All Over You (Unforgettable You, Book 1.5) (4 page)

I draw in a deep, calming breath and expel it slowly. “I’m taking you home.”

CHAPTER THREE

R
EBECCA

I’m not at my best waking up with a hangover. Who is? No one I know. I remain absolutely still and pry my right eye open. There’s a dull throb at my temple. Not completely horrible and not so much that I won’t attempt to force open the other eye.

My room is still gloriously dark, save faint strains of autumn light filtering through the thick curtains covering the double windows facing east.

Last night’s events come back to me in a flood of shameful memories. I slam both eyes shut.
Ow
, that hurts, and my palms sting. It’s at that moment I become aware of the hand on my waist and the all-encompassing heat at my back.

The kind of heat only another body can generate.

Before I can react, an achingly familiar scent assails my nostrils and a large male hand flattens against my stomach, keeping my back pressed against his chest, rendering me momentarily motionless and breathless.

“
You’re awake.” Scratchy with sleep and deep enough to start my heart fluttering, it’s the voice that’s haunted my dreams. And tortured plenty of my waking moments too.

Scott.

A part of me relaxes at the same time an unmistakable tension enters my body. I slept with Scott for almost a year so I’m quite familiar with that tension. Headache and the heartbreak of the past are forgotten in that moment. Heat pools between my thighs and the dull throbbing is now centered there.

He could always do this to me if I let him get close enough. Make my body ache, make me want him like he’s a drug and I’m addicted. As if sensing the war my body is fighting with my mind, his hand drifts lower until it’s splayed over my lower stomach, his finger dancing just above the top of my lace-edged thong.

At the light touch of his fingers just there, I’m returned to reality.

Whoa.
What the hell is he doing in my bed?

It’s not easy—I haven’t had sex in over a year—but I forsake the pleasurable warmth of his touch, roll abruptly away and almost end up on the floor. His hand hooks around my waist before I can fall. With a semblance of my sanity and balance regained, I scramble to a kneeling position before clumsily sliding off the edge of the bed. Now I’m standing in one of my long white t-shirts that I don’t remember putting on.

Scott on the other hand is wearing a wife-beater that showcases his muscled chest and arms. He also has his customary morning erection. My sex contracts as I hastily avert my eyes from the sight of it tenting his navy boxer briefs. “What are you doing in my bed?” If I thought his voice was scratchy, mine sounds and feels like a well-used Brillo pad courtesy of secondhand smoke and alcohol.

Watching me intently, he throws off the comforter that had been covering his lean, muscled thighs and swings his legs until his feet are planted on the floor. My toes curl into the carpet. Not a self-conscious bone in that gorgeous body. God, I hate him. I hate that he still has the power to make me—make me feel
this.

Quivery. On edge. Horny.

Shh
. I didn’t say that.

“
I guess that means you don’t remember what happened last night,” he states, subjecting my body to a thorough perusal. It’s the kind of heated look he always used on me in the past when he wanted sex. Sizzling hot sex. But I’m not the same girl he schmoozed and charmed before. I’ve learned my lesson when all things Scott are concerned.

“
What I do remember is you interfering where you had no business,” I snap irritably, secretly embarrassed at the situation I put myself in and the spectacle I must have made of myself.

I’m not going to tell him how terrified I’d been that those guys were going to beat the crap out of him—that’d he’d get hurt real bad. Or that I’d almost died when I’d seen him get hit.

And there’s no way I’m going to admit how grateful I am that he stopped me from doing something I definitely would have regretted. Cam may be hot but it’s obvious by what he did to Scott that he’s a total jerk. I can’t believe he and his friends were basically going to gang up on him, three against one. All I can say is thank God for Zach.

“
Like I’m going to let you go off with some guy you don’t know sloshed out of your mind,” he replies, scowling darkly.

I hate that he’s right. “It’s really none of your business what I do or who I do it with. You had no right to interfere.” I’m saying the words but my voice lacks the emotion.

At this, Scott comes to his feet and looks down at me. “That guy practically knocked you down,” he growls, looking angry and imposing as he towers over me.

“
It was an accident. He was trying to hit
you
.”

“
That ass hit me in the back. Is that the kind of guy you’re hooking up with these days? Pansy-ass jerks whose idea of fighting is knifing a guy in the back?” His nostrils are flaring so I know Scott’s in a rage. “What the hell were you doing with him, Bec? You don’t even know the guy.”

“
Well how do you think you get to know someone.” I know I’m being a bitch but it’s like I can’t stop myself from trying to hurt him. Hit him where he’s vulnerable.

