He let me run a hand through his hair as I stretched up to meet his kiss, standing on the tips of my toes to reach his lips despite my height. He groaned into my mouth, a palm splayed on my lower back and the other trying desperately to unzip his pants.
I covered his fumbling fingers with mine, moved them to the side, and pulled the zipper of his dress slacks down. When they pooled around his feet and his boxers dropped with them, I kneed him as hard as I could in the balls.
Shock coated his face. I grasped the opportunity to knee him again. I refused to be the girl in the horror movie who died because she didn’t go in for the kill. I didn’t watch as Able collapsed to the floor.
Toppling the desk chair over him and lifting the hem of my tattered dress as high as I could, I took off into a sprint toward the hallway, barely making it a foot out the door before I crashed into something rock solid.
Emery, only you, I chided, would escape a near-rape and run into a wall.
I grabbed whatever I could to steady myself. Guanashina fabric slipped through my palms before my fingers latched onto it, digging slightly into the owner of the suit.
“Easy, Tiger.”
Relief flooded my limbs at the sound of Nash’s voice. I blinked away the tears that built behind my eyes while Nash came into gradual focus. Time played tricks on my mind as I took my time stitching the image of him together like patchwork on a quilt.
Nash Prescott was thrift-shop beauty, threadbare and jaded, the memory of something once beautiful lingering as he looked on the world with war-torn eyes. His contempt for Eastridge reflected on his face, hard edges and endless rage that, on normal days, forced me to look away.
The women of Eastridge fawned over him, the dead eyes and the self-assured sneer. The sheer masculinity that clung to him like an expensive cologne. But when I stared at him, I saw something sad. A priceless shirt with a stain on the front.
I meant it as a compliment. There was something arresting about someone who regarded the world for what it was. Even if he couldn’t see the beauty, he saw the truth. And because that truth was layered with ugly and flaws, I struggled to look at him most times.
And yet, at my most vulnerable, I’d suddenly caught tunnel vision for him.
Blatant wrath shifted Nash’s hazel eyes from golden brown to green, like aragonite and emerald gems had battled inside a kaleidoscope and neither had won. With his aquiline nose and too-full lips, he looked too pretty to touch. Still, I couldn’t pry my fingers from his forearms if I’d tried.
Tufts of jet-black hair stuck up in several directions on his head, like he couldn’t be bothered to tame it. Cropped closely at the sides, he kept it long on top in silky, uncultivated waves.
Cafuné, I thought, disconcerted when I realized I’d whispered it.
Cafuné—the act of running your fingers through the hair of someone you love.
The word came to me at the speed of an earthquake, sudden and unpredictable, shaking my already cracked foundations.
It didn’t make sense.
I was staring at the wrong Prescott.
“Your mom sent us to grab the tiara,” Reed explained from beside his brother.
Reed. My best friend. The school’s golden quarterback. A blond-haired, blue-eyed, All-American Southern boy with a charming drawl and a reliable smile. And those dimples. One on each side, gracing us each time he smiled.
Reed was here, and I was safe.
Time slammed into me until I teetered backward. It felt like an hour had passed since I’d bumped into Nash, but it was probably more like ten seconds. Nash steadied me as I registered Reed’s words.
Mom had sent them.
For the tiara.
Not me.
I said nothing.
I couldn’t.
Was this the type of truth—the type of ugly—Nash saw that had his lips permanently down-turned? For a second, I imagined my escape. No Eastridge Prep. No future at Duke. No designer threads laced with expectations.
Nash stayed silent. His eyes traversed a clinical path along my body—the disheveled hair, the mascara-stained cheeks, the ripped Atelier gown in Dusty Rose, a color that had looked cute when I’d left the house but just looked depressing now.
Tacenda.
Arcane.
Dern.
I mouthed words I loved to calm myself, letting them form on my lips without releasing them into a universe that destroyed.
My fingers clasped Nash’s button-down, one I recognized as my dad’s, but I couldn’t let go. Even as my torn dress made a slow descent down my torso.
“Whoa, Em.” Reed reached out and adjusted my corset.
Whatever he had done fixed it enough that it stopped slipping, and still, I couldn’t let go of Nash’s arm.
“Emery,” I corrected Reed. My tone spoke of a calmness I didn’t feel. A detachedness I desperately sought.
Some distant recess of my mind remembered Reed had always called me Em.
That this was normal.
That I was safe.
You are Em.
You are Emery.
You are okay.
“Emery?” The concern in Nash’s voice sounded real.
I clung to it like my hands clung to his suit. My dad’s suit. It still smelled like Dad, a mix of Cedarwood and Pine that settled in my chest. A balm to my nerves. I pressed my face against the shirt and inhaled until I sucked it dry of Dad’s scent, and the only thing that remained was the distinct smell of Nash Prescott.
Citrus. Musk. A heady vanilla that should have been feminine but wasn’t. Anarchy displaced rationale and rendered me speechless. I couldn’t speak. So, I focused on Nash’s scent, even when all I wanted to do was hide under my covers from mortification and never leave.
“Emery,” Reed started again, but the office door slamming open cut him off.
Wincing, I curled my head down, bracing for a hit.
Stop, I ordered myself. Able didn’t hit you. He tore your dress, touched your flesh, and pitched you onto the desk, but he didn’t hit you.
I snapped out of it when Able groaned. Swiveling in time to see him stumble past the doorframe, I scowled at the sight of him zipping his pants up and yanked myself away from Nash.
Anger fueled me, thrumming along to the beat of my pulse until my palm twitched with the need to hurt Able back. I needed to slap him. Punish him. Rob him of his dignity. Embarrass him like he’d embarrassed me. I considered how I’d look in an orange jumpsuit, doing twenty to life, but I lunged for Able anyway.
I parted from Nash, bridged the space between me and Able, and slapped him across the face. Twice. Nash stepped in front of me when I went in for a third slap. He captured my hand and released it.
Without a word, he pulled something from the jacket and shoved it into his pants pocket so fast, I only caught a glint of brown. He slipped off my dad’s suit jacket and slid it over my shoulders. I’d never felt more like a child than I did now.
“Take her home, Reed.”
Nash pressed the car keys to his 90s Honda into Reed’s palm and curled his fingers around it when he wouldn’t grab it. Reed had once said Nash’s car was quite possibly the only thing he’d ever formed an attachment to. It didn’t seem like it as he gave the keys to Reed without so much as a flinch.
Behind Nash, Able dragged a foot back, trying to slip away, but Nash gripped his shirt and tugged him back to us.
“Nash,” Reed tried to argue, his eyes blistering angry and streaking a flash of violence I’d never seen in him before.