by T. L Smith
“You just want me to stay, Gunner.”
His hand runs through his mass of curls. Why is he so devastatingly beautiful? It’s really unfair.
“Everly.”
“Stop saying my name,” I yell.
A door opens and a neighbor sticks her head out.
“Get back inside,” Gunner says without looking.
I turn back and see he’s watching me intently.
“I don’t think I can do this. Thank you, Gunner. Have a good life.”
The minute I turn, the tears start. They fall hard and fast like a thundering waterfall gushing with force and ferocity.
My heart is breaking, tearing into shreds. I’m not sure how I’m putting one foot in front of the other. But I am. I am walking away from him. Hopefully leaving the love-drunk part of me behind.
I walk past the club where it all started. The place where I met him.
It’s where my story with him started, so I guess it is fitting it ends so close to it.
14
My blurry vision glances down at the beautiful ring that’s still on my finger. The ring I don’t want to take off. The ring that offered so much promise. What am I missing? I don’t understand.
I try to piece everything together. From meeting him to him finding out who I am. And nothing adds up. Does this ring mean anything? Or is it simply a gesture of something he was meant to do?
I thought he was different with me. He’s told me he’s never been like this with other women. So what should I think? People see how he is. Surely, that couldn’t be some sort of act. Or could it?
I finally arrive at my place and May’s standing out front. She smiles when she sees me. Somehow, through everything, I forgot we were meeting today after I finished visiting my parents.
I’m a shit friend.
May zooms in on me and automatically walks over, wrapping herself around me. “What’s wrong?” When she pulls back, I show her the ring on my finger. She yelps, loudly. “Am I meant to be happy or sad? Because, honestly, you don’t look all that happy, Ev.” She reaches out and covers my hand with hers as she looks up at me.
“He h-had it p-planned. It w-was all p-planned out.” I stutter the words leaving my mouth, and when I look back up, May looks just as confused as I feel.
“Well, that’s how proposals are meant to go. Now, you know I’m not the biggest fan of Gunner, but I will be for you.”
I shake my head at her words. “No. He was m-my a-arrangement,” I manage to gasp out through the tears that seem to be still falling. We haven’t moved inside but I realize we probably should because I’m making a spectacle of myself out here.
“I don’t understand. Your arrangement is who your father chooses for you, right? How’s that got anything to do with Gunner?”
“He didn’t tell me. He didn’t tell me that he was m-my arrangement.”
I notice the minute it all falls into place.
She looks down at the ring then back to me. “So, why are you wearing the ring?” she asks, a confused expression plastered all over her face.
“I didn’t know when he asked. I didn’t know.” I shake my head as a car pulls up and a door opens. I hear footsteps but don’t turn around as May steps in closer to me as if she is protecting me.
“I think you should leave,” May says in a stern voice.
“Everly,” he says my name and a piece of me crumbles immediately.
Why am I so weak around him?
Family tradition is everything, it’s what I grew up on. I was going to break that tradition for him. I was going to tell my father I wasn’t going to marry the man he chose for me because I fell in love with someone else.
Somehow, someway, that someone else is the man he chose anyway. So Father wins.
“She needs time, don’t you get that?”
“Everly,” he says my name again ignoring May.
I squeeze her hand, and she pulls me in the direction of the front door. Taking the keys from my hand, she opens it.
“I have a key, Everly.”
I ignore his words, heading inside, and just before the door shuts, he speaks again, “I’ll give you a day, then I’ll be back. Don’t run, Everly. You won’t like the outcome. I will find you.”
May shuts the door.
“Gosh, that dick is cocky.” She shakes her head. “And hot. Fuck! He’s so damn hot.” She laughs trying to lighten the mood. He is, but I don’t laugh. “Have you asked them? Your parents?”
I shake my head in answer to her questions and then say, “I couldn’t stay there.” I walk to my room, which smells of him, the bed a mess from the last time we were together only a few hours ago.
“This room smells of sex,” May says turning up her nose. “You can come to mine if you want.”
I shake my head. “I just need… I don’t know…” I shrug, “… I need answers. And I know they won’t give them to me. So, maybe if I drink enough and pass out, I’ll wake to a fresh new day and it will all be a dream,” I say.
May jumps from the bed and runs out to my kitchen. I hear the clank of ice going into glasses before she comes back in holding a bottle and two glasses.
“Drinking we can do.”
Hours pass and I tell her everything. Everything about us and all about him. She listens and doesn’t say a word even though I can see it’s on the tip of her tongue. We haven’t slept, all we’ve done is drink and talk.
“Can I talk now?” Her lips move and I know whatever she’s about to say I’m not going to like. I nod taking another sip. It’s our second bottle of wine, and if I stand right now, I know I will probably fall.
“I can tell you love him, and you said he only told you today that he loved you, too. How do you know he really does? And that he didn’t just say it to get you back.”
I shrug. I don’t know.
“I think he does. He just doesn’t understand the emotion that goes with it all that well.”
