It isn’t until we’ve been driving for nearly an hour that I start to question both my and Sebastian’s sanity. Where the hell are we going? North— I know that much, but that’s more or less all I know, seeing as how Sebastian isn’t so much as giving the smallest hint about our destination.

“I have a class at noon tomorrow, you know,” I say, shaking my head at this guy’s audacity. “And I’m also pretty sure this constitutes kidnapping.”

“You’ll miss it, unfortunately. And yeah, it probably does,” he answers, shooting me a challenging look as if to dare me to complain. I roll my eyes, but I’m excited and he knows it. I’d never do this sort of thing on my own, and I’m pretty sure I’d never have agreed to this sort of thing had he asked me. I feel alive and rebellious and jittery in the best way. When I text my roommates to let them know what’s happening, they send back nothing but long, elaborate strings of emojis. Maddy sends back nothing but eggplants, thumbs-ups, and winking faces.

I fall asleep around one o’clock in the morning, and am startled awake hours later when I realize the car has stopped moving. I look around frantically, trying to get my bearings— we’re in a well-lit parking lot, and Sebastian is asleep in the driver’s seat, leaned back and stretched out so far that he nearly takes up the entire car. He’s breathing deeply, totally out. I wonder how long he’s been asleep— how long he drove for before falling asleep. Is this our final destination, or did he just get too tired to drive?

I sit up as quietly as possible and take in the scenery. We’re outside an enormous old building, with pillars out front and windowpanes so ornate they look like they belong in a church. There are old rosebushes planted all around, with the last of the season’s flowers on full display. Oak trees, similar to those that dot the Berkfield campus, loom on the lawn in front of the building, but there’s no one in sight— which makes sense, given that according to my phone, it’s four o’clock in the morning.

I quietly open the car door and slink outside into the cool night air, shutting it by pressing lightly on the door’s exterior. Sebastian fidgets, but doesn’t wake up. I straighten and look around for a clue as to where we are. It’s a campus, I realize— another college. It’s not a campus I immediately recognize, but then, I didn’t look at all that many schools. Berkfield offered me a great scholarship, and that sort of made my higher education decisions for me. I creep forward, nervous in the dark, waiting to see a mascot or a sign or a something…

There— the enormous building we’re parked outside of has a beautiful label carved into the marble across the top: Sinclair Law Library. There are massive, heavy doors, and despite large windows on either side I’m unable to see anything in the darkened interior. I’m staring up at the building when I hear a car door open behind me; when I turn, Sebastian is extracting himself from the vehicle, all legs and arms and height.

“Surprised?” he asks.

“Confused,” I answer. “Why are we at the Sinclair Law Library? And where, exactly, is the Sinclair Law Library?”

He walks up to me and puts his arm around me again; I become incredibly aware of the fact that I’m wearing yesterday’s jeans and a t-shirt that I’m pretty sure I’d picked up off my bedroom floor last night— no, wait, earlier tonight— when I had no idea Sebastian Slate was on his way over. “We’re at Coastal State College. I have an old high school football buddy who goes here.”

“So we’re here to…visit your old football buddy?” I ask, feeling a surge of disappointment. Sebastian kisses my forehead swiftly, another one of those moves that tells me he’s confident we’ll be kissing plenty of times in the future.

“Nah, he’s just getting us in. We’re here for this,” he says, motioning at the law library.

My lips curve into a smile— I’m still not entirely sure what’s happening, but Sebastian is so pleased with himself and I’m so pleased to be here with him that I can’t stop a bloom of happiness from expanding in my chest. “Keep talking,” I say, leaning into him. I like that I can fall against him, like this, and know he’s not going to stumble; he’s too strong for that.

“You said last night that justice is a huge part of who you are. And given the fact that I had to literally show up at your house and take you away to get you to stop studying…I thought you might like this place. They say it’s the most beautiful college library in the country. And it’s only accessible to Coastal State law students, you know. And also only open between the hours of eight and eight.”

“But you’ve got a way to get us in, don’t you?”

“You know it,” he says, and sweeps me against him to kiss me, his face shadowed and elegant under the streetlights. He releases me, then says, “I wanted to have sex with you the moment I saw you, Ashlynn, but I also want you to know that it’s not just about that. I’m not always going to take you back to my bedroom.”

I flush, flattered and excited and overwhelmed by everything. Sebastian seems to do everything big— football, personality, kissing, sex, gestures like this one. Every time I find myself hesitating or questioning, he’s storming forward fearlessly. I don’t understand how he does it— how can he be so sure about me, when we’ve only just met? He doesn’t even know who I really am.

I swallow. Will he change, when he finds out? He doesn’t appear to be keeping any secrets from me, be they of his past or his heart, and here I am passing up each and every opportunity to tell him the truth.

