"You sure you're okay with coming over tonight?"
Sean had her things in a bag slung over his shoulder, and they were already more than halfway between her dorm and his frat. But even though she knew turning back was the last thing he wanted, he'd take her right back if he thought that was what she needed.
"Yes. I'm totally sure about staying with you tonight."
But he didn't just listen to what she said, he made them stop in the middle of the path so he could look into her eyes. "Did you get through all of your work today after I left?"
"I did."
"But?"
Had anyone ever understood her this well, hearing all the things she wasn't saying, making her admit even her smallest fears so that she could finally get over them?
"I feel like I've been preparing for my presentation forever, but I'm still a little nervous about it. Especially since I've never stood up in front of a class to talk before."
"What if you gave the presentation to me tonight? And then after you aren't nervous about it anymore..." He gave her a smile, one full of so much sensual promise it took her breath away. "I'll take your clothes off and make you come again."
She loved that he hadn't just blown off her concerns by telling her how great she was going to do. And she definitely loved the way a few hot words from his lips had her entire body burning up even as a cold breeze blew over her. Still, "You don't want to hear me talk about the Bronte sisters and their influence on the modern novel."
"I do."
She laughed, shaking her head. "Nice try, but I'm pretty sure being bored senseless isn't the kind of foreplay every guy looks forward to."
"Screw foreplay. If you just need to stay up with me working on your presentation tonight, that's what we'll do. I want you, Serena. But I want you to be happy more."
It was the most seductive thing he could possibly have said to her.
"Thank you," she said as she kissed him. "But, honestly, I think just admitting out loud that I'm nervous has already helped. Because the truth is that I really am ready to ace this thing."
He studied her face for a few long moments before his obvious concern eased. "You really are, aren't you?"
Finally feeling as though she could conquer absolutely anything she set her mind to, even meeting Sean's entire family tomorrow, she said, "I really am. Now, how quickly do you think we can get to the part where you're taking my clothes off and making me--"
His mouth covered hers before she could finish her sentence, his tongue against hers giving her quite a few hints about what he intended for them on their second night together. And she was pretty sure they beat any previous cross-campus speed record as they headed straight for his frat house, making it to the front door in less than five minutes.
Nothing, she was certain, could bring her down tonight.
But as soon as they walked inside the Delta Tau Delta house, it was as if her optimism had turned straight into a jinx when she heard the too-familiar strains of Crashing Girl...and realized Sean's frat brothers were all hunched over an iPad.
Watching her.
*
Sean knew the second he and Serena walked into the house and every guy in the place turned to them with guilty looks on their faces that something was up. Something bigger than how they'd grilled him about her all day.
It hadn't taken much to shut down their borderline raunchy questions when they'd realized he was serious about her. Not when they knew the kind of damage his fists could do to when he was provoked.
Out of the corner of his eye he'd seen them shove what looked like an iPad under a couch cushion. "What the hell were you just looking at?"
Serena was pulling his hand in the other direction, but he needed to deal with the situation in his house immediately. And in the strongest way possible.
Kurt stood and held up both hands. "It's nothing, bro. Just watching some videos."
"Give me the goddamned iPad."
One of the newer recruits, clearly figuring there was a better chance of saving his ass this way, grabbed it from its hiding place and held it out to Sean.
The screen was paused on an image of Serena on a sandy beach. Tiny scraps of fabric barely covered her and she was wet and covered with sand. It was a music video he'd seen before, for the song that had been playing when they walked inside, but he hadn't remember that she was the girl writhing around so sexily in it.
He threw the iPad across the room so that it slammed into the hardwood bar.
He hadn't let go of her hand, and when she jerked at the sound of the device shattering on impact, he wanted to pull her against him to tell her she didn't deserve every goddamned creep in the world drooling over her. But for the moment, he needed to focus on ripping his frat brothers a new one.
"I thought I already told all of you not to do one damned thing to disrespect her." He had Kurt's throat in his hand and had lifted him up so that his toes were barely touching the floor.
"Sean, it's okay." Serena tugged on his hand again, hard enough that he had to turn to look at her and break his hard hold on his onetime friend's throat. "It's not their fault I was in that video."
She looked so obviously distraught that it made him even angrier. But at the same time, he could belatedly see that he was only making things worse for her by losing it.
Turning back to the crowd of guys who looked like they were about to piss themselves, he warned them, "If I so much as hear that you're looking at pictures or videos of Serena again--"
"We won't." The scared freshman was the first to make that promise, but all the other guys quickly nodded and echoed it.
Kurt was rubbing his neck with one hand and wiping the water from his eyes with the back of the other. "Jesus, Sean, we didn't mean anything by it."
He was about to launch at him again when Serena said his name. "Please, Sean, it's okay. I'm okay." He watched her take a deep breath before turning to the group. "I know my past is a little weird--"
"It isn't weird!"
She shot him a look that shut him up before she continued. "But if you want to know something about me or the career I had before I came to Stanford, I'd appreciate it if you'd ask me straight to my face instead of doing an Internet search. And things like that video..."
