Again, I should choose my words carefully but I don’t. “What if it is?”
He breathes then.
Long and hard, his inhale ending in a low growl and a heavy shake of his frame.
Then, almost ripping my dress with his hand, he goes, “Then I’d say that we’re already over.”
“What?”
He gets up all in my face, his hot breaths misting my skin. “Then I’d say, Echo, that you’re stupider than I thought. And last night I thought you were plenty stupid. You were plenty fucking stupid and naive when you took your clothes off for me and tossed me a fucking bone. Without knowing how much I’ve wanted to rip into it, intoyou.”
“Reign —”
“Because if you choosethis,me, whatever the fuck I did to you back there, the way I fucking used you to ease the pain in my dick, over going back to the guy who loves you, who has loved you for fucking years, then I might as well leave now and never ever come back.”
This time my tears spill and I don’t — can’t — stop them at all. “N-no, Reign, please —”
He comes over me then.
He rolls me over on my back and hovers over me, looms both like a threat and my salvation. Framing my face in his rough hands, he says gutturally, “Do you understand what’s happening between us? Do you understand that this is just fucking? This is just sex. Okay, Echo? I’m just fucking you. I’m using you to cure myself. To get you out of my system so I can move on. The very thing you wanted to do yesterday. Do you realize that?”
I hiccup out a breath, as my tears keep pouring. “Y-yes.”
He comes down to lick them. “Then you have to go back to him. You have to go back to the life you’d planned for yourself, yeah? NYU, Lucas. New York, becoming a big-shot writer. Youhaveto go back.”
I sob. “I —”
He starts to kiss me then, small tender kisses all over my wet cheeks. “You can’t let this, whatever we’re doing here, ruin it for you, understand? You can’t letmeruin your life, Echo. That’s the whole point. That’s why I did what I did back then, pushed you to him. That’s why I’ve done what I’ve done all these years. Youcan’tlet me. Tell me you understand that. Tell me or I —”
I wind my arms around him then and hold him to me. “I do. I-I do.”
He stares down at me, his lips wet from my tears. “Yeah?”
“Yes.” I hiccup again, trying to calm myself down, calm my sobs.
“I’ve regretted a lot of things in my life when it comes to you, Echo. But don’t make me regret this,” he says. “Don’t fucking make me regret coming after you.”
“I won’t. Iwon’t,” I whisper thickly. “Just don’t l-leave me.”
His chest shudders as he wipes the trails of tears with his fingers. “I won’t. Not as long as you understand that I’m not the guy for you. I’m the wrong fucking guy.”
Miraculously I’ve stopped crying and I squeeze my arms around him. “I do. I understand.”
He searches my face for a few seconds before murmuring, “Good girl.”
And the crazy girl that I am, I preen under his praise even as my heart is breaking. I kiss him back when he comes to claim my mouth. I open my thighs for him when he nudges my legs apart. I let him push my dress up and shove my panties aside as I arch under him before going for his own clothes. I arch for him when he thrusts his dick inside and starts to fuck me under the stars.
But I wasn’t lying when I said that I understand.
I do.
I understand that he’s the wrong guy for me. I understand that he’s just using me and that he has no interest in sticking around. That he’ll leave as soon as he’s done with me.
I already knew that if I gave my heart to him, he’d only break it.
But there’s something else I understand now as well.
I understand that sometimes the wrong guy is the right guy for you. Sometimes the wrong guy is the one you see in your dreams. You write about him. You write about all the things he makes you feel. All the ways he hurts you and makes you cry.