The right someone could be you.

I can’t believe I just thought that.

“Tell me,” he says again.

“Tell you what?”

“Why you’re here.”

I look away, to the side and up, because I want him to kiss me and I shouldn’t. I don’t know him. I’m not sure I like him. He scares me. His knuckles are split where they grip the metal shelving—gripping it so hard, they’ve turned white. West is holding himself back from what he wants to do to me, and I wonder, what happens if he lets go?

Do I let him turn me around, bend me over this shelf, sink inside me?

I try to be disgusted by the idea, but, God, I can feel a ghost of what it would be like. It would be electric. Hot and slick, full and fast, the most erotic thing that’s ever happened to me. I know it. I know.

But then it would be over, and I think I know what that would be like, too. West silent and stiff-jawed. A closed door.

I’ve never even had a conversation with him.

I push at his chest, trying to break the spell. “West. We have to talk.”

“We’re talking.”

But I don’t have his attention. His attention’s lower, as it should be, because when did his knee get between my thighs? And am I really … ? Oh. I am. I’m kind of almost riding him.

“Get off,” I say.

I’m whispering, nervous again about being overheard and despised by studying students—though I haven’t actually seen any—or, worse, being seen here, doing this. They would talk about me. They would never stop talking about me riding West’s thigh in the library barely an hour after he punched Nate in the mouth.

This is the worst possible thing I could be doing right now.

“West, get off.”

He lifts his head. His dark hair is falling in his face, and his eyes look like chips of sky.

He eases back. “What is it?”

“I have to talk to you.”

“I’m not in a talking mood right now, Caro.”

My head is clearing. Nobody’s getting bent over anything.

This is all just hormones. Adrenaline. It’s got to be. West is biologically driven to want to rut with something after his testosterone-fueled display of masculinity, and I’m … I guess I’m biologically driven to be rutted on.

But I’m strong. I can rise above my biology.

I think.

“Too bad,” I say, “because that’s why I was looking for you. So we could converse like civilized beings.”

West just levels that stare at me.

“Not rutting beasts,” I add.

“I’m a beast,” he says slowly. “And we’re rutting?”

He doesn’t like the word rutting. He spits it out like he’s disgusted with it.

“What would you call it?”

“I don’t know what to call it. Maybe you should tell me what you’re chasing me around for.”

“I’m not chasing you. I just—”

A pissed-off male voice says, “Shh.”

Fourth floor. Shit.

When I open my mouth again, my thoughts have scattered like marbles, and I can hardly even look at West. He’s crossed his arms. His split knuckles are wrapped around his biceps. It looks hard.

Everything about West is hard.

Talk, Caroline, my brain urges. Words. Sentences. Go.

“I wanted to, um … About earlier. See, I heard from Bridget that—”

“Shhhhh.”

The same irritated voice again. I lose my words, flustered and ready to bail on this whole thing.

West says, very calmly, “There’s three other floors, buddy. Pick one or shut the fuck up.”

“This is the quiet floor,” the invisible guy complains.

“Show me where it says that.”

“Everybody knows.”

West shakes his head. “I’m not everybody.”

There’s silence for a moment, then the resonant sound of a chair being pushed back. A backpack zipper. Footsteps announce the approach—a student glares at West with angry eyes—but he keeps going, and I hear the stairwell door opening.

A beat later, just before the door slams shut, the words stupid slut drift through it.

The ugliness of those words cuts into my hurt place, deep.

He’s not the first person to call me a slut, but he’s the first one to say it so I can hear him. And honestly? It doesn’t help that he says it right after I let West push me against the stacks and stick his knee between my thighs.

It doesn’t help that my panties are wet. I feel like a slut. I feel like I’m rattling apart, unable to stick to a direct line for more than five minutes.

Stupid cunt would spread for anyone, the men inside my head say.

I’d like to see him fuck her. I’d pay good money to watch that.

I look up at West. I feel despised and powerless, and it’s so frustrating that he’s seeing me this way—that he’s watching so intently and really seeing what I try not to let anyone see, ever.

That I am right on the verge of falling apart. All the time.

