Free After Ever Happy (After #4) by Anna Todd

verifies it as truth.
    “It’s not that . . .” I start, but stumble. I don’t know how to put my thoughts into words—that’s always been my biggest fucking problem. “I just think if we had some time apart, you could see what I’m doing to you. Just look at yourself.” She flinches, but I force myself to continue. “You are dealing with problems that you would’ve never be faced with if it wasn’t for me.”
    “Don’t you dare act like you’re doing this for me,” she snaps, her voice as cold as ice. “You are as self-destructive as they come, and that’s your only motive behind this.”
    I am. I know I am. It’s what I do: I hurt other people, and then I hurt myself before anyone can hurt me back. I’m fucked-up; that’s just the way it is.
    “You know what?” she says after getting tired of waiting for me to speak up. “Fine. I’ll let you hurt both of us in this self-depriving mission of your—”
    My hands are on her hips and she’s back on my lap before she can finish. Tessa tries to climb off me, scratching at my arms when I won’t let her move an inch.
    “If you don’t want to be with me, then get off of me,” she seethes. No tears, only anger. Her anger I can handle; it’s the tears that kill me. The anger dries them away.
    “Stop fighting me.” I gather both of her wrists behind her back and hold them in only one of my hands. She glares, her eyes warning me.
    “You don’t get to do this every time something makes you feel bad. You don’t get to decide that I’m too good for you!” she shouts in my face.
    I ignore her and bring my mouth to the curve of her neck. Her body jolts again, this time out of pleasure, not anger.
    “Stop it . . .” she says with absolutely no conviction. She’s trying to deny me because she thinks she should, but we both know that this is what we need. We need the physical connection that brings us to an emotional depth that neither of us can explain or deny.
    “I love you, you know I do.” I suck at the tender skin at the base of her neck, reveling in the way it turns pink from the suction of my lips. I continue to suck and nibble at the skin, just enough to create a cluster of markings, but not hard enough to make them stay for longer than a few seconds.
    “You sure aren’t acting like it.” Her voice is thick, and her eyes follow my free hand as it moves across her exposed thigh. Her dress is bunched up at her waist in the most maddening way possible.
    “Everything I do is because I love you. Even the stupid shit.” I reach the lace of her panties, and she gasps when I run a single finger across the moisture already collected between her thighs. “Always so wet for me, even now.”
    I slide her panties over and push two fingers into her wet flesh. She whimpers and arches her back against the steering wheel, and I feel her body relaxing. I move the seat back farther to give us more room inside the small car.
    “You can’t distract me with—”
    I remove my fingers from her and plunge them back in, stopping the words before they can fall from her lips.
    “Yes, baby, I can.” I bring my lips to her ear. “Will you stop fighting me if I let your hands go?”
    She nods. The second I let them go, they move to my hair. Her fingers bury into the thick mess of my hair, and I tug the front of her dress down with one hand.
    Her white lace bra is sinful despite its holy coloring. Tessa, whose blond hair and white ensemble contrast in the most extreme manner with my dark hair and dark clothes. Something about the contrast is so fucking erotic: the ink on my wrist as my fingers disappear inside her again, the clean, unmarked skin of her thighs, the way her soft moans and whimpers fill the air as my eyes drag shamelessly up her tight stomach and back to her chest.
    I tear my eyes away from her perfect tits long enough to scan the parking lot. The windows are tinted, but I want to be sure we are still alone on this side of the street. I