“Why the fuck not, Brick? You knew I loved you.”
Again, she was met with silence. But this time it wasn’t so indomitable. Brick was vibrating with an energy that demanded to be let out. With words that wanted to ring their truth.
“You loved me?” he repeated.
“Of course I did. I loved you, and you chose my best friend over me. Why?”
“Because I couldn’t fucking have you!”
“What does that even mean? Why not? Audrey was my age. So it wasn’t that I was too young. My parents have adored you since they met you. I wanted to be yours so much, and you just kept rejecting me.” Her voice broke along with the dam of emotions she’d held back for too long.
He was trembling against her, and she knew something was about to happen.
“You rejected me over and over again,” she whispered. “You made up reasons that we both know were just excuses. Then you chose someone else. And when you finally let us start to explore this thing between us, you give me a couple of orgasms and say you can’t do it anymore. What do you want from me, Brick? Am I here just because Audrey isn’t?”
“I married Audrey to ruin any chance I had with you.”
She felt sick, dizzy, devastated. And in some mean, dark corner of her mind, a little voice said I told you so.
“Why?” She barely managed to get the word out.
“God damn it. I can’t live with you looking at me like that,” he snapped.
“Like what?” A tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and burned a path down her cheek.
“Like I just destroyed you.”
Her laugh was humorless. “Many men have tried,” she quipped, wiping her cheek with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.
“Don’t fucking joke about that,” he said, whirling her around to face the wall. She braced herself against the drywall and cursed her body for begging for what she wanted. She tilted her behind back, offering herself to him.
His hand coasted down to cup her rear end.
“Do you see what’s happening here? I can’t control myself around you. I never could.” As if to emphasize his point, he tracked his fingers up the valley between her cheeks, finding the thin band of her thong.
“You’ve done nothing but control yourself!”
“I’ve been hanging on by my goddamn finger nails for years, Remi. I’ve got nothing left. Every time you make me chase you, I lose a little bit more willpower. Standing here now, saying the things I should have said years ago, and all I can think of is how much I want to pull this shirt up. How much I want to put my hands on you. How much I want to hear the sound of my hand connecting with your skin. How much I want to see that cheek turn pink with my mark. How much I want to hear you say you’re sorry for making me chase you in that breathy little voice you have when you know you’re about to get fucked.”
Her entire body was shaking now, quaking between the wall and the man.
And when he sank behind her, when those hot finger tips under her sweatshirt skated higher, bringing the material with them, she let out a shaky moan. He held the hem against her back and stroked the skin exposed by her thong with the other.
“You haunt my every waking moment, Remington. The best thing about this world is that you’re in it. But I can’t have what I want.” She could hear the agony in his voice.
“You aren’t making any fucking sense! What is so horrible about the idea of being with me?”
“Because I won’t survive you! Because if I did get lucky enough to lock you down, eventually you’d find out.”
“Find out what?”
“That I don’t deserve you. That I’m not good enough for you. That all I have to offer you is protection and sex.”
She gasped as he took a handful of flesh and squeezed.
“Those are the only reasons you come to me,” he whispered. “The only reason you’re standing here taking this is because you want it almost as much as I want to give it to you.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” he breathed, running his fingertips over her curves, “if there’s more.”
“What more do you want from me?” Again, she arched her back, tilting her rear end up in invitation.
“You’re my dream come true wrapped in a nightmare. The only thing you’re willing to give me is your body, and that’s not enough.”
“Are you saying I’m using you?”
“I’m saying I feel used. And I hate myself for still wanting you. For wanting that to be enough.” He yanked her back against his thighs, and with a dip of his knees, he lined his arousal up between her legs and pumped viciously against her as if they weren’t separated by their clothing. “I hate myself for wanting to fuck you like this now when I know it doesn’t mean the same to you.”
“You don’t know that,” she cried. “You don’t get to take your mommy-daddy baggage out on me. Your parents sucked. That wasn’t your fault. But what you choose to do now is just that. Your choice. You don’t get to paint me with the same brush you painted them. You could have had me! I could have loved you. I could have been the best thing that ever happened to you!”
“Yes. Until it was over for you. Until you were ready for your next adventure. Your next city.” He wrapped her ponytail around his hand and tugged. “Look at you. When you walked in tonight, my heart fucking stopped. It still hasn’t restarted. You don’t look like you. You don’t look like the girl who sank my goddamn snowmobile or the one who cries every time she watches Father of the Bride. You look like Alessandra Ballard.”
“I am Alessandra Ballard. And Remi Ford. They’re the same damn girl. They’re both me.”
“You want things I can’t give you. I’m never going to be happy living in a city surrounded by strangers. I don’t want to get dressed up every night and go out for the attention.”
He was hard. So fucking hard against her. It made her needy sex throb.
“So I tried to find my own happiness. I picked a nice girl who didn’t scare the hell out of me. Who wouldn’t ask me for too much. Who would make sure that I never had a shot with you again.”
The truth fucking hurt.
“Why?” she asked, as his fingers kneaded her hair, as his hips ground against her.
“Because I love you. I’ve always loved you.” His voice shook. “Because I won’t survive it when you leave.”
She froze.
“But you were always going to leave,” he whispered against her ear. “You’re still going to leave. Even after what we found together. You’re going to get on a plane or a ferry or a goddamn snowmobile and you’re going to leave. Me. You want a big life. You want adventure, novelty. You want to be great. How are you going to do that from here?”
Just like his mother.