Page 102 of Ruled Out

“I’ll buy you a car.”

I shake my head and bring my hands to his ass, pushing him deeper inside me. “No. You need to keep the money you have.”

“Then take my car, and I’ll catch rides. I couldn’t give a fuck how I get home as long as it’s to you each night.”

Still riding my high from before, I come hard when Jessie rolls his hips into me again.

Tipping his head down, he kisses my chest, and I feel the way he jerks inside me.

“Yeah, okay,” I whisper into his hair. “Let’s do it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

MIA

As we pull into the parking lot of my dorm building, Jessie puts his car into park and pulls off his glasses.

It’s a bright early March morning, and the first signs of spring are pushing their way through on the trees.

Right after he finished giving me my third orgasm, we took a nap together in Jensen and Kate’s spare bed.

“Do you have the sheets?” I turn to him, a playful smile on my face despite being nervous to be back on campus.

Leo could literally be anywhere, and he’s absolutely the last person I want to see.

Flipping his black baseball cap backward, he leans across the center console and smiles against my cheek, setting a kiss on my cheekbone. “You’re so fucking cute. I stripped the bed and put them in the washer before we left.”

Through the passenger window, I look across at my dorm building. “I’ll be a few minutes while I grab some stuff. Tara is home, so I want to explain that I’m gonna be staying with you.”

He rests his forearm over the steering and twizzles his glasses around on his fingers. “I’m coming in with you, Sweetheart.”

Getting out of the car, he rounds the hood and pulls my passenger door open, taking my hand in his, and we start walking across the lot.

We’re halfway to my dorm when Jessie pulls up, and I stop alongside him, my eyes searching his when I realize there’s something eating at him.

He takes a deep breath and looks across to my dorm building. “The second we go public is the second pictures hit the internet. I want you to know that’s what I want, too, more than anything, but it will meanhewill know who you are.”

With his free hand, Jessie pulls off his cap and runs a stressed hand through his hair, the stitches on his jaw already starting to heal. “I want you living with me for so many reasons, Mia. But as your boyfriend, I also need to know you’re safe, and I’m confident you will be if you’re in my secure apartment building and sleeping in my bed. I’m going to look into us moving right away so he doesn’t have my address anymore, but for now, this is the only way we can have what we both want. I know he won’t know your address here, but when he finds out what college you go to, it won’t be hard, and trust me, I know their security systems here are about as good as the heating.”

An icy sensation creeps up my spine. “You really think he’d go that far? Like, come after me and those you love?”

Running his tongue across his bottom lip, Jessie sets his cap back on his head. “There’s only one thing in the world Wayne Callaghan cares about—money. And I’m his meal ticket. I need to get my mom to Seattle and cut off his funds. When that happens, he’ll do everything in his power to hurt me, and you will be priority one. Even with a restraining order, he’ll do what he can to get to us.”

I drop my gaze to the ground, my hand starting to tremble in his. “What if you just go to the police over him now?”

Jessie must feel my anxiety when he brings my other hand into his. “Sure, I could, but they’d just open a child abuse case, and Mom would get dragged into it. He’d do more damage while they were investigating what had happened twenty years ago.”

He pauses and looks off to the side, his eyes becoming glossy.

“If you don’t want to do this with me, if you want to walk away or wait until my shit show of a life is in a better place, then I get it. I can’t stand here and lie; it would break my fucking heart to be without you. But I’d do it. I’d let you go to know you were safe. At this point, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for you. Just say the word, and I’ll step into oncoming traffic or throw myself off High Steel Bridge. I’ll literally do anything to keep you happy, even if it tears me in two.”

I don’t hesitate when I bring one of his hands to my lips, kissing his knuckles softly. “I’m not scared of Wayne fucking Callaghan. The only thing I’m scared of right now is going right back to where we were—apart or trying to be together and hiding.”

Dropping our hands, I pull him across the parking lot and toward civilization. “Now come help me pack.”

Two guys are pushing through the entrance to my building when we approach, and Jessie takes the door handle.

They stop dead in their tracks when they recognize his face and then across at me standing with him.