Dedication
For Tessa.
Three versions later and it totally isn’t what we were originally going for, but this story will always be for you.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Part I: That Night . . . 1: One Year Ago
2: Two Months Ago
3: One Month Ago
4: One Month Ago
5: Present Day
Part II: That Night . . . 6: One Month Ago
7: One Month Ago
8: Present Day
9: Present Day
10: One Month Ago
11: One Month Ago
Part III: That Night . . . 12: Present Day
13: Present Day
14: One Month Ago
15: Present Day
Part IV: That Night . . . 16: Three Weeks Ago
17: Present Day
18: Present Day
19: Present Day
20: Present Day
21: Present Day
Part V: That Night . . . 22: Present Day
23: Present Day
24: Present Day
25: Present Day
26: Present Day
27: Present Day
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Molly McAdams
Copyright
About the Publisher
Part I
That Night . . .
My eyes found his again, as they had often in the two hours I had been here, and I curled my fingers against the back of his neck. Urging, pleading for him to take me away from the crowd of people. Somewhere I could study him and listen to him speak, and not worry about what his touches and teasing mouth were about to make me do.
His full lips made a pass across the line of my jaw until they were at my ear, and his arms tightened around me as he said, “Let’s go.”
Turning me so he could pull me close to his side, he led us through the packed house and up two flights of stairs. His eyes kept darting down to mine as we walked, but he didn’t say a word as we made our way to a locked door and he took out a key. I hadn’t taken him for a frat guy, but I wasn’t going to question him.
Because I didn’t want to know. I wanted tonight with him . . . I didn’t want his life.
Or, at least, that was what I was trying to remind myself.
The energy and awareness that swirled between us made it hard to remember what this night was for. Made it hard to remember that it could only be one night.
I’d seen him immediately upon entering the house earlier with three of my closest friends. We came up to Duke because we’d heard about this house’s parties, and we were looking for a night to be the girls we usually weren’t before our senior years began.
For one night, we didn’t want to be the good girls everyone knew us to be. For one night, we wanted to let loose, and not have to worry about the consequences tomorrow. Everything we’d avoided the past three years, which was why a party at Duke was so perfect. And I’d found the guy I wanted to remember for years to come.
His presence had filled the room packed with people even though he’d been in the far corner when we walked in, watching the crowd silently by himself. He didn’t seem to be looking for anyone—just watching. Studying. Everything about him screamed trouble. The way he stood: tall with hard, lean muscles, and sure of himself. The look on his face, a calm so unnerving, it was like the calm before the storm. All of it paired with dark, sinful eyes that kept finding me until I finally found myself pressed close to him as we danced to the music that poured through the house.
A gasp tore from my chest when we entered the room and the guy quickly pushed me up against the now-closed door. But all coherent thoughts left me when my back settled against the door and I looked up into dark eyes.
He placed his hands on either side of my head and leaned forward until his mouth was at my ear. “Tell me what you want.”
My lips parted with a quick exhale even though I tried to keep my composure. But his voice . . . his voice. It fit. The image, the eyes . . . it all fit. Now that we weren’t in the middle of a sea of loud people and music that made it nearly impossible to hear anything, I could appreciate the sound of it. It was deep and hoarse. And in those few words, I knew that the sound of his voice would haunt my mind for years to come.
1
One Year Ago
Aurora
“Rorie!” Taylor yelled over the loud music pulsing through the house—the sound still unable to mask the whine in my best friend’s tone. “I’m starving and we’ve been looking for this mystery guy forever. This would have been so much easier if we’d known who to ask for.”
My stomach instantly morphed into a tornado of fluttering wings. I didn’t know his real name. God, I didn’t even know his name, and that didn’t bother me. That made the memory of him more intense—it made my heart beat harder and caused me to feel dizzy for a second as I replayed every second with him.
His lips on my skin. His husky voice in my ear. His intoxicating cologne clouding my mind. His strong hands learning every inch of me, branding me.
My face fell. Not knowing his name hadn’t bothered me until this afternoon, when I’d decided that I needed to see him again. I hadn’t gone more than a few minutes all week without thinking about him, and that had made my decision to come back up to Durham to try to find him. But all I had were memories and an alias.
He let out a long breath and his eyes drifted to the side. “Jay.” After a moment’s hesitation, those dark pools of obsidian found me again. “Just remember me as Jay.”
I had known then that it was a random name to appease me, but hadn’t cared. Because I had kind of done the same, and it fit to give each other aliases on a night where we both knew I was trying to be someone I normally wasn’t.
“I told you not to come!” I yelled over the music, but Taylor was already turning to raid the table we were near.
I looked around us, hoping to get a glimpse of the only reason we were here. We’d already been here for two hours, and there’d been no sign of him yet. My chest had tightened a few times when I saw closely shaved heads—like the one I’d run the tips of my fingers over—but then the guy would turn and my heart would sink.
