Free After (The After Series) by Anna Todd

to kiss my neck. His teeth graze my collarbone and I moan, the feeling shooting down my whole body when he begins gently sucking on my skin. I would be embarrassed ifI wasn’t so intoxicated, by Hardin and the alcohol. I have never kissed anyone like this, not even Noah.
    Noah!
    I say, “Hardin . . . stop,” but I don’t recognize my voice. It’s low and husky, and my mouth is dehydrated.
    He doesn’t stop.
    “Hardin!” I say again, my voice clear and sharp, and he lets go of my hair. When I look into his eyes, they are darker, yet softer, and his lips are a deeper pink and swollen from kissing me. “We can’t,” I say. Even though I really want to keep kissing him, I know I can’t.
    The softness in his eyes disappears and he pulls himself up, knocking me onto the other side of the bed. What just happened?
    “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I say, and they are the only words I can think of. My heart feels like it will explode any second.
    “Sorry for what?” he says and walks over to his dresser. He pulls out a black T-shirt and pulls it over his head. My eyes go down to his boxers again and they are noticeably tighter in the front.
    I flush and look away. “For kissing you . . .” I say, though something in me really doesn’t want to apologize for that. “I don’t know why I did it.”
    “It was just a kiss; people kiss all the time,” I hear him say.
    His words hurt my feelings for some reason. Not that I care if he didn’t feel what I did . . . What did I feel? I know I don’t actually like him. I am just drunk and he is attractive. It has been a long night and the alcohol made me kiss him. Somewhere in the back of my mind I fight down the thoughts of how much I wanted it to happen again. He was just being so nice, that’s why.
    “Can we not make a big deal of it, then?” I ask. I would be humiliated if he told anyone. This isn’t me. I don’t get drunk, and I don’t cheat on my boyfriend at parties.
    “Trust me, I don’t want anyone to know about this, either. Now, stop talking about it,” he snaps.
    And there’s his arrogance again. “So now you’re back to your old self, I see?”
    “I never was anyone else—don’t think because you kissed me, basically against my will, we have some sort of bond now.”
    Ouch. Against his will? I can still feel the way his hand gripped my hair, the way he pulled me on top of him, and the way his lips mouthed “Tess” before kissing me again.
    I shoot up off the bed. “You could have stopped me.”
    “Hardly,” he scoffs and I feel like crying again. He makes me too emotional. It’s too humiliating, too painful how he’s basically saying I forced him to kiss me. I bury my head in my hands for a moment and head for the door.
    “You can stay in here tonight since you have nowhere else to go,” he says quietly, but I shake my head. I don’t want to be anywhere near him. This is all part of his little game. He will offer to let me stay in his room so I’ll think he is a decent person, then he will probably draw some vulgar design on my forehead.
    “No, thanks,” I say and walk out. When I reach the stairs, I think I hear him call my name but I keep going. Outside, the cool breeze feels wonderful against my skin, I sit on the familiar stone wall and turn my phone back on. It’s almost 4 a.m. I should be waking up in an hour to get an early shower and start studying. Instead I’m sitting on this broken stone wall, alone and in the dark.
    With a few stragglers milling about, and unsure what to do, I pull out my phone and scroll through the text messages from Noah and my mother. Of course he told her. It’s what he would do . . .
    But I can’t even be upset with him. I just cheated on him. What would give me the right?

chapter twenty
    A block away from the frat house, the streets are dark and quiet. The other frat houses aren’t as big as Hardin’s. After an hour and a half of walking and GPS-obsessing, I finally reach the