“Sebastian,” I say, voice a little unsteady. I need to tell him, now, before it becomes a lie rather than a secret.

But Sebastian checks his phone and then starts to walk toward the law library. “Hurry, she’s here,” he says cryptically, and I follow behind him, up a few steps and to the library’s massive doors. Even with the doors shut, a peppery, dry scent wafts from the building— the scent of old books, a scent I know well from my own time spent in libraries. I smile and lean harder into Sebastian, touched and astounded and happy in a way that’s hardly recognizable as those emotions— I just feel bright, like I’m glowing.

It isn’t long before a girl appears. She looks to be a touch older than me, and is holding a keyring with an impossible number of keys on it.

“Hurry up, before someone sees,” she calls frantic.

She inserts a key into the door and pushes it open, then darts inside before us; I hear beeping as she turns an alarm off, then she waves us in.

Sebastian looks around. “Cool place,” he says.

“Alright, here are the rules,” she says sternly to Sebastian. “Don’t mess anything up, be out by seven-thirty, and know the door locks behind you. Got it?”

“Got it. And thanks, again,” Sebastian says sincerely.

The girl exhales. “You can tell Parker he owes me bigtime for waking me up at three o’clock in the morning.”

“He knows,” Sebastian says. “And thanks.”

“Just don’t make me regret it,” she replies, and then quickly exits.

I shake my head in disbelief at him, and step into the library.

The girl must have turned on a few lights— there are sconces here and there glowing dimly, though the place is still largely dark and mysterious, a building of tucked away corners and eaves. There are three stories of books and shelves at the edges of the room, but they look more like circular balconies of books, complete with wooden railings. The ceiling is domed, and there’s a large study area at the library’s center; the shelves branch off from it at the sides of the room, like rays of sunshine. Each study table— all antique-looking— has a little green and gold lamp attached. As we make our way inside, past a vacant attendant’s desk, the sound of my feet on the hardwood floor sound like thunderclaps. My heart is pounding— sneaking into buildings after hours is very much not in the Ashlynn Sawyer playbook, and while I’m not exactly scared, I do feel alive and electric at my rebellion.

Sebastian walks up to one of the lamps at the study tables, then pulls the cord to flick it on. It shines like a candle in the dim, making the muscles on Sebastian’s arms looks all that much bigger for the shadows they cast.

“Look up,” Sebastian says, and I do, then gasp. The domed ceiling already looked impressive, but now that I’m directly under it— and now that there’s a bit more light— I see that it’s not just domed, but carved and painted and embossed with gold and silver designs. It’s stunning, almost cathedral-like.

“It’s got to be the most beautiful college library in the world,” I mutter, spinning in place, staring up. “Can you imagine studying here?”

Sebastian shrugs. “Not really.”

I roll my eyes at him good-naturedly. “It’d be a great place to study! Better than my bedroom, anyway.”

“What about my bedroom?” Sebastian asks, stepping closer to me, voice daring and flirty.

“In your bedroom I suspect I wouldn’t get much work done,” I answer, starting to lose my breath with the way he’s watching me.

He takes another step, and I back up into the edge of the study table. Sebastian is staring at me— I love knowing he wants me like this, and I can feel my body responding. His eyes draw down my breasts, my hips, my legs.

“No,” he finally answers without meeting my eyes. “You wouldn’t get much work done in my bedroom. When I’m alone with you it’s just too hard for me to not take your clothes off.”

“I could always study naked,” I say, voice rocky, barely holding on as he stares at me. I find myself inching up onto the desk, wood smooth and sleek from probably decades of use.

“You know, I don’t think that’ll work either,” he growls, though he still sounds so loud in the quiet. I smile at him, then glance back up at the ceiling, at my surroundings. No one has ever done anything like this for me before. No one has ever put so much thought into making me happy. My gaze slips back to Sebastian’s; I keep my eyes on his as I slowly draw my knees apart. Sebastian’s breath grows ragged; he puts a hand on my knee, then slides it up my thigh until his thumb is nestled against my clit. Even through my jeans, I moan when he begins to massage me there.

“Believe it or not, I didn’t plan to fuck you here,” Sebastian says.

“I don’t believe it,” I whisper back, pulsing my hips in time with Sebastian’s touch.

“I didn’t plan on it. I hoped for it, though. But I’m always hoping to fuck you,” Sebastian says, and steps between my knees, holding them apart. He leans his head down and kisses me, hard and demanding. I open my mouth to let him in, to let his tongue sweep along mine. I reach back to keep from falling down, but I know if Sebastian wants me on my back, he’ll make it happen. How could I stop him, even if I wanted to?

And I don’t want to, of course. I never want to.