An excessively large Jolly Rancher was shoved directly in front of my face, less than an inch from the bridge of my nose, and my eyes crossed as I looked it over before glancing to where Taylor was glaring at me and sucking on her own piece of candy.
“Where did you get that?”
She pointed at the table behind her that was littered with liquors and cups and candies, and mouthed the word starving, but didn’t attempt to actually respond over the music.
I forced myself not to roll my eyes as I made one more quick sweep of the area around us, then sighed in defeat as I grabbed the candy. I unwrapped the Jolly Rancher and popped it in my mouth, and turned just as someone barreled into me from behind.
I gasped at the force of the hit, causing the large candy to fly backward and lodge in my throat. Panic instantly set in when I couldn’t get it to move.
“Ror—oh my God! She’s choking!” Taylor screamed, and her hands fluttered all around me.
I was immediately grabbed from behind, and large, hairy arms crossed over my chest seconds before I was heaved into the air over and over again.
“That’s not how you do it! What are you doing?” Taylor screamed, and started punching the guy doing some unknown form of the Heimlich maneuver on me as one of my stilettos flew off my foot.
Taylor’s screaming, the partygoers’ shocked and worried faces, and my inability to pull in air was taking my panic to another level. I tried to slap the man holding me, but my arms were p
inned down to my sides.
Just as the edges of my vision started darkening, my feet hit the ground once again on the guy’s downward drive, and the candy went shooting out onto the hardwood floor.
I started gasping wildly, but no one seemed to notice.
“You’re going to kill her, you idiot, stop it! Stop!” Taylor continued to scream, her hands still hitting the massive man holding me.
“Stop,” I whispered hoarsely. “Stop! Stop!”
“It’s out, man, stop!” a deep voice yelled from somewhere in front of me.
“Stop!” I yelled one last time as my legs hit the floor. Before I knew it, I was going up in the air again, and my second shoe went flying off.
“Rorie!” Taylor screamed as the guy behind me finally set me down, and forced me to lay on the floor. “Rorie, talk to me!”
I looked over at Taylor to find huge tears streaming down her face. “I’m okay!” I assured her, my voice still rough from having the Jolly Rancher lodged in my throat.
“Girl! Girl, are you okay?”
I jerked against the floor at the booming voice as a massive, mostly naked guy entered my vision. Tighty-whiteys, shoes, and a football helmet. Nothing else.
I nodded, unable to say anything as I tried to get the image of him out of my head even though he was still standing right there.
“I saved your life!” He stood up and lifted his arms in victory, and I covered my face to block things I didn’t want to see. “I just saved her life!”
There were loud cheers throughout the house, and the music turned on suddenly, making me jump again. I wasn’t sure when they’d turned it off, but knowing that my choking on unusually large candy had stopped a party had my panic subsiding and my mortification kicking in.
“You scared the shit out of me,” Taylor sobbed.
“Excuse me, Cinderella?” a deep voice called next to my ear.
Cinderella? I removed my hand from my face to look at the guy who belonged to that voice, then quickly pushed myself up onto my elbows when I took in his face, so close to mine.
My cheeks burned with embarrassed heat, but I didn’t know how to look away from him. Despite a large red mark on his forehead, his face was flawless and masculine, with a strong brow and nose, a smirk I knew would’ve made my knees weak had I been standing, and a lethal stare from green eyes so clear it was as if I could see through the iris.
My gaze had become so fixated on the way his lips moved that it took a few seconds too long to realize he’d said something. “I’m sorry, what?”
The smirk broadened for a brief moment, giving me a glimpse of straight, white teeth. He leaned over me until his lips were at my ear, and if I’d had the capability to breathe around him, I would’ve stopped then. “I said I think you lost this,” he drawled, and I swooned.
Literally . . . swooned. As in: all the air left my body in one hard rush, I was unable to keep myself up on my elbows any longer, my head felt light and dizzy, the room spun, and I was pretty sure I’d just entered a romance novel. It really didn’t matter that it was from the lingering effects of nearly choking to death, and then unknowingly holding my breath for too long.
“Whoa.” He quickly put a hand under my head before it could smack on the hardwood floor.
“I’m fine,” I said breathlessly, and internally berated myself for doing everything imaginable to look like an idiot tonight. I tried to sit up, but the guy was still hovering over me, making it impossible to go farther than I’d been.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes,” I promised, and blew out a steadying breath when he sat back.
“Good. I can’t have you passing out on me, Cinderella.”
“Cin—” My head shook firmly as I corrected him. “No, my name is Rorie.”
With another slow smirk, he gestured to the red mark on his forehead for barely a second, then reached behind him and produced my stiletto.
My embarrassment from earlier couldn’t compare to the level it was at then as I put it all together. My shoe had flown into his face.
“Oh my God,” I whispered so low, the words drifted away with the bass of the music. “I’m so sorry.”