When she paused and he felt her hand shake a little in his, he wanted so badly to jump in to let her know she didn't need to do this, didn't need to be so brave. But for as badly as he wanted to protect her, he swore he could hear his mother's voice in his head and what she'd always told him when he wanted to step in for one of his sisters. "She needs to do this. She needs to know how strong, how powerful she really is."
"That video was a part of my career before I came here, but it isn't who I am now. And," she said with a small smile, "I'm going to do my best to convince Sean that he doesn't need to beat up every guy who so much as looks at one of my pictures, because I don't want you all to feel unsafe just walking past a stack of magazines or turning on your computer. But I'm also thinking that maybe you all could do your part by trying not to look."
Right before they walked away, he could see the new respect in the eyes of most of the guys in his house--guys who, until this very moment, had only looked at her and seen a hot girl they wanted to do.
*
"I never wanted to be in that video," she told him as soon as his bedroom door closed. "But my mother swore it would be fine, that she wouldn't let them film anything inappropriate, and that it was a really important next step toward making it as an actress."
"How could she do that to you?" Sean drew Serena against him. She needed to get this off her chest, but he couldn't let her explain her previous life to him anywhere but in his arms. "To her daughter who trusted her to help her?"
But instead of answering his questions, she said, "I wanted tonight to be fun. To be good. I didn't want to ruin it with all of this."
"You're not ruining anything, Serena."
"But I already have. Just by being in that video."
/> "Bullshit. Don't you dare take the blame for something that wasn't in your control. You were just a kid doing what you were told."
"Honestly," she said in a soft voice, "I don't think my mom realized just how bad the video was for a seventeen-year-old girl to be in until it was too late. Once the song became a massive hit, all she could do to justify it was say that at least I'd proven I wouldn't freeze up on screen. And she was right, because the scripts started pouring in. Every single one of them was the same, though, wanting me to play the young, overly sexed-up girl getting in too deep and getting hurt, just like I had portrayed in the video. That was the first time I ever refused my mother anything--refused to audition for any of those directors. She was so angry with me. She said she'd never met anyone so selfish, so unappreciative, in all her life. So when Smith Sullivan came along with a great script and a real character who felt like someone I actually understood, I couldn't say no." She tilted her face up to his. "I got the part in his movie, Sean, and I would be there now filming if the production hadn't ended up on hold indefinitely."
His chest clenched even tighter. One of the biggest movie stars in the world wanted her to be in his film. Sean finally realized just how close he'd come to missing meeting Serena altogether. He couldn't imagine his life without her in it now, but if Smith Sullivan's movie hadn't gone off the rails, Sean would still be searching for numb...and hating his life more with every day that passed.
"I'm glad you're here. So damned glad."
"I am, too. But I know it's hard for you to be with someone like me."
"It's not hard."
"It is hard," she insisted. "Stuff like what just happened downstairs would never have happened if you were dating anyone else on campus. It's why I never really thought I'd be able to date anyone or live a normal student life."
"Of course you can." He didn't like the direction this conversation was going. Not when they were just starting to figure things out. Not when they were finally dating out in the open. And not when he was in love with her. "I don't care if we have to work a little harder at making things work. You're worth it."
"So are you," she said, "but are you sure you want to keep having to deal with things like this? With paparazzi randomly popping up so that you never know when you're going to run into pictures and clips of me that people--especially guys--are going to be looking at? Even your friends?"
"Do you know why I reacted the way I did down there? Not because you were in that video. Sure, I don't like knowing that my friends, that strangers, are drooling over you. But even if you hadn't been a model, I guarantee they'd be doing that. What kills me is knowing just how much you hate that video. What kills me is seeing you tighten up and your eyes cloud over like you're getting lost in a bad memory. I want so badly to be able to go back in time to save you from all of it, but I can't, Serena. I can't and I hate that no one else did, either."
"You know what," she said slowly, "you're right. You're not the only one who's going to need to figure out how to deal with it. I do, too."
"It wasn't fair," he said. "You were just a kid, and if you didn't want to do any of those things, you shouldn't have had to."
"But I did. And they're done. There's no going back in time to undo them. No erasing pictures and video clips that will be around forever." She could have played the victim, but didn't, and he was pretty sure he'd never respected her more than he did in that instant. "I never had anyone to talk to about any of this. Not until you. But at the same time--" She put her hand on his chest, pressing it flat over his heart which was still pounding way too hard. "--when you smashed the iPad--"
"I scared you." He covered her hand with his. "I didn't mean to. I just wanted it gone."
"I know. And I'd be lying if I didn't say I wanted that, too. But do you think that maybe..." She shook her head, but this time after a bit of a pause, she didn't finish her sentence.
"Don't stop talking to me now. I don't want you to be frightened of me because of what I did down there."