“Okay, so back to the parents. You’ve always spoken about how you’re meant to have an arranged marriage ever since I met you. That it’s what’s expected from the women in your family, and you wanted to do that because in your head marriages like that work.”
“They do,” I say referring to all my family. Not one of them have divorced, and even if some aren’t all that happy, I like to believe somewhere along the line they were.
“Well, I think it could work then. You already love the man they chose for you. Granted, he should have told you from the start who he was, but still…”
“Do you think he knew who I was that night?” I whisper as if he can hear me.
She leans in close and whispers back, “No. Maybe. I don’t know.” She shrugs. “You should ask him.”
I reach for my phone and dial his number. He answers after the second ring, “Everly.”
“Did you know who I was that night? The night we met?” I slur.
“Are you drunk?”
He doesn’t answer my question.
May hiccups and covers her mouth hiding a huge grin.
“That’s not an answer,” I huff out. “Answer me.”
“Yes. Yes. Yes, I knew who you were.”
Something inside me crumbles. I’m not sure what. I lean in closer to the phone, like I’m whispering in his ear and say, “Was it all a lie?”
“No, it isn’t. Granted, I would have waited to ask you to marry me, but you pushed for me to visit your parents.” The tears fall now. “Everly.”
“Yes.”
“We get married in two weeks’ time.”
“No.” I hang up.
Next I call my father. I know he will still be awake because of his insomnia. He answers on the first ring and I don’t give him time to say anything.
“I won’t marry him.”
“Everly, you will.” His tone is curt, he’s never been like that with me before.
“No.”
“If you don’t, you’ll no longer have a place in this family. I will take back my mo
ney from the business as well. Understand?”
“I don’t care.”
“You don’t care about seeing your family again?” he asks, surprised.
“I do.” My voice drops to a whisper.
“Everly,” he says in a softer tone. “It’s the way we’ve done it for generations. You know this. It works. And it keeps us in control of our bloodline and money. You used to be excited to one day meet your future husband. Aren’t you excited it’s a man you’ve already fallen for?”
Geez, he has me there. I go to speak but nothing comes out. What am I meant to say? I don’t even know.
“Your mother wants to go dress shopping with you. You should let her.” Then he hangs up, effectively ending our conversation.
“He’s right, you know. You’ve always spoken about your future husband. Maybe it isn’t so bad that you already love him.”
“It is,” I say dropping back on the bed.
“Why?” she drops next to me.
“Because I love him so much that I know I will be a jealous wife.” I laugh.
“You could have done worse.”
“Touché,” I say closing my eyes.
A second passes and my door is being banged on—no, more like hammered on. Jumping from the bed is an awful idea, and I fall straight to the floor making May laugh as I groan from the pain.
Large strong hands wrap around me, lifting me from the bedroom floor, and a smell I have come to love envelops me.
“I can’t love you,” I say to his chest as I curl into it.
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” I hear May grumble as I’m laid on the bed.
Rough hands push my hair away from my face, and when I look up, I see him watching me.
“Where’s your ring?” he asks. I shrug. I don’t care, I don’t want it. “Where is your ring, Everly?”
“Why do you care?”
“I care. Now where is it?”
I point to the bathroom where I took it off earlier.
Gunner walks away from me and emerges a few seconds later with the ring in his hand.
“This was my mother’s. It’s all I have of her,” he says.
Boom! And now I feel even worse.
He looks up at me. “Don’t lose it. Do you understand? This. Is. All. I. Have. Left.” I can tell he’s angry with me, and I guess in some ways he has a right to be.
I nod, and somehow I let him stand next to me and slide it back on my finger.
“I don’t want to marry you,” I mutter in my drunken haze.
Gunner strips off, kicks his shoes to one side, before he pushes me over and slides in behind me.
“Yes, you do. You just don’t like the fact it was arranged without you knowing.”
“I still don’t want to marry you.”
“Stop wiggling or my cock is going in your ass,” he says with a firm hand on my hip. I wiggle again and laugh when I do. “I will marry you, Everly Thorne, and soon you will be Mrs. Everly Reid.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
“Yes,” is all he replies but the intonation tells me he means business.
I can tell he always gets what he wants.
15
I wake with strong arms around me and a shiny ring in my face. Shit. I pull away, but he holds me tight and, oh my God, my head hurts something fierce. “Gunner,” I say quietly even though I know he’s awake because he won’t let me go.
“Yes.”
“Let me go.”
“No. I’m not quite ready to.”
I lie back down knowing he won’t let me move until he’s good and ready. I huff out a breath, and he removes his hand. “You need to brush your teeth,” he says turning over, his ass barely covered.
I open the bedroom door to see May’s left.
“She left over an hour ago,” he says, one eye open as he watches me. “Brush, water, and back to bed.”
I go to the bathroom and do just that, brush, water, and walk over to the bed. When he looks up at me, I throw the glass of water over him. He doesn’t make a noise, but he does sit up with his wet hair and he watches me.
“Get out,” I yell at him.
He stands, naked, and steps closer to me.
Bad idea.
My girl parts start singing at his close proximity. When he reaches me, he takes the glass from my hand and places it next to him.
