Page 134 of Did They Break You

We’re both breathing hard and he hasn’t released me. I want to push him away. I want to make him recoil, but he doesn’t. He’s stillright here.

“I guess in your part of the South, you know all about?—”

“Shut the fuck up, Remi.” He kisses me, hard and punishing, his lips bruising.

I grab his shoulders, feeling the soft material of his gray sweater under my fingers as I yank him closer to me. He’s nearly on top of me in the truck, crowding me against the door. It’s uncomfortable, but I don’t care.

I just want him.

I know I shouldn’t, butI fucking want him.

His tongue collides with mine, his hand moves to my throat, and it feels good. I let him take, and take, and fucking take.

Then I think of Van. What he’d say if he saw me out here.What Sloane would say.

I push on Cort’s shoulders, and he resists.

I pull away from his kiss, both of us catching our breath, my lips swollen as I push him again. “What are we doing?” I whisper in the space between us.

He fists my dress in his hand. “What does it feel like we’re doing?”

I stare at him in the dark, breathing hard.What does it feel like? It feels like jumping. Or dying. Love always feels likefucking. Dying.

It always has for me.

My mom, literally.

Leaving me with Silas, and his words, his touches…dying.

Then Cortland, and the charges and the emptiness…

Love feels like fucking dying.

“I don’t know,” I answer him, my heart racing as I hold myself up in his truck, one hand still on the dash. “I don’t know.” I shake my head, frowning. “This… it’s just…” I take a breath ashe stares at me, my dress still fisted in his hand. “What do you want from me, Cortland?”Haven’t you taken enough?

“Whatever you’re willing to give.” It sounds like an honest answer and I’m stunned into silence.

He drags me closer to him, running his mouth over mine.

His breath smells clean, no alcohol on his tongue.

“I know this is… fucked up. I know we fucked up,” he says.

No.Youdid that.I want to scream it at him, but my blood is hot and I don’t want him off of me. Not yet.

“But we keep finding our way to each other. I don’t know what that means, but I kind of want to find out.”

I swallow down my fear.This will never work.I know that. But I think about Ryann’s mouth on my throat. Van’s hand on my thigh.

Cortland’s fingers inside me, and Storm watching me in their house.

I’ve spent a year fighting against lust. Being wanted.

I don’t want to fight anymore.

I sit up straighter, pushing against his shoulder.

He doesn’t move.

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