CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sean was glad that the back entrance to his frat house was deserted as he brought Serena inside a couple of hours later. Like every Friday, there would be another party tonight. Already, the bass pounded so loudly from the speakers downstairs that the walls were actually shaking. But he wasn’t planning on either of them making an appearance.
She giggled, leaning into him while they walked. “This place smells bad. Like rotting socks.”
“Alumni say it’s smelled this way for more than a hundred years,” he told her, making her laugh again, the sound slow and warmed by all the tequila she’d put away.
She was an adorable drunk. A ridiculously sexy drunk.
But still drunk, nonetheless.
Up on the hill when they’d been making out, the more she drank, the more she’d lost her inhibitions. Even knowing ahead of time that the evening was going to wreak serious havoc on his self-control, he’d still had to steel himself not to take advantage of her when he’d wanted her so badly.
Lord, was he glad he’d been there for her first drinking experience. He hated to think about what pretty much any other guy on the planet would have done as her defenses fell one after the other.
He hadn’t planned on bringing her back to his bedroom tonight. But when she’d gotten a whole lot drunker, a whole lot faster than he’d expected, there’d been no way that he could just take her back to her room and leave her there. Not when neither of them knew how the post-drunk period would treat her. If she needed him, he needed to be there for her.
Luck remained on their side as he took her up the narrow, empty stairwell. His room was just a couple of doors down the hall and once he got her inside, he let out a breath of relief.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be seen with her—of course he wanted to claim her as his in front of the entire world. But since they still hadn’t made an official decision about how public their relationship should be, he didn’t want to make a misstep and upset her with more pictures and gossip spreading throughout campus—and beyond.
“I’ve been wondering for weeks what your room looked like.” She shifted slightly against him so that her breasts pressed against his chest. “And I’ve been wondering what it would have been like if I’d come up with you when you asked me that first night—especially now that I can guess how good you would have made me feel.”
Like he said, she was a sexy-as-hell drunk. But he made himself press a kiss to her forehead rather than her lips as she swayed even tighter into him.
“Come over here, beautiful.”
“It’s different when you say it.”
He walked her over to the bed and gently sat her down on it. “What’s different?”
“When you call me beautiful.” She whispered the last word as if it were a bad one.
“Why?” He knelt in front of her, needing so badly to understand what made him different to her. “Why is it different when I say it?”
“My face, my body—all they are, all I am, is money to the people I’ve been around my whole life.” She licked her lips as if she was afraid she wasn’t making sense. “They call me beautiful to get something from me. They want me to be beautiful to get something for themselves. For their companies.” She looked straight into his eyes. “But when you say it, I believe it might actually be true. And that it isn’t bad. That I don’t have to keep wishing it away.”
“You are beautiful, Serena. So damned beautiful,” he told her in a raw voice, not thinking, not weighing any of his words. Just knowing that they needed to be said. And heard. “All of you, Serena. Not just your face. Not just your body. Everything you are is beautiful.”
He pulled her against him, breathed her in as he held her tightly. He’d taken care of his sisters, had his brothers’ backs, watched over his mother and father, but that was his family. When it came to girls, to romance—to love—he’d never wanted to be a knight on a white steed for anyone, had always thought those fairytale stories were ridiculous. But now, he understood each and every one of them.
Because if he could vanquish Serena’s demons, he would.
Stunned by the force of his own feelings for her—and by the fact that love was the only way he could describe them—he gently set her away from him. “Why don’t you lie down for a few minutes?”
“Are you going to join me?”
God, he was tempted, especially given the half-innocent, half-budding-seductress way she’d asked. But he knew better, knew that the very last thing in the world he should do was kiss her, strip off her clothes, and make her his while she was drunk.
No, he wanted her to be one hundred percent with him when that happened.
“I should have made sure you ate before we went up to the Dish, but since I didn’t, I’m going to go down and make you a plate of food to soak up some of that tequila you guzzled on the hill.”
She moved as if to sit up. “I’ll go with you.”
He could only imagine the way word would spread if she wobbled into the kitchen downstairs. Like a freaking wildfire.
