Page 92 of No One But Us

He smirks. “Oh, now who’s the untrustingone?”

“Nice way to evade thequestion.”

“I haven’t been with anyone all summer except for you,” he says. “But let me ask you something. Let’s say I still got along really well with Allison, and we’re having some jokey call together just this afternoon and talking about seeing each other at school next weekend, and then she told you I’ll be sleeping with her again by the end of the month. Wouldn’t you freak out a little? And right after that, some girl walks into the bar with a pair of my boxers? Just how calm would you be in that precisemoment?”

I narrow my eyes. “I’d be exceedinglycalm.”

“You’re full of shit,” he says. “You jump to conclusions every time, Elle. The minute I question you, you think I’m comparing you to yourmom.”

“Well, maybe,but—”

His mouth comes down on mine, silencing my words—his tongue, his lips, all of it hard and relentless. I want to hold on to my anger, but I can feel it dissipating, replaced by other things I want more. He’s still holding my wrists, and he uses his teeth to raise my shirt, to pull at my nipples through the thin lace of mybra.

He moves both hands to one wrist and tugs my shorts off. Then he unzips hisown.

A tremor runs through my whole body, listening to that sound, knowing what will follow it. He shoves my thong to the side and slides his fingers inside me, and I gasp against mywill.

“You’re soaked,” he pants. He finds my eyes with a look just shy of desperation. “Please, Elle. Tell me we’reokay.”

I nod, and he shoves into me, hard, his groan even louder than my own. His mouth comes back to mine, no longer to silence myarguments.

I press my lips to the soft skin along his neck, tasting salt and sweat and soap as his strokes become hard and fast, almost punitive. He lets go of my wrists and grabs my ass, holding me aloft so he can push farther intome.

“Oh my God,” he groans. “I’m gonna come sohard.”

And with those words, I seize up around him, too shocked by the suddenness and force of it to even think of stifling my cries, and he follows meviolently.

When he finally collapses on top of me, his mouth goes to my neck, my ear, my mouth, and mine to his, our skin slick, our breath still coming toofast.

“I’m sorry,” he says, pulling back. “I’m so sorry I made you feel like that. But honestly, I did believe you. I really did. I was just pissed. I was pissed that he had a piece of you, for whatever reason, and it made me stupid and jealous. But I did believeyou.”

“It doesn’tmatter.”

This is all ending the same way whether he believed me ornot.

“Of course it matters,” he says, his voice suddenly slurred by exhaustion. Sex often does that to him, and he barely got any sleep last night. “We need to talk aboutthings.”

“Whatthings?”

“Not now,” he says, the words so sleep-riddled they’re almost incomprehensible. “Notabenfiting.”

I interpret this to be along the lines of “not while we’ve beenfighting.”

His breath goes deep and even, and I take one last look at him. Those long lashes of his make him look so much younger at rest. I memorize the feeling of him, my head resting on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around me. My tears pool between my cheek and his skin, but he doesn’twake.

When it hurts too much to keep lying here, I climb to my feet and go upstairs for my suitcases. There have been moments all summer when I’ve felt like I can’t take anymore.

But now I know it forcertain.

The Porsche, for once, is not blocked in. Leaving is easy. As if it’s what I was meant to do allalong.

Chapter 53

JAMES

I assume,when I wake up and discover Elle’s not beside me, that she’s gone to her room. I’m not sure why she bothered, since Ginny already knows. I wait impatiently for her to come downstairs so we cantalk.

Ginny comes downstairs first, eyes narrowed at me as she marches over to get coffee. “I can’t fucking believe you. How could you do that? Do you have any idea how badly Mom would flip if sheknew?”

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