow as I turned in the other direction.

  This afternoon, he’d texted me what seemed a hundred times, first to solidify our date plans, then with progressive worry when I didn’t return any of his messages.

  But how could I face him? Tell him?

  All that confidence I’d felt this morning was long forgotten. It had only been a fantasy. Because I’d seen the results of what Hunter had done, had seen it in the way that guy had looked at me back in the hall, as if I meant nothing and I could be used up any way he deemed fit.

  How could Darryn see me any differently?

  Darryn’s footsteps treaded tentatively across the room, and I could almost feel the force of his breaths as he heaved them from his lungs and out into the darkness of my room. I pressed my face deeper into my pillow, silently begging it to swallow me up.

  I couldn’t do this.

  The bed dipped with Darryn’s weight, and he placed a soothing hand on my back.

  I shivered, wishing I had the strength to push him away. But all the comfort of his touch slipped along my skin, penetrating deep. I squeezed my eyes shut and choked over a sob brought on by the kindness in Darryn’s gesture.

  He rubbed me up and down, all these soft little sounds tumbling from his lips. “Shh . . . baby . . . shh . . . it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.”

  I thought I’d cried enough today that I’d used up all my tears. But no. Darryn showing up here only brought a new onslaught of them, these hot, fat tears that poured from my aching eyes, because God, this hurt so bad, Darryn here, making all these promises that seemed so impossible.

  Not after today.

  “Tell me what happened,” he murmured in encouragement near my ear. His breath felt cold against my skin where it met with the endless streams of fiery tears flooding down my face. He leaned in closer, sweeping his mouth across the wetness, gathering my tears up with his lips.

  I shuddered.

  Oh God.

  I couldn’t handle this, but I wanted it all the same. Wanted him to take care of me. To make it better.

  My avenging angel.

  Sent to rescue me from all the wrongs of this world.

  He kissed me on my neck, his voice so sure as he released it against the shell of my ear. “I’m here now, baby. Nothing can hurt you. I’ve got you.”

  Grief shook my chest.

  Darryn slowly rolled me onto my back, and I stared up at him staring down at me. He watched me with all his compassion.

  My voice was hoarse. “It h-h-hurts,” I tried to get out, my mouth so dry as I forced the admission from my tongue.

  It hurts.

  For a flash, the hazel of his eyes pulsed with aggression, an imprisoned rage. But his expression was contrary to what flamed in his eyes. The lines edging the set of his grim mouth promised me it didn’t matter. That like he’d promised me earlier, no matter what I had to say to him, it wouldn’t change the way he felt.

  But I no longer felt like telling him.

  I couldn’t. Not now.

  I just needed him to make me feel better, to cover up all the ache.

  I gripped him by the back of the neck and pulled him down to me, desperation behind the ferocity of m
y kiss.

  Darryn froze, then made a veiled attempt to push away, but I just pulled him closer. “Please. Make me feel better. Take this away from me. Just for tonight.”

  His nose was an inch from mine, his eyes frantic as they roved all over my face, everywhere and nowhere at once. Confusion and fear lined his, like maybe he felt compelled to save me from myself.

  From this decision.

  But this decision had already been made.

  I wanted him to have me. No words could assuage the hurt and humiliation, the shame Hunter had brought on my name.

  No one else but Darryn—his touch, his mouth, his body.

  I needed it.

  “Please,” I whimpered, arching up. My hips met his like a plea. Please.

  Agony twisted up his face for the briefest moment, before he succumbed and dropped to his elbows, caging me.

  And I knew . . . knew I’d never be free of him.

  And I didn’t want to be.

  A frenzy lit in him as soon as our bodies aligned, and he rocked against my core. Need spiraled through my stomach, dropping low, throbbing a discordant beat between my thighs. I felt myself grow aroused. Wet. And I wanted to be embarrassed because I thought maybe he could feel it. But with him? I couldn’t. With him I didn’t feel ashamed.

  “Oh God,” I moaned, my hips lifting from the bed to meet him, the roughness of the seam of his jeans rubbing against me. “Please.”

  Darryn ran his hands down my sides and slipped them under my shirt. His palms were hot and desperate, and I didn’t stop him when he lifted it and slowly pulled it over my head, for the first time allowing him to peel a piece of clothing from my body.

  Darryn shifted his weight to his knees, hovering over me, taking all of me in. His eyes dropped from my eyes, to my mouth, before they roamed over the redness that burned my skin.

  My fingers were shaking as I dragged them down his back and to the hem of his shirt. I pulled it over his head. Darryn dropped back down, bringing his skin flush against mine. He felt both soft and hard, rippled muscle and strength that eased over me like a downy blanket, sent to comfort and protect.