Page 101 of Sweet Temptation

A loud clatter sounded as one of us knocked something off a shelf and onto the floor. We froze and glanced at the door. The sounds of students walking out in the corridor reached my ears. I don’t know how I hadn’t noticed them before. Luckily, no one seemed to have noticed the noise coming from the closet, and after several seconds passed, Wes and I both managed to breathe again.

I was still wrapped in Wes’s arms, but he slowly disentangled them, and I knew the moment was over. He smiled at me , his eyes sparkling in the dimly lit closet.

“So, apparently Anna knows what she’s talking about,” I said.

He chuckled. “Apparently.”

“I feel like we’re blurring the lines between...” I trailed off, feeling suddenly worried I was going to sabotage whatever was developing between us by talking too much. I liked Wes’s kisses, but I also liked our friendship. Did there have to be a line in the sand between those two things?

“I’m kind of enjoying the blurred lines,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not sure yet, but I want to find out.” His eyes were sincere, and a small smile curved the corner of his lips. His words seemed to touch a part of my heart I was so sure I’d lost.

“I think I do too,” I murmured. But then I shook my head, trying to clear the haze that had fogged my brain while looking into Wes’s eyes. “But what if this doesn’t work? I’ve been through too much heartbreak recently. So have you. I don’t want to lose you as a friend as well.”

His gaze turned more serious as he nodded in reply. “You’re right, and I feel the same, but I think we could be something amazing.”

I rubbed a hand against my face as I tried to process what he was saying. “You’re still into Sarah…”

“Not as much as you might think,” he said. “It took me some time to realize, but things between us had been over long before she broke up with me. And I know you still have feelings for Noah, but I can see you letting go of him a little more each day.”

I started to object but then stopped as I considered what he’d said. Maybe Wes was right. Letting go of Noah had been hard. It was still hard, but I was in a very different place than I had been in the days after the ball. I’d come to accept we were over, but it still didn’t stop the small pieces of my fractured heart from leaping whenever he was near.

I think Wes must have realized how confused I was because he nodded at the door. “We should probably get to class,” he said. “Or we’re going to be late.”

“Yeah, of course.”

I wrapped my hand around the handle and cracked open the door to take a look outside. The hallway was clear of students, so I was guessing we were already late. I went to leave, but Wes took hold of my hand, stopping me.

“Just think about it,” Wes said. “About us.”

“I will.”

His smile was so bright and filled with hope it was hard not to just fall into a relationship with him here and now. But Wes was right. I needed to think about this. We both did.

“So, on a scale of one to a thousand, how much do you think Anna will gloat when she hears she was right?” I asked as we made our way to class.

Wes laughed. “It’s probably in our best interest she never knows.”

“Probably,” I agreed, but I had a feeling she’d somehow only need to take one look at me to figure out I made out with Wes in a janitor’s closet. She had a sixth sense for these things, and it didn’t help that my cheeks flushed just thinking about it.

Anna’s reaction was the least of my worries. No, I had a far bigger problem. I somehow had to figure out what the hell I was going to do about the sweet, gorgeous guy beside me. The guy that deserved all of my heart when I only had small fractions left to give.

CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN

Iwas no closer to finding any clarity by the time Saturday morning dawned. The school was hosting its rowing regatta this weekend, which Wes was taking part in. He’d been sharing secretive smiles with me ever since our kiss in the janitor's closet on Wednesday, and I had a feeling he might want to talk more about our relationship-cum-friendship over the weekend. I didn’t want to treat him badly, so I knew I needed to try to figure out my head and my heart.

“What am I going to do about Wes?” I asked Cress as we put on our makeup in the bathroom. We were getting ready to go down to the lake and watch the regatta, which would soon be underway.

I’d told her and Anna about kissing Wes in the janitor’s closet, and the two of them had screamed before Anna composed herself enough to say “I told you so.”

“You're still not sure?” she asked.

“No, and I need a second opinion. What do you think?”

“I can’t make up your mind for you.”

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