“

My stomach squeezes into a tight ball of yarn. I’m messing with his head, but I can’t seem to stop. I don’t want to be alone tonight. I want to be held, and touched, and wanted. I want to go back to when he looked at me like I was the last meal he’d ever eat rather than a bug who shat on the expensive leather upholstery of his car. I stare at my hands, picking at a callous on my palm knowing I’d rather die right here and now than admit all that. “I don’t know. I thought you wanted me.”

“Because I liked you!” His voice is a thunderous boom, his eyes flashing. “I liked you.” My heart leaps at the admission, and then stumbles at the past tense. “Being intimate with someone you like is a natural extension of those feelings. It’s not something you can reduce to a single sexual act that means absolutely nothing.” My gaze returns to the callous on my palm. I pick at it, ripping and tearing skin. “I’ve never been with a man before, Penn. I have no idea what I’m doing here, but as cliché as it sounds, I thought we had a connection.”

I swallow hard, shrinking into my seat. Wow, I’ve messed up really bad. “I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head, my apology as meaningless to him as the fuck I just asked him for. “Maybe I didn’t want to believe you at the time, but you told me you were straight.”

My voice becomes small, as small as I’ve been made to feel my entire life. “Because there’s too much hate in this world to be anything else.”