Sophie
and quick as he rushes out of the old Botanical Studies building and through the Arboretum. I’m not drunk, I’m a little light-headed as I rush after him. Luckily, the ice-cold air slaps against my face, clearing the fog of alcohol from my mind.
I catch up with him and grab his elbow. He whirls around. His eyes go wide.
Moonlight filters down through the thick canopy of evergreens, dim but pale enough for me to make out his face. His cheeks are flushed, blood splattered across his chin, lips and cheeks. He’s breathing hard. His hands are still clenched into fists.
“Are you alright?” he asks, his voice a little hoarse.
I’ve never seen him like this. Evan always projects this sense that everything washes over him, that everything is just one great joke and he’s in on it. But he doesn’t look like he’s laughing now.
“Are you?” I ask.
I grab his arms and lift them to get a better look at his hands. They’re caked with blood. His knuckles are a mess of cuts and bruises.
“Look at you.” I shake my head at him. “You know the skull is stronger than the bones in your hands, right?”
He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Hard on soft, soft on hard.” He glances down at his hands with a wince. “It’s not my fault I’ve grown up on action movies and superhero flicks.”
“Not Arthurian legends and chivalric romances?”
He frowns. “I don’t even know what that is. You know I’m stupid.”
I shrug. “Knights in shining armour and damsels in distress.”
The moonlight isn’t strong enough that I can fully make out the spectrum of emotions on his face. But even in the darkness, I can tell he’s not smiling with his usual carefree arrogance.
“I would hardly describe you as a damsel in distress,” he murmurs.
“Really? Then why did you beat up Luca’s face?”
He’s silent for a moment. “Did you hear what he said?”
I shake my head. “No. But everybody heard you yelling at him to—” I put on a fake scream “—never speak about me like this ever again!”
“Right.” He licks his lips and winces, probably at the taste of Luca’s blood. “Well, I wasn’t beating up Luca’s face to save you. I was beating Luca’s face because it was long due a beating.”
“Right.” I gesture at his hands. “Well, even if you didn’t fight for my honour, I suppose I should still help you with this. Put my first aid training to good use.”
I lead him away through the trees. He follows me, asking, “Does that make me the damsel in distress, then?”
“Maybe. Just try not to swoon into my arms.”
“I make no promises.”
I take him to the small Spearcrest infirmary. The doors are open even out of hours because the nurse’s office and the cabinets are all kept locked, but there’s a first aid kit there, and a sink for Evan to wash his hands in. The emergency light is on near the door, a low silver glow, giving the room a ghostly atmosphere.
After forcing him to wash his hands and splashing disinfectant on the cuts, Evan sits on one of the clean white beds and I drag a chair over to sit in front of him. The cuts on his knuckles are disgusting and still seeping blood, but Evan doesn’t say anything as I dab disinfecting wipes over them.
His face is a little pale in the low light, and one of his knees bounces up and down, but those are the only indications of his discomfort.
Once I’ve made sure all the cuts have been properly disinfected, I dress them. Evan winces slightly as I start wrapping the bandages around his hand.
“How did your Lit exam go?” I ask.
“Trust you to be thinking about that right now,” he says with a low, scratchy laugh. “Hopefully alright. I answered all the questions. I even filled out the entire answer booklet.”
“That’s a lot of writing,” I say, securing the bandage with some clips.
“Yeah, my hands were killing me by the end.”
“Those hands?” I say, taking his wrists and lifting his hands. “You mean those big, strong, manly, athletic hands?”
“Haha, you’re so—” His voice catches. He’s quiet for a second, then he speaks low and soft. “I’ve missed you.”
My heartbeat stutters, sudden heat pluming in my chest. It’s probably the disarming mix of the drinks I had earlier and the intimacy of tending his injuries. I busy myself tidying everything away and say over my shoulder, “Come on, you literally see me all the time.”
“But it’s not the same.” He sighs. “It’s not like it was, before, you know… Before everything. Before Christmas. I miss being around you. Spending time with you. In a nice way, not in an angry way.”
I put the first aid box away and return to the bed, sitting down next to Evan. “Well, I was angry at you.”
He turns his head to look at me. There’s no smirk on his face, no amused glint in his eyes. Just raw, exposed emotions, bloody and messy as the cuts on his knuckles.
“I was angry at you, too,” he says.
