Page 30 of Hush, Hush

His gaze collides with mine. A mixture of worry and stark confidence shines through. “He’s taking care of it.”

I close my eyes, relief flooding me. My dad will take care of everything. He always does.

Keegan reaches out his hand. My stomach flip flops at his show of vulnerability. “I drew you a bath. I even dropped in one of those bath bombs that my mother packs for me every semester.”

A slow smile curves my lips. He glances to the side, shaking his head. It’s as if he can barely stand to look at me. My stomach squeezes. “Keegan?”

“I’m fucked up, Dee. Sometimes I don’t even know what the fuck is wrong with me.”

“Shh,” I tell him. I feel like I have the right boy back at the exact right moment that I need him.

He grabs my cheeks, making me look at him. “Don’t you dare comfort me right now. Don’t you fucking dare.”

He breathes out heavily before walking away. With his back to me, I spy the heaviness in his shoulders. When he doesn’t turn for the longest time, I slip past him, entering the steamy bathroom with my heart in my throat.

ChapterFourteen

Iwake in Keegan’s bed of all places. My hair still smells like vanilla lavender from the bath bomb. Next to me, the bed is cold, so I roll over to look for him. Crumpled sheets lie next to the bed along with a single pillow. He’s nowhere to be seen, but the shower turns on in the bathroom.

He slept on the floor. For me.

Sitting up, I’m still swimming in Keegan’s prep school t-shirt he gave me last night after I got out of the bath. I dip my nose into the fabric and breathe in deep. Hints of his laundry detergent filter through my senses. The last time Keegan and I spent the night together, we were in sleeping bags and told scary stories until I was so frightened I slept with a flashlight in my hand, darting the beam around the room to illuminate all the shadows my eyes tricked me into seeing.

This feels so much different. So muchbetter.

The bathroom door opens a little while later. Keegan steps through with a pair of low-slung joggers hugging his hips. Ripped, muscled abs ripple as he runs a towel over his wet hair. I force my lips together to keep from drooling and making a fool out of myself.

After shaking his hair out, he peers over at me. “Your dad’s been blowing up your phone. He wants to know if you’re okay. I wrote him and told him you were sleeping.”

I bring my legs to my chest and nod groggily. My head feels like it weighs double what it usually does, but the image of Keegan in front of me makes me want to come around sooner.

Moving to his closet, he searches through his shirts. I frown as he pulls one off the hanger and puts it on while his back is turned. With one hand on the closet door, he says, “I hate that that happened to you last night. All because of me.”

My tongue feels like sandpaper, but I force the words out anyway. “Because of you?”

“If I hadn’t let it slip in front of Anne-Marie that you were a virgin, no one would know. I was just so—” He growls, the sound low in this throat.

“You can talk to me,” I urge. I’ve been wanting to know what makes Keegan Forbes tick for a long time. It certainly isn’t just sex and money. It can’t be. I wouldn’t have fallen so hard for someone like that.

Spinning toward me, he pins me with a hard glare. He takes me in, and little by little, his features soften. I have his shirt pulled around my legs, my chin resting atop my knees. He flexes his fingers. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me, Delilah.” He pushes off the closet door and stalks closer. “The further I got from you, the more it became abundantly clear that you and I were never going to happen. If I couldn’t have you, I wanted to make sure no one else could either. Mistakenly, I thought being a virgin would embarrass you and turn off all of the guys in this school. But that’s where I screwed up. I forgot about the chase, the drive to take something that’s not yours.

You’ve been mine for so long that no one would look at you twice because they knew I’d do something about it. The moment—” He leans over me, jaw locked tight. “The moment I let it slip that I hadn’t gone there with you, they all came out. They thought they had a chance because I hadn’t laid my claim. Some of these pigs believe it’s okay to think about you now. Probably daydreaming about having your perfect thighs wrapped around their neck.”

“Stop, Keegan,” I warn as his anger rises. He’s only reminding me of the stalkerish gift I received last night.

“I had to show them you still weren’t available. C—”

“Cameron, I know,” I finish for him. I already saw his black eye.

“No, café guy,” Keegan grinds out.

I suck in a breath. Keegan jumped Tim? Keegan Forbes? To my knowledge, he’s never jumped anyone in his life. “You didn’t...”

“I see the way he looks at you ever since you paid attention to him that day. He watches you. He smiles when you smile. I needed to send him a message.”

I gulp. “And Cameron?”

“Devon told me what he said. He had to be taught a lesson for himself and for all the other sick psychos out there who now want a piece of you. We live in a land of wolves.”

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