Page 67

CHAPTER

FORTY-EIGHT

REMI

“You want to be a writer?”

The question comes out of nowhere. The fire is out, the temperature still dropping as we huddle in the tent, an electric lantern at the end of it, our blankets scattered all over the tent floor.

I have one wrapped around my shoulders, and I’m still in his EU hoodie, but I’ve got black cotton shorts on, socks too.

I was flipping through a book that I’ve already read. One he saved for me, over two years ago. Pet Sematary. The cat stares back at me from the cover when I let the pages go.

He was on his phone, watching highlights from an NFL game last week, but now his phone is down, soft music playing from it.

“Moments Passed” by Dermot Kennedy.

I know that’s for me. Doesn’t really mesh with all his Deftones.

He’s got his elbows on his knees, wearing a pair of sweats and a West River T-shirt. His hair is a mess, perfectly tousled, and his eyes are sleepy but even still, he looks happy.

“I think so,” I tell him, feeling nervous discussing it, like I always do.

“Do something fucking useful, Remi.” My stepdad’s words. I lied and told him I was taking all my core classes before I declared a major, but I already have. I wonder how Cort knows.

I think about my new laptop, tucked away back in my dorm.

There’s a sick feeling in my stomach as I recall all of my lies to Sloane. She thinks I’m working on a paper for my lit class. But I sense something in her texts.

She knows I’m full of shit. I push that all aside. Tomorrow, I’ll have to deal with it. But tonight, I’m just letting it go.

I clench the fuzzy material of the blanket tighter in my fist, think about Cortland sitting across from me at that café as we sipped on lattes.

Well, he guzzled his black coffee down and inhaled eggs and bacon.

But I sipped while he kept asking every other bite if I wanted some of his food.

I didn’t eat until around noon, when we made hotdogs on the fire after a hike in the woods.

“You think?” he asks me, dipping his chin and smirking, his dimple making an appearance. “Or you know?”

I shrug, glancing at the horror novel in front of me. He’s sitting on the edge of the air mattress and I’m on top of a thick pad of blankets, a few feet between us. Still, it’s not enough to hide my blush and I’m sure he sees it.

“I know,” I tell him quietly. “But I also know it doesn’t make money.” I look up and try to hold his gaze without shame. “So, I’ll probably look into something else?—”

“Why?”

I blink at him, then laugh, my nerves on edge. He doesn’t even smile. “Because I have to pay bills, Cortland,” I say, shrugging. “You know, I have to actually make money.”

He threads his fingers together, nodding as he stares at me. Then he shrugs, and I watch the muscles in his shoulders flex as he does. “True,” he says, “but what if that didn’t matter?”

I swallow, shifting a little on my pad of blankets, wrapping my arms tighter around myself, my entire body covered from the blanket I’ve got draped over my shoulders like a cape.

“It does, though.” I run my tongue over my teeth, not really liking the look he’s giving me.

“What about you?” I deflect. “What do you want to do? Play professional football?”

He laughs, his white teeth flashing. “Nah,” he answers me. I think about him on the field, that throwing arm that never seemed to fail. Running the ball, never making a big show when he got a touchdown, his team rallied around him all the same.

People adored him.

I did too.

Do, I realize. I do too.

Despite the fact I’ve seen him at his worst, I adore him. Even this new version of him, angry and an asshole, I kind of like that, too.

And the words are at the tip of my tongue, waiting to come out. The truths I want to spill.

But I swallow them down.

“I want to do something that hurts,” he says, then smiles a little when my eyes nearly bug out of my head.

“I helped my uncle with renovations, and I liked it a lot. At the end of the day, I want to come home exhausted, to a house with a lot of land, not many neighbors, and…” He looks at me, his expression serious.

“Someone I love. That’s it.” He runs a hand through his hair, and I see his bicep flex.

“The thing that scared me the most about going to prison…”

My stomach drops.

“…is I’d be separated from my family.” I see his throat bob as he swallows. “My dad. My little brother.”

I think about his words to me on the way to the cavern. Why he never introduced me to his family. The same reason I never introduced him to mine. “My life was a shit show.”

“And I’d skip all that time I could have my own family.

” He smiles again, and I see a faint pink blush on his tan skin.

“I like kids,” he admits. “I liked hanging out with Tristan. It was never a burden, or a chore. I just liked it.” My heart skips a beat in my chest as his granite eyes come to mine. “Would you ever want kids?”

