by Sierra Hill
Leaving her life in Seattle, all that was familiar to her and all that she held dear, was the hardest thing she’d ever done; but it had been a matter of life or death. Escaping was the only path out; it had been pointless to think Seth would have let her go otherwise.
Seth had been her first love, and after dating him for six months, she was certain that he was the one. He was the man she would spend the rest of her life with. But soon after she’d slept with him, he became more and more jealous of the time she spent with her friends, insisting they spend time together alone.
He’d started poking at the way she looked and dressed, commented on the food she ate (which, come on, every twenty-two-year-old loves pizza and burgers), and he was constantly checking up on her throughout the day when they weren’t together.
Kenzie tried to be everything he wanted her to be, but it was never quite good enough. Something would always set him off, and he’d call her names and put her down in front of others. She’d transformed from a confident and sassy girl into a shell of a young woman, who tip-toed on eggshells for fear of making him lose his temper.
As she neared her graduation date, Seth’s grip grew tighter and tighter, his need to control her every action escalating until that one fateful night. Kenzie shivered now thinking of how far off course she allowed things to get with Seth. She’d seen the warning signs but was so certain that their love could endure. She was willing to do anything for him – for their relationship. But, in the end, none of it mattered.
She found herself beaten and alone, dragging herself up from the bottom of a well trying to find a way to escape. And escape she did. No looking back. And no going back to the person she had become – scared, weak and vulnerable. That meant never trusting her heart to another man again.
It had been two days since she last spoke to or saw Remy. Once they got home that night from the bar, she mumbled an excuse of being tired and immediately went to bed. She woke early the next day and went to work, carefully avoiding him by staying out of the apartment as much as she could. Although it hadn’t mattered because Remy seemed to be doing the same thing.
She’d heard him come in the night before just after one a.m. as she laid in bed wide awake – her thoughts drifting back to the night in the bar and the way he made her body feel as his fingers stroked her and his lips touched her sensitized skin.
Now as she sat on the couch, her fingers running across the fret board of her guitar in search of melodies, her nerves skyrocketed as she heard the sound of keys in the front door. Kenzie’s heart raced like a horse at the starting gate. This was it. She knew they’d need to talk, clear the air and reestablish their boundaries.
Instead of finding him alone, as she’d expected him to be, she heard hushed voices in the doorway. Turning to look toward the front door, she noticed a tall and reedy redhead stumbling over the threshold, Remy behind her with his hands wrapped around her waist. An immediate surge of jealousy torpedoed through Kenzie’s body - her limbs and bones ignited with fury. She’d never experienced the green-eyed monster before and wasn’t even certain why it was present now. She had no claim to him.
Remy continued forward, his face buried in the neck of the redhead, who was giggling and barely managing to stay upright without assistance. Kenzie placed her guitar on the floor next to her, the sound reverberating off the hardwoods causing Remy’s gaze to lift and meet her angry, wide-eyed stare. He raised an eyebrow, and his face held a twinge of regret before he shrugged and gave her a wry smile as if to say “you had your chance.” Straightening his back – in confidence? In defiance? - Remy pressed his hand into the small of the girl’s back continuing her forward movement through the small hallway connecting their rooms.
Stopping in front of Kenzie, he motioned his head in acknowledgment of her presence.
“Hey Kenz. This is Jenna,” he said as introduction. “Jenna, this is my roommate Kenzie.” He seemed to stumble over the word, an icy tone wrapping around his vocalization of the normally innocuous term of reference. Hearing it this time had her blood boiling with indignation.
She seethed, the bitter grief boiling up like magma from a place she never knew existed. How dare he bring this floozy into their apartment, flaunting her like a consolation prize, when Kenzie was right there in the next room. What a man-whore!
Kenzie glared at them both, glancing between them trying to assess the awkward situation they appeared to be in at present.