“Ask me whatever you want, I’ll answer. But make it quick.” He glances at his erect cock and I shake my head.
“I’m not having sex with you,” I say even though I know it’s a lie.
“Oh, you are. And believe me, angry sex is my favorite. So, hurry up.”
“Do you love me? Or was that just a few words to get me to do what you wanted?”
“I love you. I don’t say words I don’t mean. You should know that by now, Everly.”
My heart floods with happiness but is also mixed with confusion and anger.
“Do you want to marry me?” I ask him unsure if I really want to know the answer to this question.
“No, not yet. But eventually. Maybe.”
I shrink back.
He touches me. “It’s not because I don’t love you, Everly. It’s because I’ve never seen a healthy marriage. Why should I think mine would be any better?”
My heart hurts at his words.
How can he not know a healthy marriage? How can he not know that loving someone and being with that person makes you a better person? You aren’t angry at the world because you have someone to love. Someone who cares for you.
“It will never work, why should we do this if it will never work?” I ask him, hoping he will give me an honest answer. “It can’t just be the contract. Can it?”
He brushes a hand through his hair, and I have to remember to fight for myself. That even though I know I love this man, he just admitted he doesn’t want to marry me.
Time could change that, I’m sure.
“It will work. You, I can guarantee, will work with me.”
I shake my head at his words and the assurance he puts on them.
“You don’t know that, this could end in disaster. You could break me. Do you want to break me?”
His lip twitches at my words. “Stop fighting the inevitable, Everly. You and I will last a lifetime. Of that, I’m sure. I’ve never known anyone who I want to be around more than you.”
“I’ll marry you, Gunner,” I say, but the words feel more like defeat. But it’s a win also because I wouldn’t have chosen anyone else to marry. He has my heart.
“I know you will.”
Instantly at those words, I slap him across the face.
He smiles at me. “I can’t choke you before the wedding, Everly, but I sure as shit can spank you.”
I cross my arms over my chest, and he pulls off my dress, making it snap. I hear the buttons at the front pop off as he strips me down until all I have left on is my panties which he pulls off as well.
“Tell me, would it be me if you had picked? If the option were available to you, would you have chosen me?” He leans in, his lips touching the top of my bare breast. Then he reaches up with his hand, skimming my belly as he goes. “Tell me, Everly.”
“Fuck you,” I say, pushing away, but I don’t give it enough effort because he pulls me straight back to him.
“The things I will do to you once we are husband and wife are going to be remarkable,” he says in a soft voice.
I don’t understand. “Why can’t you do them now?”
Gunner pulls back looks at me. “You’re a tease, but no. That’s something we wait for. Otherwise, you might get too scared.”
I stand tall, pushing my body against his. “You don’t scare me,” I tell him.
Leaning in close, he speaks into my ear and kisses along my neck. “You should be scared of me… you’d be a fool not to be.” He holds me to him as he kisses down my neck then picks me up and carries me to the bed, where he places me down and then comes over me with his body. His lips never lea
ving me. I’m so angry at him, but I also want him. My need for him is strong. Too strong.
I’m so drunk on him.
I hate myself for it. As much as a drunk hates the drink.
It’s unfair to love someone so fast and so hard and not get it back in return.
“I shouldn’t want you,” I say with my fingers digging into his skin.
He lets me push in so hard so I make him bleed. “No, you shouldn’t.”
I pull his face back with my hand and stare at him. “Stop agreeing with me.”
He smirks, and I slap him. He smiles. And with that smile he pushes into me, hard, fast, unrelenting. I didn’t even feel him there, but I abso-fucking-lutely do now.
“Okay.” He moves, and I moan. Despite myself, I moan. He takes advantage of the moment and leans down and kisses me, his lips bruising mine with the intensity of the moment. I take every bit of it and steal his kisses right back. He pushes in, again and again, not stopping as he claims me.
He’s right, angry sex is the best sex.
My nails glide down his back, scratching and marking as they go, and he doesn’t seem to care. Actually, he seems to like all the pain I give him.
“Bunny.” I scratch harder at him for using that name. I’m not sweet and innocent. Fuck him! He smiles before he bites down on my nipple making it bleed. I bite my inner lip, stopping myself from screaming as he goes to bite the other one, marking them both as he fucks me. The pain, the pleasure all mixed into one, does things to me. Things it shouldn’t do to my body, and soon I’m coming. Hard. I can feel everything tighten, and so does he, because he releases my nipple and pushes faster and harder.
“You’ll be mine until the end of time, bunny. No one will take you from me. Ever.”
I don’t tell him what he’s saying is silly, because no words want to form in my mouth anyway. The only thing my mouth wants to do is scream in pleasure and release, and screaming is what I do.
“Perfect,” he says into my mouth.
I’m unable to close it, but that doesn’t stop him from kissing my lips as he finishes inside of me.
“I don’t want to want you,” I say once I come down, once I calm down, and he’s pulling out of me. He drags me to him, and I fit perfectly into his side with him wrapped around me.