His eyes soften, gentle with pity, and that makes it a hundred times worse.

Stupid, pitiful slut.

“It’s fine,” I say. “I’ve heard it before.”

“It’s not fine.”

I wave my hand in the air, pointlessly, because I have no response. It isn’t fine. But it’s my life now.

“Caroline, it’s not fine.” West puts his hands on my shoulders.

I shrug him off and step sideways to get out from under him. “I know, okay? You don’t have to yell at me. I know. He’s going to tell everyone, and then the whole campus is going to be whispering about how we were practically screwing on the fourth floor of Hamilton. I get it. I’m sorry, all right?”

I think his eyes could burn holes through me, they’re so fierce. The little flecks seem to flash. The grooves beside his mouth carve themselves deeper. “What are you sorry for?”

What am I not sorry for? I regret everything I’ve ever done with a guy. My first kiss, which took place after an eighth-grade dance, with a boy named Cody. My first French kiss, which was with Nate. Letting Nate take off my bra, put his fingers inside me. Sleeping with Nate and thinking we were making love. Buying lingerie for him, going down on him, letting him take the pictures when I thought it would bring us closer.

West, too. I regret what just happened with West.

“Everything,” I whisper.

It’s the wrong thing to say. His hands push into his hair, clenching. “Christ. I can’t even—what’s the matter with you, huh?”

“Nothing you can fix.”

“So why are you here?”

I take a deep breath. I can do this. “I need to know it’s not going to happen again. That you’re not going to go around punching people because of me.”

He frowns, a deep slash between his eyebrows. “Who said it was because of you?”

The question catches me off guard. “I heard—I heard you guys were arguing about me. Sierra told Bridget.”

“I don’t know a Sierra.”

“I guess she knows you.”

His face goes even darker. “It’s not her business. Or yours. It’s between Nate and me.”

“I think we’re way past the point where you can play the none-of-your-business card.”

That makes him even more agitated. He wheels away, stalking to the end of the row. Then he comes back and grabs the cart with both hands. He looks like he wants to shove it at me. “He pissed me off. That’s all you need to know.”

“Yeah, but—”

Head lowered, he kicks the toe of his boot against the cart. Not hard, but hard enough to make way too much noise.

“You have to tell me what happened,” I say, as calmly as I can manage. “Then I’ll leave you alone.”

His head comes up. “You think that’s what I want? For you to leave me alone?”

I don’t know what he wants, so I keep my lips pressed shut.

“He pissed me off because he’s a smug, arrogant prick,” West says. “And I was fucking sick of hearing him talk, all right?”

“So it had nothing to do with me.”

He rakes his hand through his hair again. Turns away.

“West?”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

I wait.

It occurs to me that I am good at waiting, and maybe that’s one thing I have on West. He’s more worldly, more confident, but he’s volatile and I’m not. I’ll stand here until he’s done throwing his tantrum, and then he’ll have to tell me.

I wait some more.

He turns back around. “I didn’t do it for you, okay? I just couldn’t take it anymore. He deserved to get beat down, and nobody else was doing it. But if you have some kind of hero fantasy, you can forget it.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know. If you’re getting your rocks off thinking I hit your ex because I’ve got a thing for you.”

“Are you serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?”

For a few seconds, I can’t speak. He’s just yanked me so rapidly from ashamed and awkward to righteously pissed off, my brain is having trouble keeping up. “That’s so … conceited,” I finally manage. “I mean, so, so conceited. After what you just—why would you even say something like that?”

He steps closer. He’s vibrating with emotion, and I can’t sort him out. I don’t know what he’s thinking, how he feels. I only know he feels it a lot. “Why did you touch me?” he asks.

“I was trying to get your attention.”

“People tap when they’re trying to get someone’s attention. That wasn’t a tap.”

“It was …”

I’ve got nothing. I groped him, and we both know it. The only thing I can do now is lie. “It was an accident.”

I hate when he does this. Looms over me this way with those eyes and that face. Looks at me. It is my new least-favorite thing: being looked at by West. Like he’s trying to sex me to death.