“Whatever. I thought we had agreed on this,” she said, her words peppered with asperity. “But apparently you’ve already forgotten our house rules of common courtesy with respect to, uh, entertaining guests.” She practically spit on the floor to prove her ire.
Her eyes raked over Jenna with a look of disgust, the girl obviously too intoxicated and oblivious to understand what was happening in front of her face. Kenzie knew she was being childish and immature, acting like a jilted girlfriend rather than his roommate. She knew she had no claim over Remy, or what he did or who he did it with, but this behavior smacked of betrayal. And goddammit, it hurt.
What the hell? Although she and Remy hadn’t had full-on sex, they had been intimate not two days earlier. She’d sucked him off and he’d has his fingers inside of her – they’d gotten each other off, which Kenzie thought would mean something. But apparently it didn’t mean shit to Remy – who carelessly flung this slutty-McSlutterson in front of her face – taunting her with how easily he moved on when she said no to anything more.
His behavior was unquestionably harsh. Unbelievably rude. Inconsiderate. Juvenile. And it fucking crushed her.
Remy looked down at the floor, seeming somewhat apologetic, before responding. His eyes came back up to meet hers again, a sudden flash of hurt appearing and disappearing just as quickly.
“Yeah, well…things changed. You don’t want to be anything more than roommates. You made that very clear the other night.”
Well fuckity-fuck-fuck. That’s just great. He was using her words to get back at her. It was a slap across her face, and Kenzie reeled from the intended blow his punishing words evoked. He blamed her for this whole fiasco and how she reacted at Longhorn’s the other night. The way she blew him off after, well…after blowing him. The irony was not lost on her.
But that was how things had to be. She couldn’t get involved with him on that level, right? It would complicate things even more than they were now if they tried to be more than friends and roommates. She’d have to sacrifice her hurt feelings and her pride in order to win. Kenzie knew the consequences and couldn’t give, no matter how tempting the intimacy of their connection was. Lose that physical piece in order to keep status quo in her emotional space.
Remy had whispered something in Jenna’s ear, and she smiled as she grabbed him by the neck and kissed him full on the lips. Kenzie couldn’t look away as Jenna pressed her overflowing breasts up against Remy’s chest and moaned, before she turned to walk down the hall to his bedroom. He stared after her for a moment and then combed his fingers through his hair, before he returned his attention to Kenzie.
“Kenzie, if it bothers you – ”
“It’s none of my business,” she bit out, jumping off the couch and grabbing her guitar. Turning on her heels, she stomped off toward her room, intentionally bumping him in the shoulder as she brushed passed him. “Just turn up your music so I don’t have to hear you two getting it on. And I do not want her here in the morning when I get up.”
“Okay.”
The welling up of tears in her eyes, ready to spill out, and the urge to burst into sobs, bombarded her like a crashing wave so she bit her lip to refocus her pain, trying to concentrate on the sting of her lips instead of the sting of his actions.
Kenzie slammed the door of her room and leaned against the wall, taking in big breaths to calm herself. Just keep breathing, she reminded herself. This too shall pass. She was so angry, at Remy, but also herself, because she had brought on the whole stupid drama herself. She alone was to blam
e for the fact that it wasn’t her in Remy’s bed tonight. She’d already been given the chance to know Remy intimately, and she’d made her decision to avoid that complication by shutting him down. The thought nearly brought her to her knees in despair.
She had to keep her distance from now on and with the burning humiliation and rejection she felt from his actions tonight, she was damn well sure she’d be keeping a lid on it from here on out. She was not about to get burned twice, no matter how much she wished she could take everything back and be the one in Remy’s bed tonight.
****
He felt like a fucking schmuck.
Remy sat hunched at the kitchen counter sipping his first cup of coffee, rehashing everything that occurred the night before. What a cluster. He never imagined Kenzie would react the way she did – as if she did really care. Had he known that for sure, Remy never would have brought Jenna home with him. He didn’t even know why he did it, for God’s sake.
