On The Rebound (Steinbeck U #1) - L.A. Cotton Page 0,59
I gave him a sad smile, my heart galloping inside my chest like a band of wild horses.
“Love?” He laughed and it was so full of bitterness and pain it made my chest constrict. “Do you know what you taught me about love, Calliope? It hurts. It hurts so fucking much.” His fingers traced down my face to my neck, wrapping gently around my throat. “You’re under my skin, Calli. Buried in my fucking soul and I hate it... I hate—”
“Say it.” I hissed. “Go on, tell me how much you hate me. Say it.” I slammed my hands against his chest.
Zach staggered back a little, snagging my wrists. “Don’t fucking push me, sweet pea. You might not like the outcome.”
“What are you going to do? Hurt me?” I snarled the words, lost in a riptide of anger and pain and regret. “You’re a coward, Zach. You were a coward then and you’re still a coward now.”
Whatever I’d done to hurt him, he could have talked to me about it. He could have just told me so I could have tried to fix it. I’d spent three years questioning what went wrong. Why my best friend, the boy I loved more than anything in the world, turned his back on me.
And he still couldn’t tell me.
“Well?” I spat. “I’m waiting.”
Zach’s jaw clenched so tight it looked painful.
When it was apparent he wasn’t going to answer me, I let out a quiet laugh. “You’re a coward, Zach. You broke my heart, you ruined us, and for what, huh? You can’t even tell me, can you?” A sad smile tugged at my mouth. “All this time and you still can’t find the words to tell me what happened.”
I went to walk away, but Zach grabbed my arm. He looked murderous, his eyes burning with contempt. “You want to hurt me?” I stepped into his big imposing body and pushed up on my tiptoes. “Take your best shot.”
Nothing could hurt me the way Mom’s death had.
Not even the boy I’d once wanted forever with.
My challenge hung in the air.
A beat passed, the air so thick I couldn’t breathe.
“Fuck, I want to,” he confessed, anger flaring in his eyes. “I want to hurt you so bad, Calli. I want to dirty your soul the way you dirtied mine.”
My body trembled at the dark intention behind his words. But there was something else in his expression... hurt... longing... regret.
“Zach, I—”
His mouth crashed down on mine, hard and unrelenting. I grasped at his tank, fighting to hold on as he devoured me with hot dirty kisses, the kind of kisses that you felt all the way to the tips of your toes.
“Fuck,” he growled, the sound vibrating in his chest. “Why does this always feel so good? It’s not supposed to feel good.”
A thrill shot through me at his words, but it didn’t change the fact that we were both broken. Irrevocably changed by the trauma we’d both faced. I wanted to believe that was the tether still linking us, but it was more than that.
It was him.
The boy who used to see me despite the fact I lived in my brother’s shadow. It was the boy who hid with me in the treehouse and shared his hopes and dreams and secrets. The boy who gave me my first kiss, my first big O, the boy who took my V-card on a blanket under the stars after Homecoming.
My soul remembered, even if my head and heart knew we wouldn’t survive Zach again.
But it wasn’t enough to make me push him away.
I would give myself this.
One night.
One final time with the boy who would be forever etched on my heart.
Zach picked me up with ease, sliding my slender body along his as he carried me back to the wall and pressed me up against it. His hands were everywhere. In my hair, tracing my curves, squeezing my ass. I loved his passion, how hungry and desperate he was. Even caught up in his anger, Zach made me feel wanted. He made me feel like the center of his universe.
And I both loved and hated him for it.
“I want to fuck you until Molineux is nothing more than a distant memory. I hate that he touched you.” Zach pressed his brow to mine, trapping me there. “I can’t stand the thought that he kissed you.”
“I hate you,” I gasped, knowing that I couldn’t resist him.
“I know, baby, I know. And I hate you right back. But it doesn’t