Plus, he needed a few minutes to try to get his head on straight. Or, more accurately, to figure out if he’d fallen in love with Serena. Because, at this point, even the idea of falling in love felt like being hit by an earthquake from out of the blue. Exciting to the part of him that wanted to believe there would be no collateral damage. Terrifying to the rational part that knew there probably would be.
And the thing was, if he really had gone and fallen in love with her, then he needed to figure out just what they were going to do about it. Starting with whether she loved him, too.
“I think you should stay up here.”
“Kiss me first,” she requested as she rolled over to put her arms around his neck, “and then maybe I’ll stay.”
He loved when she kissed him. With every kiss it felt like another meaningless hook-up from his past disappeared. One day, he wondered, would there only be her?
He could easily have kept kissing her all night long, but made himself draw back, stroking her silky hair with one hand as he pulled away. Her eyes had closed and there was a smile on her lips as he told her, “I’ll be right back.”
She nodded into his pillow, wrapping her arms around it. “I’ll wait here.” Her words were soft and slightly slurred.
Closing the door behind him with a soft click, he ran into Zane in the hall. “Hey, didn’t think we’d see you tonight. Ready to party with us again?”
Sean hadn’t been to one of his frat’s parties since the night he’d met Serena. In truth, he hadn’t enjoyed them for a long time, but he’d been so desperate to escape what was in his own head and heart that he’d kept going along with the same ritual as everyone else. But drinking, partying, picking up random girls, even working out until his muscles burned, hadn’t helped him feel better.
Only being with Serena had been able to do that.
“Nope, just heading down to grab something to eat.”
Zane looked at him like he was nuts. “What’s up with you, man? You’ve been living like a monk for weeks. Ever since those pictures with you and the supermodel—” At Sean’s hard look, he remembered not to call her that. “I mean, the pictures with you and Serena came out in that magazine.”
Damned glad that no one knew she was upstairs right now, Sean walked into the kitchen, grabbed a plate, and opened the fridge. “You should have told me you were missing me this much. I would have brought you some roses, taken you out for a nice dinner somewhere.”
“Asshole,” Zane muttered good-naturedly, but Sean was glad to see that he was already past his questions about Serena and was uncapping a bottle of beer.
It turned out, though, that Zane wasn’t the only one who wanted to shoot the shit tonight, and in the end, Sean figured it was better to stick around for a little longer rather than make them wonder why he was in such a rush to get back up to his room. A dozen off-color jokes later, he finally picked up the plate of food and a bottle of water and took it upstairs. Stepping inside his room, he locked the door behind him so that they wouldn’t risk one of his frat brothers barging in on them, and put the plate down on his desk.
“I brought some of every—”
His words fell away as he realized Serena was fast asleep. His heart turned over in his chest at just how soft and sweet and vulnerable she looked cuddling his pillow against her chest. Her long eyelashes dusted the tops of her cheekbones. Her full lips were slightly parted. And her hair was spread all across his pillows like someone had posed her for a sexy magazine shoot.
But no one had orchestrated the picture she presented for him. She just really was that beautiful. So beautiful that he could still hardly believe she’d chosen him to date, to kiss...and to trust.
Clearly, she wasn’t going to be eating anything tonight, but at the very least he could make her more comfortable while she slept. She barely stirred when he unlaced her shoes and pulled them off. Though he knew most girls didn’t like to sleep in their bras, and that no one liked to wear jeans to bed, he didn’t let himself take either excuse to strip off anything more.
But he did need to get her beneath the covers, which meant the pleasure of lifting her into his arms so that he could pull back his covers and slide her onto the sheets.
“Sean?”
“Shhh.” He breathed the word against her cheek as he slowly let go of her so that he could pull his dark-blue comforter over her. “I’m here if you need me.”
Her eyes opened and they were such a clear, striking blue that he knew no photo, regardless of how talented the photographer or how good the equipment, would ever do her justice.
“I do need you,” she whispered. “So bad that it hurts sometimes.”
And when she held out her arms for him, how could he do anything but give her what she needed? By the time he’d gathered her into his arms, her head nestled into the crook of his arm, she was fast asleep again.
