She had to move.
Peeling herself off the wall, she started putting distance between herself and whoever it was. She’d turned the wrong way in her rush to leave, toward her office instead of the exit, but that was fine. Maybe Adam or her dad would go the opposite direction. She’d sneak out the other door and circle around, get to her room—
Where she’d have to hide this all inside again. Because she had a roommate. A roommate who was nice and normal, and Carol didn’t deserve… this. No more than Adam did. No more than Jo did.
She didn’t deserve to have the root of all her fears show up here, in this place where she’d decided she was safe for once.
The walls around her blurred, but she didn’t stop. The hallway disappeared beneath the soles of her boots, and she wasn’t hearing much, but if there was anyone behind her, they weren’t close, or they weren’t making a lot of noise. Hell, maybe they’d given up. That would be for the best, even if it ached.
She somehow made it almost all the way to the observatory gates before the sound of someone running behind her broke past the buzzing in her head. Fuck. It had to be Adam then. Her father would never go to such lengths.
Steeling herself, curling her hands into fists, she rounded on him. She didn’t want him here, and she was good at driving people off. It was what she did. What she’d always done, even when she hadn’t meant to…
But he’d stopped. A good half dozen paces behind her, and he had his hands held up in front of himself like she was the cops or something. Trying to show he wasn’t armed.
As if she couldn’t have figured that out for herself. The expression on his face… Fuck, unarmed, he might as well have been naked. Everything about him was soft and accommodating, and…
And what would it be like to go ahead and fall into that? He’d wrap her up tight and safe, encourage her fucking breakdown even. She was sure of it. She could let herself go in his arms, shatter apart.
But how would she ever hold herself together again if she did?
She shook herself and stiffened her spine. “Don’t,” she warned.
He raised his hands even higher. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“Do I look all right to you?”
“No.” He edged forward, driving her farther back. “Running out of a room like that actually gives the opposite impression, you know.”
Awesome. She shifted her gaze skyward, but it only made the stinging in her eyes burn hotter. She dug her nails into her palms as hard as she could, maybe hard enough to bleed, because there’s no way in hell she was crying.
“Go away,” she managed.
“No.”
“Seriously, just go—”
“No.”
She threw her hands out to the sides. “What the hell do you mean ‘no’? A girl tells you to leave her alone, you do it, okay?”
“Not my girl. Not when she’s hurting.”
“Fuck you.” His girl, her ass. “Just because we fucked a few times—”
“Don’t.” He shook his head, and he was maddeningly calm. It made her even crazier. How dare he? How could he try to turn this into… into… “You’re upset, and you’re saying things you don’t mean.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m feeling. Don’t tell me what I think.” She jabbed her fingers at her own chest. “Don’t pretend just because we… whatever…” He didn’t want her to call it fucking, fine, she wouldn’t. “It doesn’t give you any right.”
But he turned soft eyes at her. “Jo. Please.”
“You want to say no? Well, I can do it, too. No. I don’t have to.” Have to what? Pour her fucking heart out to him? Let him in on her whole pathetic story? Didn’t he already have enough of it?
He’d already dug so goddamn deep, getting her to talk about her mother, getting into her pants, getting her to kiss him in public.
“Look,” she said, “maybe this has all been a mistake, so just… just, go back to the lab or to your house or whatever.” She swept her arm out toward the road ahead of them. “I’ll give you a head start and we can pretend none of this ever happened, and you don’t have to feel obligated to give a shit.”
“Is that what you think this is?” And how dare he look so… so… wounded? “An obligation?”
What else would it be?
What else was she supposed to say?
Oh, hell. Her eyes threatened to brim over, and she couldn’t do this. She felt so weak, like such a girl. Such a sad little cliché. She had to get rid of him, and fast, before she became even worse than that.
Her throat wobbled, and she turned around and closed her eyes. She couldn’t look at him for another minute. “Go. Just go.”
For a long moment, she thought he actually might listen, and a whole new well of emptiness opened itself up inside her heart. Him turning away from her—it was her fault. She’d done what she’d always done, pushing and pushing, and she shouldn’t be surprised it had finally worked.
She’d known she couldn’t keep this for long.
And then his voice rang out against the night. “Jo.” It came out soft. Pleading, and that made the hole inside her ripple, threatening collapse. Why did he have to sound so kind?
But of course it had to get worse.
“Please, Jo. Please don’t shut me out.”
Her entire chest cavity squeezed, a river of pain she didn’t begin to know how to cope with. She’d always been so good at pushing it down, ignoring it, but this display of fucking tenderness. It broke her.
Something inside her snapped.
She whipped around, the loss and hurt coalescing into one last flare of flame. Consuming heat, and anger, and there he was. Open and vulnerable and all the things she couldn’t afford to be.
She surged. The rage carried her, and she was right up in his face, ready to bite, ready to spit, and she drew her arm back to let it go, to throw her fist into his awful, perfect, understanding face.
Except he caught it. Unflinching, he grasped her knuckles in his big palm and held her hand there.
“No,” he said.
“Fuck you. Fuck you and just… just—” She flung out again, but he grasped her other wrist, too.
And he gazed down at her, expression unchanged, jaw firm. “You can say whatever terrible things you want. Hurt me as much as you feel like, but not like this. You want to let off some aggression, we can do that. But you don’t want to do this.”
She struggled against his hold, squirming and writhing and working to get a hand, a fist, an elbow out. She’d kick him in the balls or step on his feet or—
But his grip was solid. He turned her around and fit her spine to his chest, wrapped her arms around herself and held them there, her hands pinned, and she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t see and couldn’t hear, and he was restraining her, and how could he?
How could he still be here?
“Shh,” he said, but it wasn’t condescending. It wasn’t cruel.
She didn’t have any idea what to do with it.
And it was a different kind of snapping. A wholly new sort of a disconnect in her misfiring, awful brain.
He was here. The boy who’d earned her respect, and whose respect she was pretty sure she’d gotten right back. The strong, beautiful man who took her apart and who allowed her to pin him to his bed.
He’d given her every inch of leeway, right up until now. When she was throwing everything she had into pushing him away, because people always went away. They found out who she was, or in her father’s case, they knew from the start. And they left.
But Adam was right here, putting his foot down in the face of her bullshit and refusing to let her self-destruct.
And all the fight went out of her at once.
He caught her before she could sag too far, the iron bars of his arms going cradling instead of confining. As the first hiccup of breath forced its way past her throat, he was shifting her, getting her turned around, and the next thing she knew, they were on the ground. Right there by the side of the road. He set her in his lap, her face pressed to his neck, and he was surrounding her, supporting her. Keeping her, even after all the ugliness she’d unleashed.