We’re shoulder-to-shoulder. The heat from his body flows into mine.
“But I didn’t do anything wrong,” I say softly.
Either Evan is more drunk than he seems, or his system is still pumping with adrenaline. Words come tumbling out of his mouth, seemingly without passing through a single filter on the way out.
“I wasn’t angry because you did something wrong. I know you didn’t do anything wrong. I was angry because I saw you with that guy from your job and I was jealous because you like him instead of me. And I know that’s not fair because of—well, everything—but it made me feel like shit that you like someone else when all I want is for you to like me.”
I swallow hard. I don’t want to feel sorry for Evan—he doesn’t need my pity. But the truth coming from his lips is unexpected and more painful than I anticipated.
I turn away, looking down at my legs, picking at my tights.
“You want everybody to like you,” I point out, voice low.
It’s half a joke, half the truth—mostly designed to break some of the unbearable tension. Tension that’s built between us while I bandaged his hand, tension that’s been building since we had sex by the assembly hall, and when we kissed in his house and in the peace garden.
Tension that’s been building for years, and started that day he turned his back on me, on our friendship.
Evan lifts his bandaged hand to my cheek. I turn my head to look at him so he doesn’t hurt himself, but his fingers trail to my jaw and stay there. His hair, wet with sweat, curls on his forehead, falling over one eye. His gaze is direct and piercing.
“I want you to like me,” he says, low but firm. “I want you.”
He pauses. I don’t know what to say. I close the space between us, pressing my mouth to his. His lips fall open like flowers unfurling for the sun. A low sound, hunger and want, rumbles in his throat. I brush my tongue against his, letting the heat from his mouth trickle into mine.
This kiss is long and slow and deep, the warmth of our breaths mingling. His fingers are still on my jaw.
I pull away to catch a breath. “Evan.”
My voice is so rough it almost breaks. Evan’s eyes widen as I speak, a mixture of fear and desire flashing across his face. He stops my mouth with another kiss and I sigh against his lips and kiss him back, incapable of denying him.
My fingers curl into the folds of his shirt while he holds my head gently in his hands, his fingertips tickling the hair at the back of my head. His mouth tastes of alcohol and blood.
I pull away to catch my breath but Evan can’t seem to stop. He kisses the corner of my mouth, my burning cheeks, my jaw. I tilt my head back, and shudder as his lips trail burning kisses along the column of my neck, the stretched tendons, the fluttering pulse.
Nestled into the crook of my neck, he speaks quietly. “I like you, Sophie. I like you so fucking much.”
I lick my lips nervously and try to push him away. “Evan…”
“No.” He shakes his head and touches a finger to my lips. “Don’t, Sophie. There’s nothing to misunderstand or misinterpret. I like you, I’ve always liked you, no matter how unforgivably I’ve acted. I like everything about you. Your frown, your hair, your gorgeous fucking eyes and your voice and your mind. I like your sharp tongue and your mean streak. I fucking like you so much my chest feels like it’s going to explode. I even like it when you hurt me, because I’d rather be hurt by you than adored by anybody else.”
I stare at him, eyes wide, mouth wordlessly open.
“And I know that I fucked up, Sophie, and you get to hate me if you want to—I understand why you would. I’ve been a shitty person, I’ve done shitty things because I was desperate and stupid and didn’t grow a backbone when I should have. And you can hate me for all that—I hate me for it too. But you don’t get to ignore how I feel or pretend you don’t know. You know, now. You don’t get to explain away my feelings or analyse me like your Hamlet or Captain Wentworth. I’m a real human being—sometimes not a great one—with real feelings. And I like you, really a fucking lot. I want to take you on dates, I want to go to parties with you and be the one who gets your drinks. I want to kiss you and I want to fuck you face to face, and I want you to say my name when you come. I don’t want to be your practice run at having a stupid American boyfriend. I want to be your actual stupid American boyfriend.”
My cheeks grow hot at his words. Not just my cheeks, my body, too. He leans over and kisses my mouth, a slow, soft kiss, lips closed. Then he lies back on the bed with a sigh of exhaustion. I stretch out next to him and he turns towards me.
We face each other in silence for a moment.
“This evening isn’t going at all the way I expected,” I say.
He laughs softly. “No, me neither. I had very different plans for tonight.”
