I Thought I Needed Saving..

"What are we reading that's better than a terrible DJ and a free hangover?" He leaned in, his grin going lazy.

"Something with a point." Her reply was instant.

"You wound me,"

"You smell like sweat, cigarettes, and other people's choices. Maybe come back another day when you're more yourself," she said, finally offering him a proper look.

"Maybe I will."

"Maybe don't." She slid her gaze back to her book.

Cole St. James is the undisputed king of Dukes University; with a lethal smirk, a body mapped in ink, and a coldness that mirrors his hollow chest. He doesn’t do feelings. He doesn’t do forever. To Cole, people are just distractions from the silence of an apartment that feels more like a waiting room than a home.

​Then there's Maya.

​Maya René isn’t impressed by the crown. She isn't charmed by the tattoos or the carefully cultivated arrogance. To her, Cole isn't a legend-- he’s a cliché. A textbook case of a boy hiding behind a mask of his own making.

Maya doesn't just reject him; she deconstructs him, layer by layer, until the hollow man beneath is laid bare.

​Cole goes through a low point when he goes through something terrible with Serena "his only exception". He needs a distraction. Cole targets Maya’s best friend in a calculated move to prove his dominance, expecting Maya to surrender out of jealousy. But little does he know; he just ignited a fire that will never burn out.

"I’m sensing jealousy. And jealousy only exists when there’s something left to lose. Tell me I’m wrong, Maya. Tell me you don't care," Cole whispered.

"I don't care, Cole." The conviction was missing from her words.

"You don't?"

"I don't--"

He closed the distance, taking possession of her lips, pouring every ounce of the longing he'd been suppressing since the moment he met her into the kiss.

​Cole has secrets, but Maya has secrets of her own. Burned by a past that turned her heart to ice, she wants to see if a man as "broken" as Cole can truly change, or if loyalty is just another lie people tell to feel less alone.

​He’s looking for a lifeline.

She’s looking for a reason to believe.

But when the masks come off, it's hard to tell who’s being saved and who's being studied. ​

The lines between the hunter and the prey start to bleed together.​ In a world where everyone is performing, who is telling the truth and who's not?​​

"I thought I needed saving... but in the end, you never know who needs it more."