"It's not that," she said softly. "I'm not afraid of you now, and I wasn't scared earlier, either. Stunned, but not frightened. You would never do anything to hurt me, or to hurt anyone else, not if they didn't deserve it. It's just that this morning with the pictures...I accidentally pushed you too hard. Too far, too fast. I don't want to make that same mistake again tonight by saying the wrong thing."
His chest immediately clenched tight, even tighter than it was already. But he couldn't shut her out again. Not if he wanted her to actually consider sticking around.
And it was just how badly he wanted her to stay that made it possible for him to get the words out. "No one has pushed me for three months. Hell, all year." He'd thought it would be easier, better, if he buried everything and eventually forgot. But it hadn't worked out that way. "I can't guarantee how far into it all that I'm going to be able to go tonight. Or tomorrow, even. But last night you told me that you trust me in a way you've never been able to trust anyone else. It's the same with me, Serena. I trust you in a way I haven't been able to trust anyone else. So..." He took a breath, forced the oxygen into his constricted lungs. "Push."
She watched him carefully for a few seconds before finally saying, "When you threw the tablet across the room, even though I knew you were upset about the other guys watching the video, I couldn't help but wonder if your reaction--and the fury behind it--wasn't entirely about me. If, maybe, your friends watching the video was just what pushed you over the edge because of everything you've been keeping bottled up inside for so long. Ever since...ever since your mom got sick."
He had to work to let her words in, to force himself to actually think about what she was saying. For so long it had been instinctive to push away his emotions, his grief, the feelings of loss that only seemed to grow bigger each day rather than smaller. Fortunately, from the way she was looking at him, it seemed she understood that he was listening, even if he wasn't capable of responding just yet.
"I've tried to push away my past, too," she said softly. "And even though I know what I've been through is nothing compared to losing your mom, I'm just starting to see that maybe hiding from it hasn't worked...and that trying to turn away from who I've been will never work. I don't want to face it all head on, and it seems like it would be easier not to, but what if facing it is exactly what I've got to do? If I can ever be tough enough to do it, that is."
"You're definitely tough enough considering you just impressed the hell out of the guys downstairs when you laid it down straight for them."
She looked up at him, a small smile finally on her face. "I did, didn't I?"
"They're not the only ones who are impressed." He hadn't planned to tell her this tonight, but there wasn't anything else he could say now. Not when she'd just stripped his soul bare and made him finally face the truth. About everything. "I've fallen in love with you, Serena."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Serena felt more than a little overwhelmed by everything that had happened in twenty-four short hours. Spending her first night in Sean's bed. Having a huge fight over his mother's pictures.
And now, hearing that he'd fallen in love with her.
She might have stood there all night, speechless and stunned, but fortunately, Sean knew exactly what to do, and the next thing she knew she was lying beneath him on his bed, her arms around his neck while he traced her lips with gentle--and very arousing--fingertips.
"Did I just move too fast after all my promises not to?"
She wanted to shake her head, wanted to tell him no, but she couldn't lie to him. Not now. Not ever.
"I want," she said, her words seeming to come from somewhere far away, "so badly to believe that it's true, that someone like you could love me."
"How could you doubt it for a second?"
"You know how people have said my whole life that I was beautiful?" God, she hated the way this was going to sound, but she just couldn't hold back. Not anymore. Not with Sean. "That word. Love. Whenever I heard
it, whoever said it to me, it felt the same. Like it didn't really mean anything. Because they weren't saying it about the real me."
"But what if they were? What if everyone who ever said they loved you meant it?"
"How could they? How could any of them have ever meant it when no one but you has ever really known the real me?"
"I'll tell you why," he said in a deep voice that rumbled all the way through her. "Your beauty is so much deeper than the makeup, the outfits you wore, the part you played all those years. And your heart is so big, and so damned pure, that anyone would have to be blind not to see it. Not to see you and fall in love with you the way I did from the very start, from that very first night when you looked at me and saw everything."
"I think," she said in a voice that was barely above a whisper, "that I've fallen in love with you, too."
He didn't freak out the way she had when he'd said it to her. No, he simply smiled, a smile that got bigger and bigger by the second. "I thought you might have."
His gentle teasing made it easier for her to relax into the idea of loving...and being loved. "What tipped you off?"
He stroked her hair back from her face and looked at her in a way he never had before. A look so warm, so comforting, so sweet and yet so raw and real that it shot straight to the center of her heart. "Where should I start?"
She loved the slightly cocky edge to his words, the fact that they could laugh and love each other at the same time. She'd never known it could be like this, that passion and desire and deep emotions could be tempered so perfectly with such ease, and with friendship.
The truest friendship she'd ever known.
"Start right here, with this," she said, and then she kissed him, slowly running her tongue along his lower lip, from one corner of his mouth to the other. He was so delicious that one taste wasn't nearly enough, so she took another, this time of his upper lip, and then of his tongue as she slipped hers inside his mouth.
They were both still fully clothed, but she was already wrapped all around him, and his hands were holding her hips tightly. She rocked into him, and knowing exactly how good it felt to come apart against him made her feel reckless. Bold.