"Do you love her?" I asked him.
He just sat there, staring blankly at his shoes, which, I remember, had yellow laces.
"Do you?" I asked again. "Or are you just with her because of the baby?"
I no more than said that and I jerked myself out of the dream, feeling panicked and disoriented. I felt that way for a full minute before I started sorting the dream out, and realized that I had jumbled everything together. That was –at least partially—the conversation my mother had with Mike when they found out Sarah was pregnant with Derek. I had recast everybody, but in the dream I truly felt like it was me, and I felt strangely heartbroken, like I could hardly breathe.
I wouldn't go back to sleep that night, and it wasn't the last of my bad dreams, so I hadn't been sleeping very much at all that week.
I was so busy thinking about my dreams and how tired I was that I didn't even realize anyone was approaching me until Derek was practically right in front of my face.
My guard went up, I put my fight face on, and I crossed my arms across my chest.
"What do you want?" I asked.
"What, no kiss?" he asked rhetorically, looking wounded.
"Definitely not," I responded. "I don't like to kiss the spawn of Satan."
"Well, apparently I do," he said, catching me off guard by leaning in and kissing me.
I instantly shoved his face away, surprising him, and said, "Too damn bad."
“What’s your problem?” he asked, as if he didn’t already know.
“You’re my problem. You’re an asshole.”
"That's not very nice," he said, easily capturing my hands.
Instantly enraged, I struggled with all my might, trying to hit him, but unable to as he kept holding onto me, easily restraining me even though I was using every ounce of my strength.
"I hate you," I spat, throwing my weight into him one more time before giving up and going still.
He appeared slightly thoughtful, but not overly concerned, and he simply pushed me up against the beam, greeting my glare with a smile.
"Someone's grumpy," he remarked. "What's wrong, not being sexually satisfied? I'm sure your little choir boy wouldn't even know what to do with you."
"Oh, that's where you're wrong," I lied with so much confidence that I almost believed I had slept with Andy. "Actually, he's very good at fulfilling all my needs."
He lost his smile. "Don't lie to me, Nikki. I don't like being lied to."
"Who's lying?" I replied smugly, copying Kayla's cat-that-got-the-cream look.
This did seem to piss him off, although I wasn't sure why, since at the very beginning of our agreement he had granted me permission to "do" anyone else I wanted.
"Huh," he remarked casually, controlling his anger except for the hard look in his eye, "looks like I turned you into a little whore, after all."
"Yep," I replied nastily. "Thanks, by the way. It's pretty damn satisfying. You should see the things he does to me." I shook my head. "I thought you were wild in bed, but he makes you look pretty damn boring, to be perfectly honest. Those quiet ones, you know," I said knowingly, raising an eyebrow.
I was feeling pretty cocky for a minute there, pretty satisfied that I was getting under his skin, wounding his ego, telling him a good little church-going choir boy was better in bed than he was. Then some of smugness fell away when he pushed my arms up over my head, holding them there with one hand –a favorite position of his, I gathered—and he used the other hand to unbutton and unzip my pants.
"What are you doing?" I demanded, my gaze whipping around to make sure no one was around, struggling in earnest to free my hands.
"Taking what's mine," he replied, running his hand down my side.
"I'm not yours!” I stated, struggling against him. “Let me go.”
"But we had an agreement," he said, his fingers warm on my skin as his hand pushed past the open fly of my jeans.