With his hands barely touching my hips, Zac continued to guide me towards his bed. We shuffled across the room until I felt the back of my feet hit the edge of the mattress. He gave me a slight push. I let myself plop back onto the soft bedding without a word of protest.

Zac didn't follow. I sat up with a questioning look.

He stood there, gazing down at me with a scowl of disappointment. He didn't look happy at all. I had no clue what he was planning to do. He certainly didn't seem to have any intention of fucking. His silence was making me nervous.

Without breaking eye contact, Zac started removing his clothes. His movements were slow, teasing. Deliberate. First, his shirt fell away. My head was still reeling from the storm it had just weathered, but my eyes became distracted as they drank in the sight of hard muscle and bare tatted skin. Fucking hormones.

Zac stepped out of his pants. He had nothing on but boxer briefs. He looked perfectly fuckable. Tension filled the air. Not entirely the sexy kind, but there was something there, for sure. My meltdown earlier had wrecked me. My heart felt mangled and bruised. Yet, here I was, fighting my attraction to the beautiful boy standing in front of me. The thundering in my chest felt like a hornet's nest about to implode.

"Like what you see, babygirl?" he asked quietly.

I stared up at him with uncertainty. "Yes?"

His jaw tightened. "You know, it's shame that you wanna be fuck buddies because only my girlfriend gets to see this shit. Only she gets to touch me. Kiss me. Fuck me. No one else."

I frowned at him. "What are you trying to say, Zac?"

Anguish burned from his amber eyes. "I'm saying either we're all in. Or I'm out. I can't half-ass a relationship with you, Cate. I care too much. When you try to back out the moment we hit a bump in the road, it scares the hell outta me because I've been all in this whole time! You're fucking with my feelings, and the worst part is I kinda wanna let you do it, even knowing what I know, because I don't wanna be without you. So, please, figure out what you want and commit to it."

He grimaced and glared at me as though he was a kicked puppy, as though he was the victim, and I was the heartless fiend who dared to knock him flat on his ass.

"I wasn't trying to back out," I mumbled defensively. "I just wanted to give you a choice—"

"To make me end things between us so you wouldn't have to get your hands dirty?" he supplied angrily.

I shook my head and lowered my face, hands wringing and clenching at my skirt. I was a jumble of nerves, but I forced myself to wrench the words out of my well of insecurities. For Zac's sake.

"No, it's not like that at all."

The tenseness in his jaw relaxed a little. "Okay, then, explain it to me."

"I can't help worrying about our future. I'm a Type A planner. I'd like to see our relationship go beyond Ashton Wellesley. I wanna do the long-distance thing if you have to go back to New York next semester. And find a way to make it work even if we end up going to different colleges. I wanna be a lawyer, a successful one, at that, but it's gonna take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loan debt to get there and my dad isn't gonna give me a single penny. I don't wanna waste your time—or mine—if you'd rather choose an easier life. Date some other bitch who might be a smarter choice in the long run. But I'm all in, Zac, if you still want me."

I poured out everything I wanted from him. For my future. For our future. It seemed like a lot to ask, especially when I had so little to offer in return. I had never opened up this much to anyone before or allowed myself to place so many weighty expectations on another person. The quiet that hung between us made me feel like a lamb waiting for slaughter.

Mamma once told me, after a particularly brutal relationship of hers ended, that just because a man desired a woman didn't mean he valued her. She warned me to recognize the difference. A man's desire had a voracious appetite that tended to suck and siphon and seize everything lovable about our sex until a woman became little more than a dusty bag bones. Back then, I had been too young to understand what she was talking about. But, in this moment, I felt her words all too deeply. I worried that Zac was merely infatuated with me, lost in a haze of teenage lust. Hell, maybe I was guilty of it, too. But the possibility that our story might not survive once the harsher realities of adulthood shook me to the core.

Zac took his sweet time to respond. It was driving me crazy. A small smile spread across his mouth. I wondered if he was doing it on purpose.

Finally, he said with an exaggerated sigh, "So... you expect me to dick around with you for a few years and then end up with someone like Brittany? Or Lily? Or any trust fund baby, really, with access to mommy and daddy's bank account?"

Zac took a seat beside me on the mattress. His eyes found mine. I saw a blend of annoyed amusement dancing in the golden amber depths. He was still keeping some distance between us, but, oddly, his mood seemed much improved. "Give me a little credit here, babygirl. Maybe I didn't know everything about you when I first started liking you, but I understood enough to not care about the stuff that's out of our control. I know what it's like to have money. I know what it's like to go without it. I hope you'd want me either way because I feel that way about you, and I'm not letting go unless you make me."

My eyes shone with emotion. "Zac..."

"Do you remember that one time I ran into your dad? I was afraid he didn't think I'd be good enough for you. Now, I'm kinda relieved that I don't have to worry about impressing him. Give yourself more credit, too. I wish you could see what I see. You're a one of a kind triple threat, Caterina Donati. You have brains, boobs, and a level of badassery that no one can match. If I ever do anything to mess this up, then I'm the world's biggest dumbass. I've fucked up a lot of things in my life, but, trust me, I'm not gonna fuck this up."

In a voice that was barely audible, I mumbled, "You have no idea how much this means to me."

Zac gazed at me with nothing but warmth in his eyes. Then, he leaned in and kissed me. Gently, gently, and all of a sudden much more deeply. I sighed with pleasure and wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer. My heart had never felt so warm or alive.

Zac pressed me down to the mattress. His hands traveled up and down the curves of my waist and breasts to my thighs and back up again to capture my face for another soul-searing kiss. His touch was light, leisurely, seemingly unhurried, but he was only wearing his underwear so it wasn't hard to tell, well, how hard he was getting—

His lips moved away from mine, kissing his way across my jaw. He nipped at my neck as his fingers started playing with the buttons on my dress shirt. I could feel him smile against my skin as he murmured, "You seem a little overdressed for what I'm about to do to you, babygirl."