Twenty-Seven
She doesn’t speak during the walk back to her apartment from the Archwood library, Wes’s mindless chatter filling the silence, something about what his Law and Philosophy professor discussed in their last class.
Charlie’s not paying attention, her thoughts spinning as she tries to understand what just happened.
When she unlocks her door, he asks, “Are you hungry? Do you want to order pizza?”
This snaps her out of her fugue state. Dropping her bag to the floor, she whirls on him. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
Pulling off his coat and hanging it over the back of the chair he always uses, he smiles, unfazed. “Probably a lot of things you’d love to list for me.”
She scowls. “Quinn. This is serious. What if he follows through on his threat to donate to Heartbeat Care?”
“He won’t.” Wes arches a brow. “I promise. I have information he doesn’t want leaked to the press.”
“So you’re totally fine with blackmail now?”
He leans against the counter, crossing his arms over his chest. “Are you telling me you were going to agree to his deal?”
She scoffs. “No, I just—”
“He’s done this my entire life. He manipulates people into doing what he wants, all while claiming it’s for the benefit of the other person.
Like we’re all just chess pieces on his board.
He used you to get to me because he knows he’s losing me.
You don’t need him, Rogers. You’re going to save the clinic all on your own.
Look at everything you’ve already accomplished!
” A glorious smile breaks over his face.
“You’re doing everything you said you’d do, and you don’t need my asshole father interfering with it. ”
He beams, admiration plain on his face, and she swells with warmth. But she still has so many questions.
“What about the LSAT?”
“Fuck the LSAT.” He laughs, relief relaxing his body, transforming his features, illuminating him in a way she can’t remember seeing in a very long time, if ever. “I never cared about the LSAT. This was all just about being with you.”
A buzzing noise starts in her ear. “What?”
“Everything I’ve done—asking you to tutor me, agreeing to your experiments—has been so I can spend time with you like before. I would have agreed to fly to the moon if you’d asked.”
Charlie’s stomach swoops at the adoration in his voice. His words slowly sink in as she fights the rising emotions threatening to swallow her.
“Why?”
“Because I love you.”
She opens and closes her mouth, shock rendering her mute. At the look on her face, he laughs, exuberant.
“That’s what I’ve been wanting to tell you for the past few days.
Longer than that, but suddenly I couldn’t stand you not knowing anymore.
” He approaches her slowly and cups her face.
He strokes her cheek with his thumb, his eyes piercing her.
“I needed to tell you even if you didn’t feel the same. ”
She’s falling, crashing, breaking. Drowning under his waves.
“I almost told you the other night,” he says, laughing.
“But instead I made an ass out of myself again, which seems to be a common theme whenever I’m around you after I have alcohol.
Why do you think my father thought making that deal with you would be the best way to keep me in line?
He knows how I’ve felt about you for years. ”
This pulls Charlie from her trance. She steps back, and his hands fall to his sides.
“You…” She shakes her head. “Years—What do you mean, for years?”
A wry smile pulls at his lips. “God, Charlie, since the day I opened my door and saw you standing there.”
“No you haven’t,” she blurts. Her heart is racing so fast, she’s afraid she’s going to pass out. Her brain can’t process his words. “No, you—you can’t have.”
“Oh?” He waves a lazy hand through the air. “Please explain my feelings to me.”
She glares at him. “There’s no such thing as love at first sight. That’s just infatuation.”
He laughs like what she’s just said is genuinely hilarious.
“Always an argument with you, isn’t it?” He sighs.
“Fine, Rogers. Do you want me to tell you how I liked your face first, but then I fell in love with your brain? How I liked your body, but I fell in love with that clever mouth and the confident way you speak your mind? How when I was with you, I wanted nothing more than to hear all your thoughts and opinions?”
Charlie scoffs, but he continues, unbothered.
“Even if love at first sight doesn’t exist, as you say, I knew from the moment we met that I wanted to spend all my time with you.
It was so easy with you. And falling in love with you didn’t take long after that.
” He stares at her, determined. “You’re so sure of yourself, and you know what you want—” Charlie shakes her head at this, but he takes her hand, insistent. “You do, Rogers.”
His words are the slowest form of torture. She feels like he’s pouring salt on the wounds that never fully healed while healing them at the same time.
“You make me want to be better. Being with you made my life better, even for a short while. You were—are—the best thing. You have never once been a distraction for me, Charlie. You’ve always been a safe haven.
Why do you think I showed up here drunk after the clinic’s holiday party?
” He runs a hand through his hair. “Part of me thought I’d romanticized you and if I asked you to tutor me, you’d prove that my memories of you were wrong.
I tried not to feel anything for you. Why do you think I was such an asshole?
I wanted you to be awful, but you were the furthest thing from it. ”
Charlie’s heart stutters. Her blood is on fire, roaring in her ears.
“These past few months have been simultaneously the worst and the happiest of my life. Even though our relationship was only physical for you, it meant so much more to me. Every touch, every kiss, every moment with you felt like the very best drug. It left me wanting more, and every time, I was afraid it would be the last time. I never wanted to be just some experiment to you.”
Tears of frustration prick her eyes. “Why would you agree to something like that?”