He doubted he’d be able to get much sleep of his own tonight, but he wasn’t complaining. Not when holding the girl he loved, and feeling her heart beat against his, was the best thing he’d ever felt in his life. So good that even the thought of collateral damage no longer mattered.
Whatever came, he’d deal with it.
They both would.
* * *
Serena woke just as the sun began to rise outside the window. Years of early shoots to catch the sunrise still made it impossible for her to sleep in...even when her head felt like someone had been hitting it repeatedly with a sledgehammer. She groaned as she lifted her hands to her face, but the sound died in her throat when she realized she wasn’t alone in her bed.
And that it wasn’t her bed.
Her heart immediately started to race as she slowly turned her head on the pillow and saw Sean sleeping beside her.
Oh God, yesterday had been her big “let’s get drunk together on tequila” plan. Obviously, given the throbbing in her head, she’d managed the get drunk part, no problem.
But what else had she done while she was at it?
Like, say, Sean Morrison?
Just as panic started to whip up inside her, she belatedly realized that she was still wearing her sweatshirt and jeans. Relief promptly stole away her panic.
Last night she’d thought that she might be ready to sleep with Sean, but the morning after, she now knew that doing it after drinking would have been the world’s worst idea.
Not, she thought as her brain started to slowly fill in the gaps, that she hadn’t given seducing him a shot. Surely she’d provided him with at least a couple of good openings to sleep with her if he’d wanted to. But that was exactly why she’d felt safe enough to take her first-ever drinks with him—she could always trust him to make good decisions, even if her own judgment became impaired.
For weeks she’d been wondering what it would be like to come up here, to his room. To his bed. Of course, she thought with a small smile, she hadn’t thought it would finally happen because she’d been too tipsy to make it back to her own.
Smiling made her realize just how dry her lips and tongue were, and that she was desperate for a drink of water. She didn’t want to wake Sean—not when he looked to be sleeping the sleep of the truly exhausted—so she moved as carefully as possible from under the covers he must have pulled over her last night.
But once both feet were on the floor, instead of tiptoeing into his adjoining bathroom right away, she couldn’t stop staring at him while he slept. And all the while, her heart tumbled in her chest.
Was this what love felt like?
From the start, she’d been stunned by the strength of her feelings for him. Still, it might have been easy enough to convince herself that it was nothing more than a physical reaction to his kisses, especially when he was so amazing at giving them to her.
But this morning, she couldn’t deny any longer that her feelings went far deeper than just bodies and kisses. And she couldn’t fight the desire to want to go even deeper, to know him even better. So much better than she did right now.
For the past few weeks they’d grown more and more comfortable with each other on their Friday night dates, and had definitely shared things with each other that they didn’t share with others. But at the same time, they’d also both been careful to keep their biggest secrets to themselves.
When her head began to pound in earnest, she headed into his bathroom to splash some cold water on her face, guzzle some down, and brush her teeth with some toothpaste on her fingertip. Feeling a thousand times better from that alone, her stomach was growling by the time she tiptoed out of the bathroom.
It only took her nose a few seconds to zero in on the plate of food on Sean’s desk. She had a vague memory of his telling her he was going to get her something to eat to soak up the tequila. She smiled as she picked up the plate full of crackers and cheese and salami. The food looked a little the worse for wear by this morning, but not bad enough that she’d turn it down when she was this starved.
After that night they’d shared slices of pizza together, salami and sharp cheddar cheese had become two of her new favorite things to eat. She happily sat down on the chair in the corner of his room with the plate on her lap. But for all the grace she’d had to learn as a model, this morning her limbs were getting away from her enough that she accidentally kicked a plastic box beneath a side table. Hard enough that the top slid off and landed on the floor with a thud.
Her gaze flew to Sean, but thankfully, he didn’t so much as stir. Carefully putting the plate on the table, she was bending to pick up the top of the box when she caught sight of its contents.
Pictures.
Dozens of pictures, in both black and white and color, all piled in the box under his table.
And the top picture on the pile was of his mother.