First Love, Second Chance: Friends to Forever / Second Chance with the Rebel / It Started with a Crush...

‘You’re switching to avoid me.’

The rock in her gut doubled in size. ‘No.’

Yes.

‘Why?’

A throbbing started up behind her eyes. ‘This has nothing to do with you—’

‘Bull. You’ve been backing off from me since term started. What’s going on? No room for a mate in your busy new social schedule, Ms Popularity?’

‘Marc—’

‘I may not be as smart as you, Beth, but I can see which way the wind is blowing. Is McKinley threatened by me?’

She shook her head. Damien’s field of vision was far too narrow for him to notice how Marc was filling out, growing up. He had way too much going on in his life, in his world, to worry about what some science geek was up to. It never occurred to him that Beth would see Marc as anything other than a buddy. An old buddy. The expendable buddy she’d had until he came along.

And now Damien just expected that she’d switch camps. Just like she switched streams. But since that fed right into what she knew she had to do …

‘So that’s it, huh? That’s what you wanted to tell me—that you’re switching classes?’

Beth struggled to take in a breath. He made it sound so minor. But still so ugly. Her words grew tight. ‘It means we’re only going to have one class together.’

‘I know. The best thing about B is that it means only seeing McKinley once a week.’ He glared at her. ‘You’re that desperate to get away from me?’

She would like nothing more than to have Marc Duncannon in her life for ever. But, as it turned out, that wasn’t going to work. Guilt tore at her insides and thick shields shot up into place. ‘The world revolves around the sun, Marc, not you.’

His face paled and the guilt turned inward, digging into the flesh around her heart. The truth was Marc Duncannon revolved around Beth Hughes and always had. Or, more rightly, the two of them rotated in a complicated, connected orbit. Something both their parents felt was unhealthy.

For him.

If it was just his nut-job mother who thought it, Beth wouldn’t have given it another thought. But her own mother agreed and so did her father. And Russell Hughes was never, ever wrong. After a long and tearful conversation, Beth gave him her word that she’d cool things down with Marc for a while. See what happened. And she’d never broken her word yet.

‘If you’re not doing it to be closer to McKinley and you’re not doing it to be away from me then why are you doing it?’

‘Why can’t I just be doing it for me? Because I want to?’

‘Because you don’t make decisions like that, Beth. You never have. You plan stuff. You commit.’

‘So I’ve changed my mind. It happens.’

Not to you. It was written loud and clear all over his face. Could he tell she was lying?

‘What about uni? Biology?’

A fist squeezed deep in her chest. Damn him for not just letting her go. Why was he pushing this so hard? Forcing her to hurt him more. ‘That was your dream, not mine.’

He blinked, then stared. ‘After all this time? You’ve been on board with that for three years.’

She shrugged, faking ambivalence she absolutely did not feel. ‘Seemed like a good enough idea at the time.’

‘Until something better came along? Or should I say someone?’

‘This is not about Damien. I told you.’ He stepped closer and Beth retreated towards the library wall. When had he grown that big?

‘I know what you told me. I just don’t believe it.’ He towered over her. ‘We’ve been friends for eight years, Beth. Half our lifetimes. And you just disappear the moment a popular guy comes sniffing? Are you truly that desperate for affection?’

The library wall pressed into her back. She knew he’d be hurt, and she knew he lashed out when he was hurt. She’d seen him do it with his mother. ‘People change, Marc. We all grow up. Maybe we’ve just grown apart?’

‘I know you’re changing, Beth. I’ve watched you.’ His eyes glazed over, a deep russet brown, and skimmed her, head to toe. She’d never been more aware of the changing shape of her body. Then he sneered, ‘I just never expected you’d change into such a cliché.’

‘I’m just … I just need some space. We’ve lived in each other’s pockets for so long we don’t even know how to be around anyone else. Or who we are if we’re not together.’

Lies, lies …

His snort was ugly. ‘Don’t dress this up as self-discovery. This is about the school jock making a play for the school tomboy. And you’re falling for it hook, line and sinker.’ He slammed two hands either side of her face and leaned into her.

She flinched and her heart raced at his closeness. No, this is about your mother asking me to cut you loose. Begging me to. She wanted to scream it into the face that she knew as well as her own. But she couldn’t. It would kill him to discover what his only surviving parent thought he was worth.

‘You could be anything you want, Marc. You don’t need me to be it with you. There’s a whole world for us to discover.’

He leaned in further. The tightening in her body where he touched it wasn’t fear. Marc was the only person on the planet she trusted implicitly never to hurt her.

‘What’s wrong with us discovering that together?’ he ground, his chest heaving with restraint. ‘We have history. A bond. What does McKinley have that I don’t have?’

No rock-tight bond. No complicated history. No parents pressuring her to put some distance between them.

‘I’m only asking for space, Marc. What’s wrong with that?’

His face twisted and he swore. ‘I’ve been giving you space for two years, Beth. Maybe if I’d done this back then I wouldn’t be standing here now getting the brush-off from my best friend.’

And then suddenly his mouth was crushing down on hers, his body pressing her into the hard limestone of the library wall behind her. Shock stiffened her against the hardness of his chest as his hands slipped down to tangle in her hair and hold her face still for the assault of his lips. She swam in his scent, in his angry heat, in his perfect, practised kiss. The unfamiliar slide of a blazing hot mouth over her own and the furious press of his body. And then the dizzying sensation of their flesh melding into one, his enormous hands sliding around to protect her head from the lumpy wall behind her, his mouth shifting and softening on hers.

And then—somehow—she was kissing him back. Her own mouth moved tentatively against his and her body pressed forward. A choked whimper cracked deep in her throat and Marc worked his tongue past her uncertain lips coaxing them open. His furnace-hot tongue twisted and danced around hers, intensity pooling around her, engulfing all. Her body whoofed to flaming life, hormones tangling and exploding like kindling around them.

Overwhelming and unfamiliar, something she’d never allowed herself to dream. To want.

Marc.

Suddenly Beth was free and Marc staggered back against the force of her desperate shove. She held up a shaking hand to stop him coming closer. His face darkened as he looked at her.

‘Does McKinley know you kiss like that?’ His chest heaved.

How could he know? They’d never kissed. She’d never kissed anyone. Until today.

She dragged her fist across her lips. ‘Don’t ever—’ do that again, make me feel that again ‘—touch me again.’ Her voice was husky and low and appallingly unfamiliar.

‘Beth …’