I had gotten kind of serious with Daniel at the beginning of our second year at UT. But apparently six months was too long to make him wait to have sex and he ended up cheating on me. I found out two days after I’d given him my virginity.

Asshole.

After him I’d gone out with a few guys, but they didn’t last much longer than a date or two and an “I’ll call you later.” Not that there was anything wrong with those guys, I was just more interested in being done with school and Texas than getting my “MRS degree” or risking catching a disease.

I sighed to myself and headed toward our door.

“Are you going to find Blake?!” Candice was bouncing in her seat and her face was all lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning.

“What—Candice, no. It’s after midnight! I’m just done talking about this. I’m going to wash my face so I can go to sleep. And I’m not gonna hunt him down either; if he asks me out again, then I’ll say yes.” I grabbed my face wash and was reaching for the knob when someone knocked on the door. I don’t know who I was expecting it to be, but I wouldn’t have thought Blake West would be the one standing there in all his cocky glory. From the look on his face, there was no doubting he’d heard part, if not all, of our conversation. What the eff was he doing in our dorm?

He pulled one long-stemmed red rose—that was unexpected—from behind his back and looked over my shoulder, and his cocky expression went completely serious. “Hey, Candi. Do you mind if I steal Rachel for a few minutes?”

I turned around to look at her and she was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. Traitor. I looked back at Blake and he let out a short laugh at my question-mark expression.

“That is, unless you’re busy or don’t want to. It looks like you were headed somewhere.” He looked pointedly at the hand that wasn’t holding on to the door.

It took me a few seconds to look down at my hand and realize he was looking at my face wash. “Oh . . . um, not. No. I mean. Busy. Not busy. I’m not busy.” Wow, that was brilliant.

Blake’s lips twitched and his head fell down and to the side to hide the grin he was failing at keeping back.

Trying not to continue looking like a complete idiot, I took a deep breath in and actually thought about my next question two different times before asking it. Okay, fine, I thought about it four times. “So, what can I do for you?” Yeah, I know. Now you understand why that required a lot of thought.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you for a few minutes.”

“Uh, you do realize it’s almost one in the morning, right?”

His head lifted and he looked sheepish. That look on this man was so different from anything I’d ever seen, and I almost didn’t know how to respond to it. “Yeah, sorry. I think I fought with myself for so long on whether or not I should actually come up here and talk to you, it got a lot later than I realized.” He jerked the rose up in front of him like he’d just remembered it was there. “This is for you, by the way.”

“And here I was thinking you just walk around holding roses all the time.” I awkwardly took the rose from him, looked at it for a few seconds, then let it hang from the tips of my fingers. “So, Blake . . .” I trailed off and searched his eyes for a second before he took a step back.

“Can I talk to you out here for just a minute? I promise I won’t keep you long.”

Yeah, well, the fact that I’ve turned you down for the amount of time it takes to make a baby and now you’re standing at my dorm room door at one in the morning is kind of creepy. But of course we have history, you’re incredibly hot now, and I’m thinking about as clearly as Candice does. So, sure. Why the hell not? I followed him out into the hall and shut the door behind us but stayed pressed up against it.

“Rachel . . .” He ran a nervous hand through his hair and paused for a second, as if trying to figure out what to say. “The school year is about to end and you’ll be going back to Cali over the summer. I feel like I’m about to miss any chance with you I may have. And I don’t want to. I know you liked me when we were growing up. But, Rach, you were way too young back then.”

“I’m still five years younger; that hasn’t changed.”

He smirked. “You and I both know a relationship between a thirteen-year-old and eighteen-year-old, and a twenty-one- and twenty-six-year-old are completely different.”

So? That doesn’t help my argument right now. “Well, you and I have both changed over the last eight years. Feelings change—”

“Yes.” He cut me off and his blue eyes darkened as he gave me a once-over. “They do.”

I hated that my body was responding to his look. But honestly, I think it’d have been impossible for anyone not to respond to him. Like I said. Adonis. “Uh, Blake. Up here.” He smiled wryly, and dear Lord, that smile was way too perfect. “Look, honestly? I have an issue with the fact that you’re constantly surrounded by very eager and willing females. It’s not like I’d put some claim on you if we went on a couple dates, but you ask me out while these girls are touching you and drooling all over you. It’s insulting that you would ask me out while your next lay is already practically stripping for you.”

His expression darkened and he tilted his head to the side. “You think I’m f**king them like everyone else?”

Ah, frick. Um, yes? “If you are, then that’s your business. I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry. But whether you are or not, you don’t even attempt to push them away. Since you moved here, I’ve never seen you with less than two women touching you. You don’t find that weird?” Was I really the only person who found this odd?