Page 1 of Shattered Promise

PROLOGUE

ABBY

"I just gavemy virginity to my brother’s best friend." The murmured confession floats around my face like embers still smoldering from last night’s bonfire. Hot and reckless and too bright to look at for long.

A giggle bubbles free, and I press my fingertips to my lips to cut off the sound. It slips through anyway. Soft and startled, like the sound belongs to someone else entirely. Which is fitting, because Ifeellike someone else. Like the boldest parts of me came to life last night. I keep waiting for the clock to chime and the spell to wear off, but it hasn't.

Maybe it won't.

The bathroom mirror doesn’t help. My reflection is flushed and glowing, hair tangled from his fingers, lips swollen from his mouth. I look . . . giddy. Wrecked in the best way. My friends all said your first time is awkward and painful. Something to just get through.

But they don’t know Mason, and thank God for that. Because I’m just jealous enough to end a friendship over someone sleeping with my future husband.

Another laugh slips out, soft and disbelieving. There were no declarations of love. Not out loud, anyway. But Mason and I have been circling each other for years. Always just a moment too late. Always one heartbeat shy of something real.

Until now.

I twist the tap and let the water run cold. Find a half-empty tube of toothpaste in the cabinet, smear some on my finger, and scrub at my tongue until the sour taste of nerves fades. I close the mirror and let my gaze roam over my face, trying to find any differences. Ifeelchanged. Like something inside me shifted.

In all the years I wasted on my ex-boyfriend, Jake, he never could satisfy me or make me come. And he wonders why we never had sex.

But Mason? He made me cometwice. Once before we had sex, and again in the middle of the night when he pulled me back under him and whispered my name like a secret.

A pleased, petty part of me wants to let Jake know that he was wrong. It wasn't me—it washim.

My thighs ache in a way I didn’t know I’d crave again the second he touched me. I glance down and gently press my fingers over the tender marks along my inner thighs, faint purplish shadows where his hands gripped me too tightly, too sweetly. Proof that last night was real. That he wanted me. That I wasn’t dreaming.

I had a couple drinks, but they wore off long before I followed him up to his room. And thank God.

Because I don’t want to forget a single second of the most perfect night of my life.

I’m sore and tender, already wondering if it’s too soon to slip back into his room and crawl into his bed like I belong there.

Because I want to.God, do I want to.

For years, he was the answer to every aching, late-night fantasy I never let myself say out loud.

Until the quarry bonfire, when he leaned too close and said my name like it meant something. Until the way his eyes dragged over my mouth when I laughed at his shitty joke. Until he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and didn’t pull his hand away.

Until I followed him back here and let him kiss me like it would kill him not to.

I grin into the mirror, shaky and high on hope. It wasn’t just sex. Not for me. And based on the way he held me after—how he whispered my name into my skin like a secret—I don’t think it was just sex for him either.

This is something.

Ithasto be.

I hold on to that belief with both hands, my breath uneven and adrenaline fluttering in my chest like I’m about to step onto a stage.

I open the bathroom door slowly, ears straining. My bare feet make no sound against the hardwood as I move down the hallway, hands smoothing over the fabric of my dress. It’s wrinkled and slightly twisted from where I pulled it back on last night. I didn’t bother putting my shoes back on.

If one of Mason’s roommates sees me, I’ll lose my nerve. But I have to do this. I have to tell him that I love him.

It feels huge. Messy and terrifying and too big for someone who’s only nineteen. But it feelsright.

I’m still smiling when I round the corner.

And then I crash into him.