Page 91 of Dare To Fall

“But you hurt me even when I didn’t do anything to you.” The tremor in her voice is like a knife to the gut.

“I’m sorry.” I press my lips to her hair. “You have no idea how fucking sorry I am. I convinced myself that if I proved to whoever was watching that you meant nothing, that I hated you the same way I did when you first joined the school, then they’d stop targeting you. But they were a step ahead of me all the fucking time. They knew I’d decide to do that. And it made everything so much fucking easier for them.

“After the last time … I knew that something had to change, but I needed to get you to talk to me. Bringing you here, where there are no distractions, no one from school to interrupt us, I thought we could finally figure some things out.”

“What things?”

I press my palm against her back, securing her in place, and roll onto my side, so we’re facing each other, and tip her face up with a finger beneath her chin.

“Well, first, whether we can ever get on the same page on this thing between us.”

“There is no thing between us.”

“Oh, Kitten, you know that’s not true.”

“Don’t.” She turns her face away.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t call me Kitten. You’re not Sin. It was all a lie.”

“Yes, I am. It’s who I became for you. Who I wanted to be. Something other than the monster.”

“That’s not true. You did all that to humiliate me.”

This is it. That defining moment where the truth would either set us on the right track or end us forever. I take a breath.

“At first, I did. You’re right. My plan was to do what these strangers are doing. To take videos and photographs and release them to everyone. To prove that you were the daughter of a gold-digger, and just as bad. But the more time I spent with you, as Sin, the more I started to wonder what the real truth was. I read your diaries, and they didn’t match with the idea of you I had in my head.”

I trace over her lips with one finger. “And then I kissed you, and you were sweet and hesitant and hungry … and I was in over my head before I even realized what was happening. So, I cut you off, stopped contacting you because I knew I couldn’t go through with my plan. I couldn’t do that to you.”

“Why did you change your mind?”

“I couldn’t fucking stay away from you. I wanted your kisses, your moans. I dreamed about the way you responded to me, and I needed more of it. That night … before we went home for Thanksgiving … I was going to give you what you wanted, what you’d asked for … but you called me Sin.” I think back to that night, the way the realization that she wanted Sin and not me had cut deep and shake my head. “I wanted you to want me, Eli, not the fantasy I was building out of your deepest desires.”

Chapter 60

Arabella

“You wanted me to want you?” My thoughts race, and I struggle with his words. “But you hated me and bullied me all the time.”

His finger caresses my cheek. “Think about it, Ari. I stopped bullying you for a while. Don’t you remember?”

The recollection stirs, and I nod in the dark. “You just kept staring at me like a psycho, but that was before I asked you … I mean Sin to have sex with me.”

“I’m glad you can finally see us as the same person.”

“You used my fantasies to seduce me.”

“You grew stronger, more confident.” Eli points out. “I was so proud watching you stand up for yourself against everyone … against me.”

I curl my fingers against the muscles of his bare chest. “Were you ever going to come back to me as Sin? If things hadn’t happened over Thanksgiving?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think I would have been able to stay away from you. When we had sex, and I realized you were a virgin …. the signs had been there when I played with you when I was Sin … I should have seen them.”

“I’d promised Miles I would keep his secret, and I didn’t want to break it.”

“Not even to your fantasy lover?”

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