Chapter 7

Grabbing Lux's hand,I pull her upstairs. She doesn't even fight me. Maybe she's just glad to be out of the lion's den. Whatever the reason, she follows me down the hall to my bedroom, and I guide her inside, shutting the door behind us.

"Your bros are assholes," she says, emphasizing bros like it's an insult.

"Tell me something I don't know," I answer, clearing my bed of the clothes I flung there this morning, and dumping them into an armchair by the fireplace.

She takes the scrap of paper out of her pocket and stares down at it. "So what am I supposed to do, go around asking guys to show me their forearms?"

"You think something happened to her?" I ask.

She looks at me sharply. "What do you mean?"

"I thought the going theory was that she ran off with this guy? If that's the case, then he's with her, wherever she is, which obviously isn't on campus."

"There's nothing to indicate she left with this guy willingly. He was just the last one to see her. And that text ‘Bree' sent me before we almost got run over…? Yeah, something is wrong."

I can see the emotion flooding her face, all of a sudden, like it's finally hitting her. I walk over, and brush my thumb across her cheek, guiding her head up, so she's looking directly at me. "Hey," I say softly. "We're going to figure this out. We'll find her."

Unshed tears pool in her moss-green eyes and something pulls at me like the tide—the inexplicable need to comfort her. I gather her into my arms, and pick her up, placing her on my large matress. The blankets and pillows swallow her up, but she looks so damn good lying there—even fully clothed—like she belongs in my bed.

I clench my jaw and glance away. I can't allow thoughts like that to take root, so I do what I do best, and push them away, choosing to focus on the one thing I know I can do—make her forget about her friend, about Tyler, and focus only on me…

She rises up onto her elbows, eyes wide, like she's afraid of what I'm going to do. I'm such a twisted fuck, because that fear and uncertainty I see in her eyes only turns me on more. I feed on her denials, on her insistence that she doesn't want me. It's like I have to prove it, to her and myself, that what I'm feeling between us is real.

That her body craves me.

That her soul cries out for mine.

"I should get back to my dorm room," she says. Her voice shakes a little, and that makes me smile.

"You're not going anywhere, Little Rabbit. Not until I've heard you scream my name at least once tonight."