“Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe you could start with why you didn’t tell me that you were going to be coming to New York an entire year earlier than expected.” He took off his seat belt and turned to face me, his bulky body taking up most of the front of the car. “There are things I need to put in place for when you move—”

“I’m not,” I cut him off and finally turned my head to look at him.

His brows pulled together in confusion. “Not what?”

“Moving,” I told him as I met his gaze, refusing to react to the way he flinched at my answer. “I’m not moving to New York. I’ll be staying here and going to Trinity next fall.”

19

Ryan

I sat there, frozen, waiting for her to get to the punch line of the unfunniest joke I’d ever heard.

That was what all this was, just some prank Nova was playing. Any moment, she would start laughing and explain why she’d thought it would be a good idea to make my heart stop beating with her poor attempt at being humorous.

But there was no sudden outburst of her sweet laughter. Not even a twitch of her lips as she tried to fight a grin. Her tone was matter-of-fact, her gaze verging on blank as she continued to stare at me like I should understand why she was tearing me apart with not only the distance she’d kept between us all day, but by trashing the plans for our future on top of it.

Muttering a curse, I reached over and unclipped her seat belt before lifting her out of her seat and onto my lap. She didn’t struggle, but as soon as her ass touched my legs, I realized my mistake.

Fuck.

The feel of her in my arms, her delicate scent filling my nose, her warmth seeping into my frozen body, was enough to break me. My cock thickened to the point of pain, straining to get to her, and I had to shift her so that she didn’t feel how close to cracking and devouring her I was. One brush of that perfect ass over my length and I knew it would be game over. We were completely alone in the car, no one around for miles, by the looks of the vacant park. It would be so easy to strip her and sink so deep she would never want us to be anything but a part of each other for the rest of our lives.

Gritting my teeth, I cupped the side of her face, trying to focus on what she meant if she wasn’t joking. “Explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain,” she told me with a simple lift of one shoulder. “I’ve decided it is better for everyone that I stay here in Creswell Springs.”

“It’s not fucking better for me!” I exploded, frustration clawing at me. “We have a plan, Nova.”

“What plan?” she demanded, her brows lifted like she didn’t understand what I was talking about. “You mean how I’ve always talked about going to college in New York? Trinity is as good a choice as any East Coast school, Ryan.”