She glances up, catching me staring at her. I jerk my gaze to the enlarger controls. Heat rises up my neck. If she doesn’t yet know I’m a fucked-up pervert, she’ll figure it out soon enough.
She passes me to turn off the room lights. I switch on the safety light. A red glow covers the room. She adjusts the enlarger and focusing wheel, then bends to peer through the focus finder. She’s pushed up the sleeves of her shirt, revealing her slender arms. Her wrists are bare, devoid of the bracelets and hair ties that so many other girls wear.
The silence feels hot, as if the red light is increasing the temperature.
“Hannah told me about a student art competition that’s coming up.” I watch her set the timer. “Have you entered it before?”
“No.” She starts to create the test print. “I don’t want people looking at my work.”
“Why not?”
Nell shrugs. “Just don’t see the point, I guess.”
“You should enter the competition this year,” I say. “You have a shot at winning the scholarship money. And art is meant to be seen by others.”
“Not if I don’t want it to be.”
“What are you afraid of?” My heartbeat suddenly kicks up.
“Afraid?” She shoots me a glare, which looks even angrier in the red light. “Why would you think I’m afraid?”
“Why else would you not want anyone to see your work?” Irritation stiffens my spine. “Are you afraid they’ll tell you it’s good? That you’re good? That you have talent and creativity and are capable of more than going to Evergreen College?”
A stricken look appears in her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the fact that you shouldn’t be stuck doing whatever your father wants you to do.” I know I should stop, that this isn’t my business, but now more than ever I can’t stand the thought of this bright, creative girl being stifled. “You shouldn’t let anyone control what you do.”
She stares at me for an instant before her expression hardens. “You have the nerve to tell me that? After shutting me down when I told you…showed you…my darkest secrets? How is pushing me away not controlling me?”
My blood is hot. “There is a big difference between planning your own future and being taken advantage of.”
“Oh, excuse me.” She drops the print into the developer. “In case you missed it, I’m an adult. It may be easy for you to think of me as a child, but you weren’t here when I was forced to grow the hell up.”
“If you’re an adult, then why are you letting your father dictate what you’re going to do with your life?”
“Don’t bring my father into this.” She steps toward me, her eyes sparking with fury. “He wasn’t in the living room last week. He’s never seen my scars. Do you know why? Because I’ve never shown him.”
She’s close enough that I can see the ring of black around her irises, the dusting of freckles across her nose. Her cinnamon scent fills my nose.
“I chose to show you,” she snaps. “You may have thought we crossed some invisible line, but I knew what I was doing. I’ve never told anyone else those things, and if you feel guilty or whatever, that’s your problem, not mine. I’m not the slightest bit sorry for what happened. We both know what it’s like to be forced into a place we don’t want to be, to be made to do things against our will, to do whatever it takes to survive and come out intact. I’m not just talking about the institution either, and you know it. You’re the only person who’s ever understood that I’ve felt trapped my whole life. Don’t you dare become like everyone else now.”
The urge to touch her is overwhelming, suffocating. I fist my hands. I can’t grasp the growing comprehension that despite all our differences, at some deep, primal level, Nell and I are the same.
“Nell…” My voice is cracked, broken.
“What am I afraid of?” She tosses the tongs on the table and strides past me. “Everything, Darius. I’m afraid of every goddamned thing, except…”
I can’t push a breath out of my lungs.
“Except you.” She yanks open the door and leaves.
Light floods the room. In the tray, her close-up print shrivels at the edges and fades.
I start to go after her and stop. Hannah is standing near the whiteboard.
Nell stalks past her, spine ramrod straight, and out of the classroom. Hannah shifts her gaze to me.
“Everything all right?” A frown tightens her mouth.
“Fine. If you want to send in the next group, I’ll get the equipment ready.”
Though I manage to keep my voice even, my hands shake as I return to the darkroom and shut the door.
CHAPTER 20
Nell
Doesn’t he know by now that I’m scared of everything?
My body goes into defensive mode the instant I set foot inside the school—heart rate kicking up, muscles locking. I flinch at the sound of a locker slamming shut, and I look away the instant someone makes eye contact with me. I can’t touch any kind of rope. Talking to a nice boy at a grocery store makes my stomach hurt. I can’t enter a stupid art competition for fear of what people will say about my work. I can’t even picture my own future.
But nothing about Darius—not the scarred parts of his psyche, not his trauma, not his bullet wounds or even his sharp ability to see beneath my surface—scares me. Not anymore.
I don’t want to run away from him. I want to get as close as I possibly can. I want to get under his skin.
Maybe I already am.
Everything about him is imprinted in my mind. The burn in his eyes, the flush cresting his cheekbones, the unmistakable way his gaze locked to my mouth. Like he wanted to know what my lips taste like.
However, I’m not stupid or given to flights of fantasy. On a practical level, if I push him anymore, I’ll only succeed in driving him away. If one little touch could make him treat me like I’m suddenly radioactive, then God knows how he’d react if a touch turned into something more.
Not that he would ever allow that to happen.
For the next week, I think about more, though. More begins to flourish hot and hard in my mind, especially when I’m alone in my bedroom or surreptitiously watching him.
When he stands in front of the class, one hand in his pocket and the other gesturing at the photograph on the screen, I stare at the way his shirt stretches over his chest. I think about the sculpted muscles I’d gazed at so unabashedly, and the trail of hair leading down into his pants to…more.
After I finish my homework at night, I start to reread my well-worn steamy novels. The stories have always been exciting but distant to me—nothing I can really relate to. Arousing as the sex parts are, I could never picture myself doing all the things I read about.
I’m thinking about it now, though. I imagine myself spread out on a bed with Darius on top of me, his hands planted on either side of my head, his hot gaze searing into mine. His muscles laced with urgent tension, his hips shifting against my pelvis, the hard length of his erection pressing between my legs.
With those images flashing in my mind, and often with the sounds of Darius moving around the room beneath me, I make myself come quick and hard. Then I wonder if he’s doing the same thing. The idea of both of us masturbating at the same time spikes my arousal all over again.