I think about him coming inside of me last night. All the times before. “We’ll deal with it,” he’d said that time in his truck. We never did.

My stomach hurts, thinking about it. What Silas would say.

“Maybe,” I whisper, feeling warm under the blanket, but it’s a different kind of warmth. One from the inside. “Yeah,” I correct myself. “I would.”

His gaze is hooded as he stares at me, jerking his chin to the air mattress. “Come sit with me.”

Those familiar words make my blood heat, but I don’t move. Not yet. Can’t we stay like this? I want to ask him. Does this all have to end tomorrow?

“Remi,” Cortland scolds me. “Get over here.”

Smiling, I drop the blanket from around my shoulders and go to stand, but he shakes his head.

“Nah,” he says, his eyes on mine. “Crawl to me.”

My mouth falls open as I blink at him. “What?”

The corners of his lips tip up in a wicked smile. “You want me to use you, pretty baby?”

My words from the truck come back to haunt me. “Cortland, I’m not crawling to you?—”

“Just do it, Rems.” His voice softens, tugging at my heart. “For me, baby.” So manipulative.

Wolves have teeth, I remind myself. And if I want to run with them, I’ve got to use mine, too.

Little wolf. Storm’s name for me sends a bolt of confidence through me.

“No, Cortland,” I whisper, holding his gaze. “I think you should crawl to me.”

His brows shoot up, that cocky smile faltering. “What universe are you living in?” He laughs, arms still draped over his knees. “That’s not really what I?—”

“Crawl to me, Cortland.” I cross my arms over my chest and pull off his hoodie.

I’ve got a white, cotton cami on underneath, and I drop the hoodie, feeling my nipples pucker with the cold of the tent.

Running my hands up my thighs, I look over at him, my face flushing with warmth, but I hold my head high.

“Tell me how sorry you are for letting your friends get their dirty hands on me.”

I see his jaw tighten, veins straining against his forearms.

I shift my hips, sitting up and slowly pulling down my shorts, my underwear, past my knees, then off as I toss them into a pile with my hoodie. I sink back on my heels, spread my thighs, and my heart is beating too fast. He could deny me. He could mock me. He could turn away.

But when my palms come to the crease of my thighs as I stare at him, I see his lips are parted, and that angry look is gone from his face.

“Show me how much you hate that your friends got to fuck me.” My voice is strong, but I don’t stop talking, because he hasn’t gotten his ass up yet. “You wanna let me stay home? You wanna let me write? You want me to have your kids, Cort?”

He chews his lip, his eyes locked on mine as I shift my thighs wider, running my finger up my center, moaning a little as I do.

“How do you think they’d feel?” My voice is hoarse, and I see his throat bob as he swallows. “Knowing their daddy let his friends hurt mommy?”

His eyes narrow. “That’s enough, Remi, you made your fucking point.”

I part my lips with my fingers and his gaze dips down, his chest heaving beneath his shirt.

He’s gonna crawl.

“And he never even said he was sorry?” I whisper, running my tongue over my lips after, slipping my fingers lower.

“He never said he was sorry for letting Storm use me? And Brinklin in my mouth…” I trail off, pushing a finger inside of me, shifting my stance, letting him see everything.

“And Chase…” I almost choke on his name, but I say it.

I make myself say it. “He left his fingerprints on my ass, Cortland,” I whisper.

“You let him do that to me.” I laugh, even though nothing is funny as I push another finger inside of myself, the wrongness of my words and the pleasure making it a little hard to breathe.

“You think you’re rough?” I taunt him, dragging my fingers out, trailing them up my body, over my breasts, my nails digging into my throat, leaving marks before I push my fingers into my mouth, sucking the earthy taste off of myself.

I pull my fingers out with a pop , and Cortland looks transfixed as he stares at me, every muscle in his body seemingly coiled tight. “You were nothing compared to him ? —”

Before I can finish that sentence, he’s on his knees. He reaches one hand behind his back, pulling off his shirt, exposing the deep V that leads down into his sweats. He drops his shirt, plants his palms on the floor of the tent as he glares at me.

“When I get to you, Remi, you’re gonna wish you’d kept that pretty little mouth shut, baby.”

I bite back my smile, reaching for my own throat again, my nails digging into my skin.

“Keep crawling, Cort,” I whisper. “You’re not here yet.”

