Pressure points. Fuck me. Of course she knew about pressure points. To hide their shame or their own insecurities, those two lacrosse players had pressed on her weak points and everyone else’s and turned the Central campus into a house of horrors for AM.

“Do I win for most embarrassing story ever?” AM’s voice was rough from her storm of tears, but her willingness to joke about this only made her more precious to me.

“No,” I said immediately, wanting to kill any idea that she should feel ashamed about what happened. “You haven’t heard all of mine yet.” And never would, I hoped. Blood pounded in my temples when I thought about some of my high-school exploits that I hoped would never reach AM’s ears.

“Unfair,” she said, nose burrowing into my chest. Her body had lost the stiffness from earlier, and she felt almost pliant in my arms as if she did trust me. I shifted her slightly backward so she wouldn’t feel my inappropriate arousal and that made her sit up. I felt like an ass and tried to draw her back into my arms but she resisted. Looking around the car, she asked, “Tissue?”

We looked in every crevice but only found one forlorn napkin. ”Would you accept one unused but crumpled napkin?” I dabbed her face gently with it. AM allowed it for a second before taking the cloth from me and holding to her nose and sniffing like a kitten.

“I need to go inside anyway,” AM said.

Instinctively, I knew that if I let AM out of this car alone, that was it for us. Embarrassment, shame, resentment would all pile up and she’d refuse to do anything not related to our class together. Deciding that I wouldn’t let her say no, I opened the door to let her out but grabbed her purse, which was lying on the floor of the passenger side. She wasn’t going anywhere without that and, therefore I hoped, without me.

Chapter Twelve

AM

I WAS SO EMBARRASSED BY MY breakdown in the car with Bo, I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. I wanted to go into the apartment and hunker down and hide for about ten years, until everyone here had forgotten who AnnMarie West ever was. I rushed to the apartment complex entrance, but when I got to the locked door, I realized I’d left my purse in Bo’s car. I turned and bumped into his broad, immovable chest. The one I’d just spent the last twenty minutes unleashing a hurricane of tears and snot into.

“Looking for this?” Bo held up my purse. I tugged on it, but he wouldn’t let it go. “I’m seeing you upstairs.” His voice was implacable.

I frowned, but truthfully, I was feeling so bleak that I didn’t want to be in my apartment alone, and I didn’t want to ruin Ellie’s night out either. Bo held the purse in his firm and unrelenting grip while I rummaged in it to find my keys.

Unlocking the door, I led the way up to my second-floor apartment. I was mentally cataloguing the interior. The living room was mostly clean, as was my bedroom. I might have a few things I needed to toss into a closet, but for the most part, there was nothing in there that would make me cringe. It was silly to even contemplate that some random bra left on the floor could make me blush after what I’d just gone through with Bo.

He followed me upstairs without a word. Once inside, he took in the space with a single gaze and turned back to me. “Couch looks comfortable. Uglier than the backside of a steer, but comfortable.”

It was, but I wasn’t sure what he was getting at. At my questioning look, Bo enlightened me. “I’m not leaving you alone tonight. I’ll sleep on your couch until Ellie gets home, whenever that is.”

God, I was going to have to call Ellie and interrupt her night out, because there was no way I was getting any sleep with Bo lying out here on the sofa. My intentions must have been clear on my face because Bo made a tutting noise with his tongue. “No, Sunshine, I’m not going anywhere tonight. I want to be here with you, and the sofa is just fine for me.”

I could see by the set of his jaw that his mind wasn’t going to be changed. Throwing up my hands, I stomped into my bedroom and slammed the door behind me.

I was drained, emotionally. I had no reserves to fight off my own attraction. I couldn’t think of an argument to make Bo leave, mostly because I didn’t want him to leave. The moment he’d shifted in the car and I drew back, I felt a hundred times worse. I opened my mouth and in the darkness, it had all spilled out. It had been embarrassing to cry and to tell him how I’d lost my virginity and how I felt victimized by the toad. But I’d also felt protected and safe, resting my cheek against his marble chest and feeling his arms around me like bands of steel.

I wanted that feeling back right now, but I wasn’t prepared to give anything else tonight. I was wiped out and felt less sexy than I did on the first day of my period. Discomfited, I disrobed and got out my nighttime attire, which consisted of a pair of men’s boxers, small, and a large men’s Central College T-shirt. I pulled out an extra set for Bo and held them up. There was no way he was fitting into the boxers and even the T-shirt might be a stretch for him.

I changed, washed my face, and looked around for a spare toothbrush. I found a travel one my mother had likely stuck in my bag. Setting that out with the T-shirt and shorts for Bo, I opened the bedroom door. He’d shed his shoes and was lying back on the sofa with the TV on. At the sound of the door opening, he sat up and gave me a smile, which, as he took me in, turned to a frown.

I looked down and realized that I had the worst type of sleepwear. He was probably used to satin and lace and other sexy stuff. I plucked at my shirt.

“That’s a guy’s shirt,” he accused.

“No, it’s my shirt,” I corrected.

“Whose shirt was it originally?” he demanded.

“Um, mine? I bought it at the Bookstore.” Immediately his tense shoulders relaxed.

“You bought shirts in sizes that don’t fit you?”

“It’s comfy.” I defended myself.

“As long as it didn’t belong to some other guy,” he muttered.

“Okay,” I said, confused by why the shirt’s origins made any difference. I had washed it a million times. There weren’t any cooties on it, not even mine. “I’ve laid out some things for you in the bathroom.” I extended my hand into my bedroom to point the way. My bathroom was accessible only via my bedroom. As he advanced, I felt unreasonably nervous. I hadn’t ever had a guy other than Brian in my bedroom before, and he really didn’t count. The two other guys I’d hooked up with had taken me to their places.