Truth be told, he’d been pissed as hell when Kenzie gave him the cold shoulder so soon after they’d gotten physical at the bar. She’d turned into an ice queen, warm and soft one minute to a cold shell afterwards – barely saying a word to him once they’d left the warm cocoon of that room. After the incredible had happened.
God, he could still feel the soft skin of her breasts against his tongue and hear the noises she made when she came against his fingers. Every minute of the last month had been leading up to that moment with a perfect intensity that could blast off rockets into the stratosphere.
His dick still throbbed at the very thought of being sucked off in that wicked hot mouth of hers. How utterly willing and responsive she’d been, and despite her Siberian freeze-out at the moment, he knew it was the heat of her desire he felt from her that night. So, forgive him for being so stupid, but what could have possibly happened in the moments after she climaxed, and giving him the best damn head he’d ever gotten, to send her running for the exit and treating him like he had the plague?
Remy had seen the look of censure in Kenzie’s eyes when he came in last night with Jenna. Granted, he had to admit that he’d done it only to find out what Kenzie would say if he brought a girl home, even though it was a piece of shit thing to do.
If the tables had been turned, he’d have been hitting the walls with his fists. Instead, Kenzie just called him out on it and went silently to her bedroom. Had he heard jealousy in her tone? Was she as affected as he’d been but was denying it for some unknown reason? Fuck if he knew. But he was definitely going to find out when she came home later. They had to talk about this thing between them. He couldn’t stand the silent treatment from her.
The past month living with Kenzie had been amazing. He loved hanging out with her, laughing and talking. And now that they’d started writing music together, he felt closer to Kenzie than any other person on the planet. She knew his inner thoughts. His desires. His private pain. And he wanted to push past all this bullshit and either get back to where things were or figure out a way to move forward in a physical relationship.
His cell phone rang, disrupting his thoughts of his upcoming conversation with Kenzie. Turning it over, he saw on the display that it was Nick.
“Yo, Carver. What’s going on?”
Some noise in the background made it difficult for Remy to understand at first what Nick was saying.
“Dude, you’re breaking up. I can’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Sorry man. I’m in the studio,” Nick said, in between short breaths which made him sound like he’d just run up a flight of stairs. “We’re just taking a break from laying down some tracks for the album. They’re fucking sick, bro. You gotta come down and take a listen. The guys could really use your expertise.”
Remy looked at the time on the microwave clock, mentally checking off the things he had to get done that day, hoping he’d have time to get to the grocery store to pick up some things to make dinner for Kenzie. He needed to do something to make up for his behavior the night before. He’d made a mess of things and needed to clear the air if he was going to pursue something further with her.
The irony in the whole situation from the previous night was that he hadn’t even slept with Jenna, and never honestly intended to. She’d been so wasted by the time they left the bar together that she’d passed out almost immediately upon hitting his bed.
“Thanks, man. But I’ve got a lot going on right now. Maybe another time. Tell the guys, thanks though.”
“Hey, no problem. By the way, Amanda asked me to invite you and Kenzie over for Sunday football this week – as a thank you for driving my drunk ass home the other night. Jesus, I haven’t been that wasted in months. I had fun with you guys…at least what I can remember of it…and I know Amanda really likes Kenzie and wants to hang out with the two of you. She thinks you make a cute couple.” He let out a low chuckle and kissy noises.
“Yeah, that’s cool, but we are not a couple.” He plowed his fingers through his bedhead hair and sighed. “Kenzie’s made it clear we’re just friends, so nothing is going to happen between us.”
Nick interrupted with a loud boisterous laugh. “She’s got you by the balls, doesn’t she, dude? What happened? Did she shut you down? ’Cause I know you’ve got to have been trying to hit that hard. I know I would if I was still single. That girl’s banging hot. And whether I was two sheets to the wind or not, it was pretty fucking obvious that something was going on between you two. The looks she was giving you, dude. Damn.”