“Like what? Getting shit-faced and taking bets on who would win in a fight between Theodora and Zachary?”
“Hah! I mean yes. But also plans to do with your tights.”
He points at my legs. I frown, glancing down at them. “My tights?”
“Yeah. I’m a little obsessed with them.”
“You are?” I roll onto my back and stick up a leg. “So you like my tights, huh?”
“Mm, yeah…” His voice becomes low and rough. “I really fucking like them. I wanna touch your legs through them.”
“Yeah?” I turn my head. “What else?”
He moves closer, and leans over me to answer against my ear. “I wanna lick your pretty pussy through them. I wanna rip a hole in them and fuck you nice and slow.”
I squeeze my thighs over the trickle of hot wetness pulsing there. I bite my lip and laugh. “Who knew you were so hard for fishnets?”
Evan’s mouth moves slowly against my jaw. “It’s not the fishnets I’m hard for, Sophie.”
Then his mouth is on mine, wet and hot. His uninjured arm traces down my hip and over my leg. His fingers tangle through the fishnet, his nails scratch at the sensitive skin of my thighs. I suppress a shudder and curl my arms around his neck, pulling him closer.
His kisses move from my mouth to my neck. There’s no biting this time, only playful nips and lingering kisses. He takes the hem of my skirt and pulls it up. I’m wearing plain black underwear underneath my fishnet tights, but based on his reaction, I might as well have been wearing the most erotic lingerie.
He bunches my dress around my waist and trails kisses over the plain of my stomach. Shudders ripple through me, the muscles of my stomach twitching under his lips. He lets out a low laugh against the skin of my belly. He slides down, kissing my hips and thighs through my tights until I’m gasping and shivering underneath him, until I’m writhing with impatience.
But there’s no sense of urgency to anything he does. He closes his mouth on my inner thigh and sucks lightly, sending a shock of arousal through me.
“Come on, Evan,” I finally bite out.
He looks up through his golden curls. They’re almost silver in the dim emergency light. With a slow smile, he shows me his injured hand, cocking an eyebrow. I take the hint. Scrambling to pull on the waistbands of my tights and boxers, I drag them off me, kicking them away from me.
But he doesn’t do anything. He gazes at me, hands slowly tracing up my leg, fingers feather-light. I shift my hips restlessly, troubled by the intensity of his gaze.
“I’m not going to beg,” I say finally, glaring at him.
“Are you sure?”
He’s grinning, but he settles himself between my legs. I think this might be my favourite sight in the world: that drop-dead gorgeous face framed by my thighs. The muscles in my legs and belly twitch with anticipation, but Evan is unhurried. He kisses my stomach, my hips, my thighs. He nips at the sensitive flesh and soothes it with his tongue. He kisses me until I’m lifting my hips off the bed without realising, my core tight and pulsing.
When he finally lowers his mouth on me I let out a shuddering sigh.
His soft lips and gentle tongue caress me, teasing me open like an unfurling flower. He licks me slowly, intently, as though he’s exploring me, tasting me. Every nerve in my body is exposed and alive with electricity. I’m both shaking uncontrollably and holding myself completely still, as if I’m suspended on a tightrope of pleasure.
He pauses, looking up at me.
Meeting his gaze when I’m this vulnerable and exposed, this raw with want, when his lips shine with my wetness, is almost unbearable. I reach down to cover his eyes, to block out his gaze, but he pushes my hand away gently.
“Let me look at you.” His voice is low and rough. “You’re so fucking hot, Sophie. I could come just looking at you. Fuck.”
He closes his mouth on my clit, kissing it, flicking it with his tongue. I gasp and quickly cover my mouth, but Evan reaches for my hand, pulls it away.
“No. I wanna hear you.” He speaks against me, his voice vibrating through me. “I wanna hear every moan, every cry.”
I’m hot with embarrassment and pleasure. In spite of everything we’ve done before, it’s never felt like this. It’s never felt this real, this intimate. Everything he says brings me closer to the edge.
But he’s relentless.
He builds a slow, torturous rhythm with his tongue. Then there’s a push, and his fingers slide inside me. I tighten around him, a whimper escaping my lips. My senses are overwhelmed—I’m not even trying to stop my hips from writhing, seeking more, wanting more, needing more.