He crawls, and I watch his triceps flex with every movement, every time he picks up his hand, moves his knees. I see the muscles in his shoulders, too, and by the time he gets to me, his head level with mine, I’m panting, my pulse ticking in my neck, beneath my hand still on my throat.

“I’m here now, baby.” He reaches for my hand, covering it with his own, both of us choking me now.

It’s hard to breathe, and panic and lust course through me.

“I’m here now.” He leans in close to me, his fingers tightening over mine, pressure building in my head from lack of air.

“And I’m so fucking sorry.” He runs his mouth over mine, gripping me even harder.

“I hate what I did to you, but probably not as much as I should.”

My eyes widen, and I try to move my hand from my throat, but he doesn’t move his, not letting me go. He tucks a lock of hair behind my ear, trailing a finger over my cheekbone as he chokes me.

“Because I do want you to have my kids. I want you to cook for me. And serve me. And I’ll fucking worship you,” my heart flutters even as spots pop in front of my eyes, “and I don’t want anyone else to ever lay another fucking hand on you.”

He loosens his grip, and I take a deep breath, gasping for air as he smiles at me, at the mercy of his hand, mine beneath it. He kisses me softly, and I part my lips, opening for him.

When I need to catch my breath, I pull back, my temple pressed to his. “What about you?” I counter, my eyes searching his. “You’re mine, too?—”

He squeezes my throat, cutting off my words, his lips running up my jaw, to my ear.

“I’d never get on my knees for anyone else.

Don’t be stupid, Remi. You’re too smart for that.

” I swallow under my own hand as his other comes to my breast, palming me.

“I’m yours.” Then he shoves me back, onto the blankets beneath me, guiding me by my throat.

He lets me go, and I drop my hand from my neck, reaching for him.

He bites his lip, shaking his head as he stares down at me, on all fours over me. “You’re so goddamn gorgeous.”

I take in the tan muscles of his torso, his six-pack and his biceps with those delicious blue veins.

I grab his shoulders as he shoves down his sweats, kicking them off when they get past his knees.

His cock is hard and I reach for it, but he snatches my wrists, pins them above my head as he hovers over me. He stares down into my eyes, then lower, drinking in the sight of my body, my legs, spread for him.

With a groan, he fists his cock and lines it up with my entrance.

I whimper, thrusting my hips, wanting him inside of me.

He smiles down at me, fingers circled tight around my wrists. “You gonna let me do it?” he asks quietly, teasing me, running the thick head of his cock up and down my slit, circling my clit.

I swallow, fire coursing through my core, and I just want him. “Do what?” I manage to ask, watching him watch me. His eyes are on my pussy, wet and needing him.

“Let me be the one you could depend on? Stay home, write, take care of our family?”

My pulse is uncomfortably fast, my body too hot. “I…” I trail off, my mind racing.

He pushes the head of his cock into me, then drops his hand beside my head on the blanket as he meets my gaze and I suck in a breath, my entrance stretching around him.

“Don’t think about it too much, baby.”

My chest feels tight, hot and flooded with emotions longing to burst forth.

“Would you have my kids?” He pushes further into me and I gasp as I stare up at him, completely at his mercy, physically. Emotionally.

Don’t hurt me, I want to tell him, just like I did that night. Don’t hurt me, Cortland.

“I’m not. I won’t,” he’d promised me.

But what about now?

“Let me take care of you? Give you everything you could ever want?”

I can barely breathe as he pushes further into me, but he holds back, waiting for an answer.

He leans down close, his nose aligned with mine. “Let me be the one to give you a real family? Let me show you what love is by making you all mine?”

The words are lodged in my throat. The answer. What I desperately want. Need. But I can’t say it.

I can’t say anything.

He brushes his lips against mine, nibbling the bottom one, pulling it between us until it’s painful. “Give me an answer, baby.”

I want to. I want to.

He pushes further into me and I cry out against his mouth.

He runs his bottom lip over mine. “Answer me, Remi.”

“Yes,” I finally say, giving in. “Yes, Cortland. Yes.”

Then he sinks all the way in, giving us both what we need as I gasp, wrapping my legs around his muscled torso, his brow pressed to mine as he groans.

And when he comes inside of me again, collapses on top of me, sweaty and breathing hard as he rolls us over, holding me to his chest and pulling a blanket up as we come apart, I can’t stop thinking about his words.

Let me be the one to give you a real family. Let me show you what love is.

I fall asleep to that thought, wrapped up in his arms.