“Masochism?” He looks away. His hair looks atrocious, and her heart clenches at the sight of something so familiar.
“But mostly because I’m fucking selfish, Rogers.
I wanted you all to myself, especially after I heard about you and Nash.
Even if it wasn’t everything, even if it tore me apart each time I got to touch you, feel you, I was willing to let you ruin me, and I would do it again.
Because receiving an ounce of your attention felt like enough most days. ”
Tenderness bursts open inside her, and a tear slips down her cheek. She rubs it away.
His eyes—those fucking eyes that see her so clearly—burn with bright intensity.
“I don’t have anything left to lose. You make me want to take risks, so for the first time in my life, I’m taking a risk and putting it all out there.
” Gently, he clasps her hands and laces their fingers together.
His eyes bore into hers, like he’s staring into the depths of her soul.
“If you think it won’t ever work between us, if I’m not what you want, just tell me, and I will let you go. ”
Tears blur her vision, but she can’t feel anything but his skin on hers. Her fingers clench around his hands, hands that know so much, that can pull pleasure from her body in a way she never thought possible.
She’s tried so hard to cleave him from her heart, tear him from her memory, to no avail.
She’s tried convincing herself she doesn’t want him, but she’s tired of pretending.
Tired of ignoring how her blood sings at his touch.
Tired of trying to convince herself his presence doesn’t feel right and safe.
Tired of pretending it hasn’t always been him, too.
But there is something she needs to confess to first.
“You were wrong, by the way,” she whispers, “when you said I only like you when you make me come.” She lets out a soft laugh when he frowns. “I like you all the time. That’s the problem.”
His face clears.
“I don’t despise you, and I’m not sure I ever did.
I didn’t tell you the full reason why I stopped talking to you three years ago.
” She studies their intertwined fingers.
“It wasn’t only because you left me alone at the party.
I went looking for you, and I saw you with Mia.
She obviously did not appreciate me being there, and then I heard you tell her you felt bad for me because I was so sheltered.
And you’d never fuck a friend.” She lifts her gaze.
“I wanted you back then, but I refused to be pitied. I never wanted to be only your friend.”
She’s surprised by how calm she’s able to keep her voice, especially when his expression changes from confusion to alarm the moment he realizes what she’s talking about.
“Charlie, I’m so sorry,” he breathes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“And say what? Tell you that you hurt my feelings and I wanted you to kiss me instead of her?”
“Yes!” His voice cracks, and he lets out an incredulous laugh. “God, yes. Anything but the silence. It nearly killed me.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t do that. You know I couldn’t. It took me almost a full year to go to a party. You were Wesley Quinn.”
“I was a nineteen-year-old asshole,” he insists. “Everyone wanted something from me. They knew I was friends with Theo Fox, and my mother was the popular Senator. I thought I needed to act a certain way, but I was a fucking asshole, Charlie. I only wanted you.”
“Then you shouldn’t have said what you did. You made me feel like I was a nobody from Indiana when I thought you were my friend. I didn’t think you’d ever want me.”
He flinches at the echo of his father’s words from so many weeks ago, but she keeps going. Too much has been lost already by not being honest.
“It’s not that I didn’t care about you, it’s that I cared too much.
Because of how I grew up, I was used to having everything I said invalidated, so I was afraid to share how I felt for fear that you’d laugh at me.
” Her tears, held at bay for so long, finally slip free.
“So instead I cut you off because I thought it would save me from future heartbreak. I told myself it was self-preservation.” She shrugs with a watery smile.
“It was self-respect to decide to hate you.”
Untangling her fingers from his, she presses her palms to his chest, feeling the rapid beat of his heart. She slides them around his neck, dragging her fingers through the soft hair at his nape.
“But you know what? Even though I tried so hard to hate you, you make it so difficult. Because you are smart and funny and you make me feel desired and…sexy.” He smiles, but she presses a finger to his lips, keeping him silent.
“And you make me feel safe and understood and you see me, Wes. And sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe when you touch me. ”
He holds her gaze, eyes flickering with a flame that looks like hope, like she’s the answer to all his questions. His hands rise to her hips, pulling her against him.
“So no, I don’t despise you. Quite the opposite, in fact. And do you want to know the real reason I lied to Nash about sleeping with you?”
He cups her face before she can react, his fingers trembling as they trace her jaw, tilting up her chin.
“Why?” he whispers.
“Because I wanted it to be you. It’s always been you, Wes.”
He surges forward, capturing her lips in a searing, breathless kiss. All the emotions from the past weeks—months—burst like a dam, carried away in a torrent of overwhelming heat and desire, and it feels like everything, exactly what all the other moments have been leading to.
“I want you.” He nips her bottom lip, and she whines, needy and desperate. “God, I want you so much. Tell me what you need. Please, Charlie, tell me what I can do to make my mistakes up to you.” His hands grip her hips. “Do you want me on my knees? Do you want me to beg for your forgiveness?”
She smiles aginst his lips. “It would certainly be a start.”
Instead, she rises on her toes and presses her mouth to his throat, sucking gently before tracing a path up his neck and brushing a delicate kiss on his mouth.
She whispers, “Show me you mean it, Wes. Take me to bed.”