Unlike when he first came into the apartment, Bo took his time looking around my bedroom. My mother and I’d tricked it out with bright pink and green and white linens. I had several throw pillows that never quite made it on the bed and matching curtains. The bed itself was my childhood bed, a double that was quite big for me, but Bo looked like he’d only be comfortable in a king-sized bed.

He looked at the hastily made bed for what seemed like an eternity, then turned his back on me as he walked to the bathroom. The door closed, and I thought I heard a groan.

I rushed over and gave a little knock, “Um, you okay?”

A heartbeat and then a cough. “Yeah. Just dandy.”

I went out into the living room to give Bo some privacy but I could still hear the faint sounds of water running and cabinet doors opening. I struck my hand against my forehead. Bo might want to shower. He had, after all, fought tonight. He hadn’t smelled sweaty at all, only a musky, manly smell. Delicious and comforting at the same time. I rushed to my closet and pulled out a big bath sheet, thanking my mother silently for splurging on a couple of huge towels.

I knocked again. “Hey, do you want to shower? I have a towel here.”

The door opened immediately, and I stumbled back a minute at the sight of Bo without his shirt on and his jeans unbuttoned and unzipped. What had Sasha said about him? My ovaries weren’t clenching. They were doing a celebration. Every nerve in my body awoke and reached for him. I swayed a little on my feet, and Bo put out a hand on my shoulder to brace me.

“You okay, Sunshine?”

“Just a little lightheaded,” I confessed.

“You get into bed,” Bo ordered. I did as he said. There was no resisting his Nordic power at this point. It was like he’d struck me with the mythical thunderbolt. I climbed into bed and he pulled the covers over me. Bending over, he kissed me on the forehead and murmured, “I’ll be two minutes.”

I lay there dazed and listened to the water of the shower flood on. The shame I’d felt earlier was chased away by the images of Bo flexing and turning in the shower, running his soapy hands over the hills and valleys made by his muscles. I thought of the light hair that dusted his upper chest and the darker trail that arrowed into his jeans. There was a large mark on his back that looked like a tattoo of a winged creature. I wanted to explore it with my fingers and tongue.

I was getting out of bed to get a glass of water to cool me down when Bo came out, shirtless with loose-fitting boxers hanging precariously off his hips. Those weren’t my boxers. The light briefly illuminated his fit body, from the wide shoulders to the tapered waist and his powerful thighs. Even his knees looked manly yet attractive. Who thinks knees are attractive?

We stared at each other, the sexual attraction arcing and rising between us like a living, palpable thing. Bo came over, draping the towel around his shoulders. His hand curled around the back of my neck and tilted my head upward.

“How’d you feel if I just held you tonight? No funny business.”

Oh, the idea of being held all night by Bo filled me with delight. This was the temptation that was too enticing to resist. Zzzzap goes the moth.

“Would that even be fair?” I asked.

He shook his head a couple of times, and I felt tiny drops of water flit across my skin like little fairy kisses. “AM, you don’t owe me anything. I want to be with you, but only so I can hold you. I’m wrung out from tonight.”

“The fight?” I asked, unsure of what had gotten to him.

“Right, the fight,” he said, but I think he meant something else. I wasn’t brave enough to ask. Instead, I ducked under his hand and moved backward on the bed, lifting the sheets in invitation.

“I’d like that,” I admitted reluctantly. “To be held by you.”

“Good.” He gave his hair another pass with the towel and stepped back into the bathroom. He came out with the extra T-shirt in his hand. “You buy this, too?”

I nodded.

“It’s a little on the small side. You mind if I go without?”

“No, it’s fine.” I curled my nails into my palms. Snuggling only, I reminded myself. Suddenly all my tiredness was chased away, and I felt wired, full of ten cups of coffee on my way through an all-nighter. I’d caught my second wind, being stirred up by lust or something. How was I ever going to sleep?

“I like to sleep near the door, if you don’t mind.” Bo sauntered over to the bed and climbing in. He slid all the way under the covers and when his leg brushed mine, I jerked. He immediately apologized.

“No, it’s all right. It’s just been a long time,” I confessed. I’d actually slept with my two previous partners less than a handful of times. This was still foreign to me. I debated how I would lie next to him, where I should put my arms or legs. But Bo just slid one arm underneath my neck and pulled my head onto his shoulder. He reached down and pulled my top leg over his and then kissed me on top of my head.

“Done rearranging me?”

“Yup,” came the nonchalant reply.

“We haven’t even kissed yet, you know,” I told him. “It seems weird to sleep together.”

“We’re not ready yet.”

I liked that. It wasn’t just that I wasn’t ready but that he wasn’t either. He may have been blowing smoke up my ass, but I liked the sentiment. I thought I’d lie awake all night, but the comfort and warmth of his body relaxed me and the emotional tumult drained that sudden burst of energy. I fell asleep almost immediately, cocooned in the safety of Bo Randolph’s arms.

Chapter Thirteen

AM

BO LEFT EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, whispering in my sleepy ear that he was going for a run. Later that day, he appeared, showered, changed, and ready to fulfill one of our lab requirements. I spent the time apart embarrassed by the revelations I had shared and confused about our status. We dating? Hooking up? Just friends? I didn’t even know exactly what I wanted from Bo, so when he treated me with such normalcy, I didn’t bring the subject up. My anxiety over the previous night’s events only lingered for a moment, but my bewilderment over us only increased.

“Would you help me open this?” I handed him a jar of spaghetti sauce. I’d agreed, somehow, to make dinner for Bo tonight, ostensibly because we needed to study, but mostly because being around Bo and being the subject of his light flirtations actually made me feel good. I deserved that once in a while, I told myself.