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“Well, I’m not drunk now, and you—”

His hand wraps around the back of my head and he pulls me into him, his soft lips smashed against mine. He breaks a breath away. “That wasn’t my best, I’m sorry, I was excited—”

I press my lips against his, drawing a startled groan from him. We stand up at the same time, adjusted so his face angles down instead of mine. His skin is smooth under my fingertips andI slide them over his cheekbones, graze his scalp, trace a chill down his neck. He breaks the kiss and stares at me with wild eyes, his breathing erratic. And then he dives back in, swinging me around so I land back-first on my bed, with him holding his weight over me. The sound must startle Bagel, wherever he is, because he barks and rushes into the room. Holden pulls away.

“Shhh, Bagel. Quiet.” He ushers him out of the room and shuts the door. He turns back to me, his cheeks red. “Should we stop?”

“Do you want to?”

“No. Do you?”

“You’re the one who asked!”

In the blink of an eye, Holden’s hovering over me again. He kisses my neck, and then my temple, the touches featherlight. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers. “It’s devastating.”

I don’t know what to say. Nothing I could say back would ever sound as sweet, as sincere, so I kiss him instead. His hand trails down my side and latches onto the hem of my dress, sliding it an inch or two higher.

I break away from our kiss, reluctantly, to say the biggest mood killer that absolutely has to be said. “I’m not—I’m not ready to have sex, or anything, besides, like, kissing. Not right now.” My cheeks heat and the words fumble out of my mouth in such an embarrassing way that I close my eyes so I can’t see his reaction. “I haven’t—Elijah and I didn’t, well, not with me. You know what I mean?”

“Are you saying you’re a virgin?”

“It’s not that big of a deal.” I crack an eye open. “Is it?”

His own face turns tomato red. “Of course not. We’ve—we’ve got time, if we wanted to. I’ve—I’ve only done it once, so... I get it.”

I pull a totally unattractive face of disbelief. “But Corrine said...”

“I really don’t want to think about her right now.” He flops to the empty space next to me. “What did she say? That it was awful?”

“No, she said you guys had a lot of sex.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Well, that’s not what happened, but I appreciate the lie.”

“So, what happened, then?”

“She really wanted to and I wanted to make her happy.” He rolls the words around in his mouth. “Neither of us were too happy afterward.”

“Not really selling yourself here,” I say as a joke, trying desperately to lighten the mood that is so dark and awkward right now.

“I have to be honest,” he says. “We had sex, got into a fight, and then she broke up with me.”

I sit up, leaving Holden lying on the bed behind me. “I don’t understand. Shenevermentioned this.”

“Probably because you were the reason we broke up.”

I whip around and he breaks into laughter at the sight of the stunned look on my face. “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything!”

“No, you didn’t do anything.” He joins me in sitting. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.”

“What did you mean, then?”

“I mean, we had sex and it was awful and I didn’t love Corrine. And that was, unfortunately, when she realized it. So, she broke up with me.”

I stare at my hands in my lap. “She told me there was another girl.”

“There was.” When I meet his eyes, his face is serious and perfect. “You, Saine.”

Even though we were just kissing, even though he admitted to being into me, hearing that he’s been into me formonthsfeels new and scary and thrilling, my excitement now competing with my guilt. Did I do something to steal Holden from Corrine? If that’s the case, why did she seem like she was pushing me to him?