I raked a hand over my face. Fuck. I just wanted her to trust me.

How the hell did this timid girl next door manage to make my body beg? She didn’t have a single clue how badly I wanted her or how deep my thoughts went. Guess there’d always been something about her, something that had struck me before she lifted her face to the sky that first morning of classes, soaking the sun in as if it was somehow feeding her soul. Something that drew me to her.

I recognized it now.

Misha didn’t even know and she didn’t need to. I’d protect her. Collect everything due to her. Lay it at her feet.

At least I owed her that.

Misha

“Misha, if you don’t hurry up I’m going to come up there and drag you down here.” Laughter and loud voices and impatient calls rose from the first floor, Indy’s voice lifting above them all as she shouted at me for what had to be the hundredth time.

“I’m coming,” I hollered in the direction of my bedroom door that stood wide-open behind me. “Sheesh,” I added under my breath.

“I heard that!”

With a soft giggle, I turned, letting my gaze wander over myself in the full-length mirror set up in the corner of my room. Uncertainty tickled my nerves, and there was no mistaking the self-conscious flush that bloomed hot on the exposed skin on my chest, before it blazed a path up my neck to settle where it always landed—right on the apples of my cheeks.

I was wearing skinny jeans and heels with a shimmery silver and black shirt that fell off one shoulder, my long hair sprayed into shiny ringlets that spilled over my shoulders and down my back. Months ago, I’d bought this outfit to wear out with Hunter, thinking it was sexy and cute, and I’d hoped it would make me feel confident and pretty. It was something so out of character for me and I’d wanted to do something special for him, to make him proud to have me on his arm when we went out with his friends.

Too bad I didn’t get a chance to wear it before he drove that treacherous knife right into the center of my back.

I’d had the intense urge to set fire to these clothes. To watch them burn up so I’d have no reminders left of who I’d tried to make myself be for him.

I wouldn’t change for anyone.

Never again.

But I realized wearing something that made me feel pretty didn’t change me. Pride had hit me hard when I slipped into these clothes. Not because of the way they made me look, even though I felt good in them, but because they were no longer for him.

I chewed my lip, shifted to look at myself in the mirror.

“Forget him,” I whispered to myself.

Tonight I was finally letting Hunter go. It wasn’t because I missed him and loved him and was letting my broken heart heal. I didn’t feel any of those things. I knew it now, knew picking a guy like him was just me trying to fit in, to be more like the girls I thought I was supposed to fit in with.

But what he’d done had hurt me.

And today I would finally let go of all that pain.

“Misha!” Indy shouted again.

Grinning, I grabbed my little purse from my bed. “All right . . . all right! I’m coming! Don’t get your panties all in a bind.”

I headed out my door, doing my best not to wobble on my four-inch heels.

“Who said I was wearing any?” she shot back as I carefully maneuvered down the stairs. So maybe the shoes weren’t exactly me, and I was much more comfortable in my sneakers, but I liked them, so I was wearing them, and I didn’t care what anyone else had to say.

Chuckling at her, I clung to the railing as I made my way to the bottom floor. When I got downstairs, I found all three of my roommates in the kitchen. Courtney was pouring amber liquid into tiny shot glasses, one round ready to get the night started.

Indy grinned in my direction. “Cheers!” she said as she handed a shot glass to me.

“Cheers!” The three of us lifted our glasses and tossed them back, Chloe sitting out the drinking like she always did. I was actually surprised she’d agreed to come out with us at all tonight.

Liquid burned a fiery path down my throat, and I forced myself to swallow, doing my best not to choke on it and spew it right back out. My face screwed up with the awful taste when it settled in my stomach. “Ugh . . . that is terrible. Why are we doing this again?”

“Just a little preamble. Tonight we’re letting go.”

“To tonight.” Courtney poured us one more round. We clinked glasses, toasting us. In unison, we slammed them down on the counter, grinning like fools as we swiped the backs of our hands over our mouths.

Was I tipsy off two shots? I wobbled on my heels, giggled more.

Oh yeah. I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a drinker. But I loved the fuzzy feeling that swept through my body, the way my nerves became subdued and thoughts of Hunter became nothing but a distant memory.

The four of us filed out into the night. A dark canopy kissed with twinkling stars covered us like an embrace from high above. We laughed and talked the entire ten-minute walk to the club. It’d been a very long time since I felt so good.

We were ushered in, and I felt like I stepped into a whole new world when I entered through the wide double doors. Music pulsed, heavy and loud, colorful lights throbbing with the beat. Bright strobes flashed over the crush of bodies on the dance floor, people moving against each other, completely free.

As free as I felt.

Indy tugged at my hand. “Let’s hit the bar. I need another drink before I go anywhere near that mess of people.”

Funny, because I felt drawn to it, like the only thing I wanted to do was get mixed up in it. Just for tonight, I wanted to get lost.

I let her lead me through the throng, Courtney and Chloe just ahead. The three of us partook of another shot.

I slammed my glass down as I forced my drink to stay in my stomach. “Gah! That’s the last one for me.” I furiously shook my head. “Whew.”

Indy smirked at me. “Lightweight.”

And that I was.

My head spun, and the music blared, calling me into it. I began to shake my hips right at the bar. “Come dance with me!” I prodded, yanking at my friends’ arms.

“I’m in.” Courtney linked her elbow with mine. The two of us were giggling as we pushed through the groups huddled up close to the bar and wound our way into the middle of dance floor, where we completely cut loose.

Sweaty bodies beat around us, but I couldn’t even begin to mind. We danced for minutes, or hours, I didn’t know. All I knew was I was having the best time I’d had in so long, and I no longer felt like the pariah, like someone people would whisper about.

Because no one here knew.

A month had passed since I returned to campus, and not one person had uttered a word to me about what had happened.

Courtney started dancing with some random guy, and she cast me a telling smile as she turned away. I returned an accepting grin, giving her the go-ahead before I lifted my face toward the high ceiling that strummed with lights. Colors flashed across my face and lit up behind my closed eyes, and I completely gave myself over to my newfound freedom.

I was lost in the crowd, but still I felt it strike me. Tension infiltrated the already heavy air, thickening it more, making it difficult to breathe. I felt them, eyes watching me dance, traveling my curves as I moved.

A burst of modesty tried to crack the surface of the buzz that sedated my mind.

But tonight, it couldn’t touch me.

Because I welcomed it. I wanted him to see me.

God, how much time had I spent dreaming of him? Darryn Wild, that boy-man-god who’d stolen so many of my thoughts, that teasing smile that did something to me I’d never felt before, made me shy in a way I liked, like he saw beneath all the red to the girl below.