Remy shook his head and let out a sigh of frustration. “Ah, man. You have no fucking idea. I did make a move the other night and I really thought she was in to me, but then she slammed the door shut just as fast, and now she’s an iceberg.”
Another eruption of laughter from the other end of the phone line. “Fucking women! They’ll mess with your head until you can’t see straight,” he said, snorting at his own vast knowledge on the subject.
“Listen, Rem. You didn’t know me before me and Amanda got together, but that’s exactly how she was – played hard to get or some shit like that. And fuck me if it didn’t work! It’s all about the chase for them. So if she’s what you want, you gotta keep after that. She’s probably just confused because you’re roommates, and all, and doesn’t want to fuck it up. Who the hell knows? But while she’s figuring her shit out and you’re trying to woo her, or whatever, just make sure to invite her to our place on Sunday for dinner. Tell her Amanda wants some girl time.”
Remy considered the uncharacteristically sage advice from his friend. Maybe he had a good point. Perhaps Kenzie was just confused and it was up to Remy to up his game and pull out all the stops if he truly wanted things between them to work. He hadn’t known Kenzie for all that long, but he knew that she was worth it all. And he’d do anything to make sure she knew it.
“Yeah, okay. I plan on seeing her tonight so I’ll ask. But I can’t promise anything. I’ll catch ya later, Nick.”
“Yeah, later, Rem.”
Remy pressed the End button and placed the phone back on the counter. He stood up and stretched, one arm up to the ceiling and the other scratching at his belly, his T-shirt exposing the lower part of his abs. The invite from Nick and Amanda was exactly the avenue he needed to hopefully get back into Kenzie’s good graces. And the dinner tonight would be the perfect opportunity to invite her along.
Chapter Eleven
Kenzie was both physically and mentally drained from her tediously grueling day at the diner. Not only had she had the most irritable customers throughout the day, even her regulars were crotchety; but she was also unusually ill-humored and hypercritical, even snapping at Donita when she tried to make a joke about it.
With little sleep from the night before due to the Little Miss Hoochie Mama Remy had brought home and Kenzie’s overactive imagination, she’d been pissed off and horny all night. She’d been fit-to-be-tied over the fact that he could so callously and blatantly rub that ho in her face. Kenzie was mortified over his disr
espectful conduct, and especially disgusted with his insensitivity.
Thankfully, whatever he and the redhead did last night, they were at least quiet about it. It’s not like she was straining to listen, or anything, but her bed was up against the wall they shared. So while she hadn’t been eavesdropping, at least she hadn’t heard anything that sounded like wild monkey sex happening next door. But that didn’t mean it wasn’t. Maybe they were both just unusually quiet lovers and were silent in their passionate fucking.
Whatever they were doing being closed doors was driving her mad with jealousy and was sheer torture. She’d wanted to be the one in his bed, dammit! His hot, naked body sliding in and out of hers. Making her come undone like he did the other night. And she despised herself for wanting him like that.
In need of a shower and some food, she was both relieved and nervous when she walked up to the building to see their apartment light glowing faintly through the window in the nearing dusk light. Kenzie had no idea how she should act upon walking in their shared home and nearly bolted in the opposite direction to avoid any discomfort. No, she thought. You can do this. There’s nothing to freak out about.
Placing her hand on the apartment door, she straightened her back and steeled herself with a long intake of breath, letting it out slowly before opening the door. Her nose immediately caught a whiff of something savory as it wafted through the entryway hall, hitting her senses and causing her stomach to rumble loudly like a bear caught in a trap.
She stepped in and quietly shut the door behind her. A soulful song played in the background and she could see Remy standing in the kitchen, his back to her, chopping something on the counter. She watched for a bit, feeling like a voyeur, but entranced at the site of him. He was tall and lean, and the well-cut muscles of his back were pronounced as they bunched against his T-shirt as he worked. His hands continued their chopping motion and his hips were swaying to the music.