***** untie me! She hisses, and I feel burned by the anger in her eyes.

Okay. I fumble with the knot on her left wrist, panic rising through me.

Oh, god, I’ve fucked up now. It seems to take forever to undo the knot. It loosens but then she jerks her wrist, tightening it again. I think for a minute that she is trying to hit me, and flinch, but then I realize she is just that desperate to get out from under me.

Oh, god. I scramble frantically to loosen the knot.

The instant she is free she sits up, pushing me so hard I almost fall off the mattress. I sit there on my knees, stupidly stare as she turns her delicate back on me, watch the muscles under her skin moving as she quickly slouches into her jeans. The belt from the bathrobe dangles from her wrist, moving as she buttons up.

Shane. Im sorry. I thought… Please, dont go.”

Silence.

“Youre in no condition to drive, anyway.

***** you, she mutters, voice very low and hard, pulling on her shirt. She does it with violence, and it ruffles her hair.

“I’ll leave, okay, I’m the one who should leave, you’re gonna wrap your truck around a tel-”

“***** you!” she yells, her voice breaking, turning around to face me, and I see tears back on her face.

I thought I’d kissed them away, but she’s crying again.

She lunges toward me but I realize that she’s just grabbing for her keys, which are on the table beside her bed. Then shes gone.

I fall back among the sheets that smell like her, like crisp citrus and *****, heart pounding.

What was it about the experience that literally sent her running? I said the L word to her. Oh, *****, I said that I loved her. But that was in a best friend context.

But I was kissing her very tenderly as I said it. Oh, *****.

Then I think of something else. Im not comfortable with this, she said. And she wasnt. She was terrified and stiff at first.

Oh my god. I raped her.

“Please stop,” she said. Tears in her beautiful eyes.

Im a rapist.