Evan’s tongue becomes firmer, faster. The rhythm builds, the pleasure heightened by the sensation of his fingers inside me. My back arches off the bed, the tightrope of pleasure shudders, trembles. I feel myself fall, I open my mouth in a silent scream.
I come so hard my vision goes dark. My hips buck uncontrollably against Evan’s mouth as I ride out my orgasm against his tongue. I pulse uncontrollably around his fingers. My thighs are shaking, out of control.
When I slump back onto the bed, I look up to see Evan wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. An expression of feral hunger is in his eyes. He unbuckles his trousers, pulling out his impressive dick—the dick I hate and yet can’t seem to get enough of.
He rubs the head of it against me. Coating it in my juices, he rubs it against my oversensitive clit, drawing a hoarse cry out of me. He smiles at the sound, a cruel smirk. “You like that, Sutton? Does it feel good?”
I glare at him. His cock in his fist, he slides it down my wet pussy, pressing against my entrance. “Or is this what you want?”
He waits, tilts his head.
“Answer me.”
“Yes,” I choke out. “I want it.”
He tilts his head. “What do you want?”
“I want you. I want… I want your cock inside me. Please.”
With a low, hungry growl, he thrusts inside me. My back arches off the bed as I claw the blanket.
He fucks me exactly as he described before: in long, slow, torturous strokes. He watches his cock slowly move in and out of me and bites his lip, stifling a groan of satisfaction. Then he looks up. Our eyes meet, and an unspeakable expression melts on his features. Pleasure, want, and something terrible and beautiful, too close to love for comfort.
I try to turn away, but he growls, “No.”
He’s so deep inside me I can barely breathe, and just like that, he pulls closer to me, cradling me in his arms. He kisses my cheeks, my jaw, my lips.
“Look at me, Sophie.”
I look at him. My face is burning, my mind foggy with pleasure. A distant siren seems to be ringing, alerting me to the danger I’m in. The danger of giving in to Evan, of believing the expression on his face, of letting him completely in.
His eyes are vividly blue when I meet his gaze. I lick my lips nervously.
“Say my name.”
I swallow hard. “Evan.”
He hardens inside me. He moves his hips, fucking me in long, slow strokes.
“Fuck,” he mutters. “Say it again.”
“Evan.” It’s almost a relief to be saying his name. Evan—the boy I’ve loved, the boy I’ve hated. Evan, the only person to have ever made me feel this way. Evan, undeniable, irresistible, inevitable. I wrap my arms around his shoulders, tangle my fingers in his hair. “Evan.”
“God, fuck.” His thrusts grow more frantic, less controlled. “Fuck, Sophie, I l—”
I close his mouth with a kiss, brushing his tongue with mine. I arch against him, taking all of him. Wrapped in the heat of him, the smell of him, my senses are filled with him, overwhelmed. He fills every empty part of me until I’m full—complete.
Emotion wells up inside me—inexplicably, my eyes burn with sudden tears.
Burying my head in the crook of Evan’s neck, I pull him closer to me. I whisper his name one more time, my voice muffled by his skin. His arms tighten around me and his hips buck. He comes with a broken cry. For a moment, his thrusts are frantic, desperate.
Then they slow, then he grows still.
We hold each other in the silver light, the rushing sound of our pants mingling in the air. We are holding on to each other so tight our pulses seem to beat as one. We stay like this for a long time, saying nothing at all.
Later, Evan gets up and cleans me up with a towel soaked in warm water. Then he gets back on the bed and pulls me into his arms, and just holds me. His breath flutters strands of hair against my temple, tickling me. Sleep darkens the edges of my consciousness, pulling at me.
A whispered question reaches me through my torpor. “Do you still hate me?”
“Mm. Of course. I hate everything about you.”
“Everything? Even my good looks?”
“Especially your good looks.” I suppress a yawn. “I hate your stupid blue eyes, your stupid smile. I hate how American you are, I hate the way you speak, the way you laugh at everything. I hate your confidence, your stubbornness, your golden boy energy. I hate everything you do.”
He lets out a low laugh. “Even the things I do to you?”
“Especially the things you do to me.”
“Does that mean I need to stop?”
“No.” I nestle closer into him. We’re going to have to leave the infirmary soon, but I don’t want the moment to end just yet. “You have to keep going. Otherwise how am I going to keep hating them?”