He laughed easily, as if he hadn’t just taken a five-inch stiletto to the face, and glanced from my shoe to me. “My name is Declan,” he provided. “I already know this shoe belongs to you. What I want to know now, Cinderella, is if I give this back to you, are you going to run away from me?”
Despite my humiliation, my lips spread into a smile as the name finally made sense. I reached for the shoe, but Declan held it away from me. His expression showed he was still waiting for an answer. With a raised eyebrow, I said, “I lost both shoes. I don’t care what Disney said, a girl can’t run away very easily with only one shoe.”
His smirk stretched to match my smile, and he dipped his head close. “Then I’m keeping the other one that hit the back of my head.”
2
Two Months Ago
Aurora
I released a heavy breath and a wide smile broke free as I took in the sight before me. This was it, what we’d been planning and waiting for . . . we were finally going to be together. Not that thirty minutes away could ever be considered long-distance; but with how crazy both our senior years had been, Declan and I hadn’t gotten nearly enough time together in the ten months that we’d been dating. And the time we had spent together had often been filled with other friends or studying. Now? Now it was just us. We’d both graduated a month ago, had debated on where we wanted to live, and then searched for the perfect apartment.
Apartment: found. Move everything in: just finished. Live out my happy ever after with boyfriend . . .
“Welcome home,” Declan murmured into my ear as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against his chest.
. . . definitely working on it.
“Mmm, I like the sound of that.” I felt my body loosen, and my head rolled to the side when his lips moved in a line down the side of my neck. “I need a bath,” I said halfheartedly as one of his hands moved under my shirt. “That was code for I’m sweaty and gross.”
Declan moved out from behind me and pushed me up against one of the living room walls. “I really don’t care,” his deep voice rumbled before he captured my lips with his.
His fingers found the hem of my shirt and pulled up, forcing us to break apart for the split second that it took to get the shirt over my head, then his mouth resumed moving against mine.
My breaths came out in short bursts as he moved down my throat and over my chest, his hands gripping and sliding over my hips and bottom as he slowly pushed my yoga pants and underwear down to my thighs. His teeth raked across my nipple over my sports bra, eliciting a gasp that was quickly followed by a low moan when he suddenly pulled up the bra and returned to what he had just been doing as his hand slid between my thighs.
I tore the sports bra off the rest of the way and dropped it to the floor near my shirt as I reached for him. Before I could get to his clothes, he slid his hands back down my thighs and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist and fused my mouth to his as he walked us down the hall and into the bedroom.
Declan tossed me onto the bed, and was already shrugging out of his shirt by the time I sat back up and reached for him. Grasping the waistband of his athletic shorts, I pulled him onto the bed with me as I lay back, and smiled playfully at the growl that built up in his chest when I grabbed his length.
I’d barely gotten his shorts off before he was pulling my yoga pants and underwear the rest of the way off and climbing back on top of me. His hands ran up my legs and stomach, then continued to my breasts for a teasing moment before they were gone and he was spreading my thighs.
His name was barely more than a whimper as his fingers teased me and his mouth focused on each breast. I ran my hands over his head and secured my fingers in his hair, my body restless as his lips slowly moved from my chest, down my stomach. My eyes fluttered shut when I felt h
is hot breath against me; a shaky moan climbed up my throat when he leaned forward to taste me.
Within minutes my body felt like it was suspended in air as he relentlessly teased and licked me. Heat pooled low in my stomach, every muscle tensed in preparation of what I knew I was only seconds from.
“I’m—” I cut off when an image flashed through my mind, too real to ignore for the second it was there. But just as quickly it was gone, and suddenly Declan was kneeling between my thighs and pushing inside me, and pushing me over the edge. “Oh God! Dec!”
My toes curled and body trembled as Declan moved roughly and quickly inside me. Another moan tumbled from my lips.
“Declan Veil, I suggest you get out here this instant!” a very distinct, very frustrated, feminine voice called out from the front of the apartment.
Declan slapped his hand over my mouth to quiet the moan, and we froze in horror for all of two seconds before we scrambled away from each other.
“Crap!” I hissed, and searched the floor for my pants after I got my underwear on. “Crap!”
“Declan!” she called out again.
“Yeah, hold on!” Declan yelled back quickly as he pulled on his shorts. His expression showed every bit of his frustration.
“What is your mother doing here?” I whispered harshly, and covered my bare chest as I looked around for my shirt.
“I gave her a key . . . for emergencies.” Declan said the last two words loud enough that I knew his mom could hear. His shirt hit my arms, and I hurried to catch it before it dropped to the floor. “Just put it on; she’ll come in here if we don’t go out there.”
I put the shirt on as we rushed out of our room, and didn’t realize it was inside out and backward until we were in the hall. Heat flooded my cheeks, and I wanted to crawl into a corner and die when we walked into the living room, and saw Declan’s mom, Linda, holding my shirt and sports bra. Folded.