Read Take Me (Fifth Avenue) for Free Online Page B

her years here, Sarah had been a force, a presence in the school, and she had been well loved. To lose her like this, just as her life away from school was beginning, before she could make that mark they’d all known she was destined to make, was the worst kind of tragedy.
    Sydney pulled her keys out of her pocket and put one in the lock to her dorm room, her hands trembling while she turned it. “Okay,” she said. “I guess...” She looked around the room. “I have pictures and things of us...from when we roomed together. I suppose I need to box this stuff up. So that...so that I can send it back to her family.” She looked at him, her eyes filled with tears. “I don’t want to do it, Travis.”
    “I know.”
    “I don’t want to be here.”
    He pulled her in tight and wrapped his arms around her. “I know,” he said, stroking her hair, feeling her curves mold to his body.
    He was going to hell. For enjoying holding her so much even now. But he couldn’t stop it. Even though he hurt for her, he still wanted her.
    He kissed the top of her head, because he couldn’t help himself. Because after crossing the invisible line that had been drawn between them, he couldn’t fully go back.
    “Promise me, Syd,” he whispered, “that you’ll never let things get that bad for you. Don’t ever leave me, baby.”
    She stiffened, and he knew he’d said the wrong thing. Done the wrong thing. For her anyway. He’d meant every word of it. So for him it had been the exact right thing to say.
    “I won’t.”
    “You can talk to me,” he said. “About anything.”
    “I know that, Travis, I do.”
    But now that the idea had entered his mind, he couldn’t let it go. They’d all known Sarah. Sydney had lived with her. Somehow they’d missed it. Somehow, no one had ever thought things were this bad.
    “I love you, Sydney,” he said, the words escaping, suddenly and without his permission. “Fuck.” He tightened his hold on her. “I really love you.”
    She pulled away from him. “You what?”
    “I love you,” he said. “And I’ve spent a very long time trying to pretend that I don’t. Trying to pretend that I can just be your friend. Hell, I used that friendship to keep myself from ever saying anything because I thought it would be better to have half than nothing. But you’re right.”
    “I’m right?” she asked.
    “Yes. What if there was only today? If today is all there is, then I need you to know that I love you.”
    “Travis...today isn’t all there is. We have...years and years,” she said, her dark eyes wide. “We’re...twenty-two and it’s not...it’s not the right time.”
    “Bullshit. If you love someone there isn’t a wrong time.”
    “Sure, Trav, maybe if you’re you. Maybe if you were born sucking a silver spoon. But I have to work for what I have and I can’t let myself be distracted.”
    He snorted, trying to relieve some of the pressure in his chest. “Distracted? Is that how you see emotions? Is that how you see love? A distraction?”
    “I don’t know,” she said.
    “How can you not know?”
    “Because I don’t love you. Not as anything more than a friend.”
    “Bullshit,” he repeated as he advanced on her, pulled her back into his arms.
    “I’m not in that place in my life. I don’t need a boyfriend and I really don’t need a husband. I need a friend. How dare you take that from me?”
    “How dare you act like me loving you is offensive? I have loved you all my life and I have done nothing but give to you. It was never a burden when it got you things. When it helped you get into school.”
    “Now who isn’t being fair? As if I didn’t do any of that on my own? I did. And you know it.”
    “But you said it yourself. You come from a very particular position in life and moving up from that is hard. You had help.”
    “But I did the work,” she said. “And I need to continue to do that work undistracted.”
    He cupped her face and kissed her lips, poured