Zach wore a track into the linoleum floor in front of me, shaking his head and running long, thin fingers through his dark hair. He reminded me of a pacing panther.

He paused and nailed me to the floor with a harsh glare."I hate you!" Anger oozed from his voice, running along my skin like boiling tar. The comment should have been expected, but it wasn't – or at least the words managed to crawl into my mind despite my efforts to fend them off. The words made me doubt what was going on, and what I thought I knew.

"Well, surprise! I hate you too," I spat out in response. I wanted to mean it, but I didn't. I absolutely didn't.

He continued with his pacing. "Then why the hell are you bothering me? I told you to stay away from me!"

I responded before I had time to think, before I could rein it in, "I don't know. Perhaps it's just so freaking rewarding to rile you. I mean, look at you, you're stone face, no emotions, no nothing, you're fucking ANTARCTICA!" I just kept on yelling, emotions bursting out through my cracked walls. Why was I doing this to myself?

He stopped. "Well, FUCK YOU!"

"Well, please DO..." I said, and I instantly regretted it. I didn't know what came over me. I saw his train of thought dissipate, his focus disappearing. I shocked him.

"So that's why... you wanna fuck," he answered, his voice disturbingly hollow.

Zach's POV

"Well, please DO..."

His words stabbed through my tough skin and raised walls. He wanted to fuck, just fuck. Just like the rest of them. It shouldn't have come as a big surprise, but for some reason it did. It was a surprise that actually hurt. It made me hate him even more.

"So that's why... you wanna fuck," I couldn't help it, the words just spilled from my mouth.

I didn't understand him. I didn't understand why he was doing this to me. He was a mess of mixed signals, and I didn't want to spend another second of my life thinking about this guy. After a sleepless night, I had no intention of dealing with him, but here he was. Why couldn't he just stay away? I wanted to tear out his presence from my mind. I wanted to rip him out, throw him to the dogs and never ever look at him again, but I knew that I was losing that fight. I had fought hard and well, but I had played my last card. That was why I had to avoid him. It was my last option.

He just wanted to fuck... and here I was, screaming at him to leave me alone. He just wanted to fuck... after forcing me to shatter, forcing me to lose everything yesterday. He just wanted to fuck... and that made me feel emptier than I had done in a long while.

I had let him in too far, and I should have known better. I had let him in, and I hated him for it. He wasn't supposed to be there. He wasn't supposed to be anywhere near me.

Why had I kissed him? I didn't want to answer it. I didn't even want to search for the answer. I wanted to pretend that it had never happened. What I wanted was to wipe that grin off his face, the grin that showed me how little he cared. I wanted to punish him. I wanted him to hurt. I wanted to hurt him – just like he had hurt me. The problem was that I didn't know how to do it. Punching him in the face just wouldn't cut it. Ignoring him obviously didn't work. Yelling would lead nowhere.

I had shoved him up against that wall in the storage room to make him understand that I wouldn't be played. I had wanted to tell him that I wasn't attracted, that I didn't give a shit about him, but all I had been able to do through my haze of raging desire for the fucker was to leave him. I had left him, and it had taken a lot of will power to do so. Now, I had made the same mistake again. I had him inside a locked room, desperately trying to hate him, but it didn't work. Instead, my heart whined as the torrent of raw emotions tore through me, telling me to fuck the guy.

What if I gave him what he wanted? Would he leave me alone then?

As the thoughts passed through my system, one part of me realized just how stupid it was. The other part of me exploded, forcing down blood to my groin. I became furious. I felt betrayed by my body. I didn't want him. I really didn't want him, but my body did. My body craved him with an intensity I'd never felt before.

I was raging, and he just stood there – silent.

"Leave," I said through clenched teeth, trying to hold myself together. "Leave before I do some real damage to you."

It wasn't an idle threat. I was going to damage him if he didn't leave. I was going to feed all that anger and desire into my punches.

"No," he answered, sounding determined. He sounded like he had yesterday. The reminder was enough to make me lose control. I punched him, hitting his jaw with enough force to knock him down to the ground, displacing a few chairs as he went.

"Leave," I growled again.

He slowly got to his feet. As he got to his full height he met my stare and held it. I expected to see rage or fear, but I didn't. His eyes held that determination that I had begun to hate.

"No," he said again, daring me to throw another punch – almost begging me for it. I obliged him.

This time he didn't go down. He took the punch and looked up at me again.

"WHY? WHY ARE YOU HERE?" I shouted in desperation, no longer able to hold it in check.

"I'm here..." he started, then his whole expression warped, twisted and turned into something I didn't understand. Was he embarrassed? "I'm here because I care," he finished, locking his eyes with mine again.

His words caught me off guard, and he must have seen it because he lunged forward, invading my space, invading me with a kiss that drove all my thoughts away.

I dove into his mouth and drove him backward until we stopped – his body pressed up against the wall. The raging lust clouded my thoughts so I wasn't sure how it happened, but suddenly, I felt his hands on my bare back, his bare chest against mine. I panted. Skin against skin had never felt more intoxicating. It felt as if I had been forever numb, only to wake up as this annoying guy startled my senses.

I practically devoured him, unable to stop my hands from moving, my mouth from pressing deeper. Feeling him so close, responding as desperately as I was giving – it made me reel with emotions I thought suppressed. It was emotions that scared me, but at this point I didn't care. He had me in an iron grip, flushed against his sweaty chest. However, it wasn't his chest that made me crazy, it wasn't his kiss – it was the pressure of his crotch against mine. As I pushed in further, he groaned, and the sound that passed from his mouth into mine made me crash even deeper into frenzy. My heart was beating fiercely against my chest, and when I felt his heart do the same, I was shocked to feel the pressure building up inside of me from just our grinding bodies.

"Hey!" someone shouted from outside, knocking on the door, demanding entrance.

I stopped abruptly, and I felt how Dylan tensed in my arms. His rugged breathing matched mine.

"Never hit me again," he finally said.

I looked up at him, meeting his piercing blue eyes. They were so blue, yet they were warm. They were filled with so much warmth that I couldn't resist gazing into them, searching deeper and deeper. There was another knock, and it snapped me back into this world.

"I'll never hit you again," I breathed, and I saw him light up in a breathtaking smile.

"...and don't make it so damn hard," he continued.

"...it or you?"

He laughed, a contagious, wonderful laugh—one I hadn't heard so close to me in a very very long time. A laugh that made me smile.