The Bet: A Bully Romance(28)

Looking up at him, I see every ounce of the person I wanted to see when I first showed back up here. Remington Miller. My best friend… my lover...the man I planned to marry and have babies with.

I lick my lips and we stand there for a long moment.

Word vomit. Oh lord. It’s coming. It’s rising in my throat. There’s nothing I can do to stop the words from coming.

“I love you, Remmy,” I whisper, pressing my heated cheek against his chest.





Chapter Eleven




Remington





“I love you, Remmy.” I can’t breathe. I can’t even fucking respond to those four little words. I know Jules has no idea what is going on, but I can’t help but feel like this is some sick joke. Like I’m on an episode of Punk’d. The one words I always needed her to say, and she says them now, after we’ve already fallen apart, after I’ve already broken us.

“Come on, let me get you a shirt to wear.” I clear my throat, feeling like there’s a bowling ball size of emotions lodged in it. It’s the drugs talking, I have to remind myself. She doesn’t really mean any of this. Tomorrow morning she’ll be back to hating me again, and I’ll be back to loathing myself.

“You’ll stay with me, right?” She can’t really mean what she’s asking me. She doesn’t want me within fifty feet of her any other day, but suddenly she wants me right beside her. No, she doesn’t want me. She doesn’t. We’re just like fire and gasoline to each other. Explosive, powerful, and if you get us too close to each other, we’ll burn everything to the ground.

What we had before is gone forever, nothing but a distant memory, something that we can never go back to. Still, I can’t help but let tonight be what it is. I can’t help but pretend like we are still the same two people, so hopelessly in love. For her…tonight I’ll pretend like I’m still the same, like I haven’t lost myself.

“If that’s what you want?” I guide her back toward my bed, a place I’ve never had a woman before. This is my room, my space to relax, my sanctuary. I’ve never brought a girl up here, no matter how much they begged and whined.

So I guess in a way, she might not have been the first girl I had sex with, God knows I fucked my way through high school and college, but she’s the first girl to be in my bed, my bedroom. She holds so many of my firsts though.

My first date, even if it was nothing more than a tea-party set up in the backyard. My first kiss, under the big oak tree at the park. My first dance at homecoming, where I begged and pleaded with her to go because, in my mind, she was the only girl worthy of dancing with.

She was the first girl I’ve ever loved, actually the only girl I ever loved, and I can’t imagine that would ever change.

Nodding her head, she lets me push her back onto the mattress. I can see her hardened nipples poking through her shirt and I have to stop myself from reaching out and running my fingers over them. I wonder if she would push me away if I go too far, tell me no like she told Cole. Cole. That fucking bastard. I didn’t think I could hate someone more than I hate myself, but that fucker takes the cake. The fact that he drugged her and took her up into that bedroom like she was some cheap lay makes me rage like a volcano.

Leaving her on the bed, I go to my dresser digging down to the bottom of my t-shirt drawer. There I find the t-shirt she would always wear when she spent the night over at my house, on the nights her parents fighting made it impossible for her to sleep. It’s got a faded Mickey Mouse logo on the front of it, and the cotton is worn, but it’s still in one piece, and still hers.

I’ll never admit it, but when she first left, I held onto that stupid shirt, using it like a fucking security blanket so I wouldn’t ever forget the way she smelt.

Eventually her scent faded, along with her, but I couldn’t ever forget her. I was so connected to that shirt that any time I tried to destroy it, I would see Jules in it, looking at me with a smile, a halo of blonde curls hanging down her back, her big blue eyes piercing mine, seeing a part of me that I never allowed anyone else to.

Turning around, I hand it to her, watching as an indescribable emotion overtakes her face. The drugs must be wearing off a little bit since it seems she’s able to smile again.

“You kept it? Oh my god, Remmy. I looked everywhere for this t-shirt when we moved, and I couldn’t find it. I thought it got lost, ended up in the donate box by accident.”

“It’s just a t-shirt, Jules.” I shrug, knowing damn well it’s far more than that.

“Just a shirt?” She pushes up from the bed, her body swaying with the motion. I’m grabbing onto her by the hips without thought, steadying her as she looks up at me, her white teeth sinking into her plump pink bottom lip. I lean away from her knowing how close I am to losing control, to kissing her. With her, nothing is normal, what it should be.

“Come on, let’s get you into bed.” I make her walk backward until we reach the edge of the bed. She grabs the hem of her shirt and pulls it off, leaving her naked from the waist up. I gulp. I saw her half naked earlier, but I was in such a fury then, that I didn’t take the time to really look at her, but now without any barrier between us, I can.

Of course her tits are perfect, just the right size, full but perky, with soft pink nipples hardened to a point, all but begging to be sucked on.