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There is nothing I want more than this moment. For Reid to be mine for a minute. I imagine him meeting me somewhere. I run and jump into his arms and end up just like this. Lost in his embrace.
My heart is pounding. My legs wrapped around him, not wanting to let go. His strong arms holding me, but I know it has to end. Moments with Reid are few and between. It is like winning a scratch-off. You have to savor that moment when you win just a little, hoping it is more.
This is the moment I dreamed about having with a boy in high school. These are the moments with Reid that has butterflies swarming my stomach. The rest is noise.
When he breaks the kiss and my feet find the floor. Our eyes are locked. His lips were swollen from the kiss.
"Come on," he says softly and steps back, watching me dress.
CHAPTER31
Reid
Ihold the door open for her because she deserves to be treated like a princess, but I'm selfish when it comes to her, and I want to be the only one to do it. I pull the seat belt tight when we are both seated inside my Aston Martin to ensure she is secure.
She lifts her arms and lets me. I graze her breast with the back of my knuckles to ensure it is not too tight and lean back in my seat to grip the steering wheel. I won't leave the parking lot with her if I keep it up.
I was scared something had happened to her when she left with Veronica but relieved when we found her safe inside her dorm. My heart constricted, and I hadn't felt pure fear like that since Alicia's death. I didn't know what I would do if something happened to her. A possessive instinct for her overrode my normal thought process.
I pull out onto the main road and head to the twenty-four-hour diner on the outskirts of town. It takes thirty minutes to get there, so I pull up my playlist and relax, enjoying her company. Lately, she has been on my mind, and what I can't find out online about her, I'll have to find out in person. Jesse Sharpe is a puzzle I want to find all the pieces to. I want to know things that no one else knows, like the fact she made string bracelets when she was twelve, even though I was the dick that broke one of them in a fit of jealousy.
A foreign emotion I have never felt before for another woman. I didn't know how to deal with it, and I didn't know how to say I was sorry.
I never had to apologize for anything, except not being older than my sister so I could protect her. The pad of my thumb touches the hard ridges of the little wheel scrolling through my playlist, selecting “Feel” by TWO LANES.
The low beat of the music creates a chill vibe in my car's cabin. I slide over the center console to reach for her hand sliding my fingers through hers. My thumb stroking her soft skin.
"So you're not going to marry her then?"
I lean back in my seat, and I tell her the truth. "No. I was never going to marry her. She just thinks I am."
"And Valen?"
My left-hand tenses on the steering wheel because, for the first time, I feel like I have competition. I know I'm far from the image of the perfect guy she has in her head.
"I don't know. He still has time to decide, but I'm not marrying Tara. Where are you from?"
I know where she’s from, but if I act like I already know, she will know I have been stalking her like a creep.
She tilts her head looking down. "Cedar Lake, Ohio."
She doesn't like where she is from, which means she is running from something or someone. Maybe her parents were real assholes. But I go for another angle.
"Brothers, sisters, or family."
"No, it was just my mom and me. My dad skipped out on her when I was born. She raised me all by herself. We didn't have much. Typical story. Single mom raising a kid on her own. No other family."
I can empathize with her feeling alone and not having siblings. It was how I felt when Alicia died. I was alone, and nothing mattered. Everything around me faded in the background.
"How's your mom?"
I see her shoulders stiffen from the corner of my eye, and I'm curious, maybe her mom’s a piece of shit.
"She works at a diner in town but had to take hours at a biker bar across the street to get make sure she could ends meet. She's a hard worker and has done the best she can with what she has been given. She didn't mean for us to struggle, but in a small town, there aren't many options for people in our situation. Not when you're a hundred dollars over the threshold to receive food stamps." Regret begins to sink in at how I've treated her when she sighs and continues, "I wouldn't ask for much. You know, so she would stay home longer and not have to leave me alone."
"Did you have friends?"
So, it isn't a drunk father or a drug-addicted mother. There is no stepfather, so who the fuck messed with her? It's a simple lame-ass question, but I'm trying to find out more.
