Page 10 of Your Fault

Jesus…

“Yes, please…” I groaned. And once again I let myself go until the feeling was so intense, I found myself clutching the sheets and shouting, “God…!”

It was the most erotic experience of my life.

When I recovered, Nicholas was resting his chin on my stomach and looking at me as if I were a treasure he’d found at the bottom of the ocean. I blushed, and he laughed, coming up beside me and pulling me into his arms.

“Shit, Noah…remind me why I never did that to you before.”

I turned around and pressed my face into his chest. He was still dressed, but it wasn’t hard to see the erection outlined in his pants.

Did he expect me to do the same?

I was almost paralyzed by anxiety as Nick kissed my head, turned around, and got out of the bed.

“Where are you going?” I asked as he headed toward the door.

“If I don’t leave now, I’ll stay here all night,” he said, and I noticed something hurried in his tone.

I grabbed my pants, which were next to me on the cushion where we’d left them, and slipped them back on, getting out of bed and walking toward him.

“I’m done Friday, Nick, and then we’ll have the whole summer to ourselves.”

I hugged him. He hugged me back and sighed with resignation.

“If you don’t get an A, you’re going to hear it from me.”

I laughed and pulled away to look at him.

“Thanks…for everything,” I said, feeling myself blush again.

He reached out and caressed my cheek. “You’re the most beautiful thing that’s ever happened to me, Freckles, so don’t ever worry about thanking me.”

I felt my heart swell with joy and grief when he kissed the crown of my head and left me there alone.

I aced the exam. When I ran into Jenna in the hall five minutes after turning it in, we both looked each other in the eye andstarted jumping up and down like fools. People were staring at us, some of them laughed, some looked irritated, but I didn’t care… My time there was over: I was never going to have to wear a uniform again, no one would be able to treat me like a girl, I would never have to show my report card to my mom or have her sign it—all that was over. I was free, we were free, and I couldn’t have been happier.

“I can’t believe it!” Jenna shouted, squeezing me tight, the day we got our grades. We went to the cafeteria, and as soon as we walked in, we heard all our classmates wreaking havoc, shouting, laughing, applauding. It was a regular bash. The underclassmen looked at us like we were idiots, some envious, some depressed at the long years that remained until they finally got out of there.

“We’re thinking of having a bonfire on the beach and burning our uniforms,” one guy told me with a radiant smile. “Are y’all in?”

“Hell yeah!” Jenna and I both shouted at once. As we giggled hysterically, we must have looked drunk—drunk on happiness.

An hour later, after celebrating with our class, running through the halls, and killing time acting like clowns, I left that school, which I had to admit had brought me more good things than bad. I remembered how I’d hated it at first, but if I hadn’t gone there, there was no way I’d have gotten into UCLA to study English, and that had always been my dream.

I hurried outside when I got a message from Nick saying he was waiting for me in the parking lot. He was standing by his car and smiled wide when he saw how happy I was. Unable to control myself, I ran over and jumped into his arms. He grabbed me in midair, held me up, and gave me the kind of kiss you usually only see in romance movies.

I’d made it through school, my grades were perfect, I was on my way to a college I couldn’t have dreamed of before, I had the best boyfriend in the world—a boyfriend I adored—and in two months, I’d be living on my own on campus with a bright future in front of me.

Nothing could be better.

4

Nick

My girl had graduated. I was the proudest guy in the world. I couldn’t help it: not only was she gorgeous, but she was smart as a whip. She’d come out near the top of her class, she’d had all kinds of schools begging her to attend, but she’d chosen to stay in Los Angeles with me. I don’t know what I’d have done if she’d decided to go back to Canada the way she’d been planning at first.

I couldn’t wait for her to move into my apartment. I hadn’t told her, but I wanted her to live with me. I was tired of dealing with all the bullshit restrictions our parents had imposed on us as soon as we’d started going out. Since Noah had been kidnapped, her mother had turned super-paranoid, and both my father and Raffaella had made it known they didn’t like us being in a relationship. I’d thought everything would go back to normal once I moved out, but actually, the opposite had occurred. They hardly ever let Noah come see me, let alone stay the night. We had to make up all kinds of dumb excuses and stories to be able to spend time together. I really didn’t care what my father or his wife thought; I was twenty-two years old, almost twenty-three,and I would do whatever the hell I wanted. But it was different for Noah. I always knew the five-year age difference would cause us problems at some point, but I never could have imagined all these headaches.

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