His eyes darken and his hand whips out, grabbing my wrist. Before I know it I’m being hauled into his arms, my breasts pressed up against his hard chest. “If sex is what you’re looking for, I’m right here. You don’t have to get it from some guy who’s been with half the girls in the school. You know me and I know you and sex is the one thing that was always good between us.” Despite the sexy growl of his voice and his erection hard against my stomach, I can tell by the hard glint in his eyes that he’s still angry.

He’s turned on and pissed off. The throbbing between my legs renews. But I know I can’t let anything happen between us. No matter how much I might want to.

“
If I wanted to have sex with you believe me, you’d know,” I lie. I so do want. “Now I just want you to get your clothes on and get out of my apartment.” I pull out of his arms and his hands drop from my waist to his sides.

If he was about to say something, my words stop him. Several moments of silence follow as we stare at each other. With his expression wiped clean of emotion, his bristled jaw firm and his mouth unsmiling, he’s nearly impossible to read.

After a few more beats, Scott shakes his head, which does little to disturb his bedhead hair. “We need to talk.” His voice is rough and low. He’s not asking, it’s a demand.

My stomach drops. I’m conscious of what I’m not wearing: things like a bra, pants and underwear that don’t leave both my butt cheeks bare. Of course, then there’s the lack of Scott’s clothing, the erection he can’t hide and the fact that he looks just as good tousled as he does all dressed up or in worn blue jeans. This is not a good place for me to be. Which is why I’ve done my best to avoid him since last summer. Since I broke it off.

I clear my throat and try to collect my thoughts. “Well I don’t want to talk,” I say and make a move to go around him.

He grabs my arm just below the elbow. I shiver at the contact, briefly closing my eyes. I can’t let him know how he still affects me so I turn my head when he pulls me firmly but gently toward him. “Talk to me, Becca.”

His low plea has the power to make me forget. But only for a short time. How am I going to learn from my mistakes if I continue to make the same ones with the same person?

God, this is just too hard. I shake my head in denial because I can’t see there’s anything more to say.

Unfortunately for me, Scott’s not the kind of guy to just give up. Not if he wants something badly enough. If that were the case, we’d never have gotten together in the first place. Oh I’d thought he was hot alright, but at first glance, he’d looked like a player. I thought his interest would be fleeting and soon he’d be on to another girl. Plus, one of the girls at the orientation had told me he was from southern California. So even if I’d wanted, the distance would make anything happening between us impossible—at least during our senior year in high school.

“
I know you were freaked out last summer but everything turned out okay. It’s been over a year and I hoped you’d have gotten over it by now.”

I blink and tip my head back to look up at him. Not
everything
turned out okay.

We broke up didn’t we, you idiot?

The fight he’d put up when I told him we should call it quits had been token at best. He’d seemed more relieved than anything else, letting me go without much of a fight. He hadn’t even offered to slow things down. He’d just nodded like he understood and agreed that things weren’t working between us. It was only then that I’d known I’d done the right thing. The sane thing.

There was no way in hell I was going to end up like my mother—as much as I love her to death. No way. She’d thought John was going to step up when she’d gotten pregnant with me but he’d turned his back on her…and me. And three years of phone calls, birthday gifts and Christmas presents don’t come remotely close to making up for a childhood of nothings.

“
What?” he prompts after several seconds of silence, eyeing me warily. Probably because I must be looking at him like he’s nuts.

I step back to give myself room to breathe as I rub the back of my neck. “Scott, do you really think I broke up with you because I was freaked out about what almost happened?” I finally ask, staring intently into his eyes.

“
We were
both
freaked out,” he says.

A calming sense of resolve comes over me. “Do you want to know the real reason I broke up with you?” I ask quietly. Back then he’d never really pressed me, demanded I come clean. He’d assumed I was being one hundred percent honest with him.

“
Real reason?
What the hell does that mean?” he asks sharply, narrowing his gaze. “You said you needed space. That you realized after what happened you weren’t ready for anything serious. You said you were too young.”

“
And you believed that? Knowing how I felt about you, you believed that’s how I truly felt?” I don’t care if I’m not being logical. I don’t care if I sound like a crazy person. He should have known that couldn’t have been the real reason. The entire reason. He should have known.

“
God, Becca, what the hell was I supposed to believe if that’s what you told me?”

“
When had you ever been so quick to take me at my word? You always said you could tell when I wasn’t telling you the whole truth. Said you could tell when I was out-and-out lying. But you were sure quick to believe me when I say it’s over. And you want to know why?” My voice is rising by this time, into something that sounds choked and emotional. God I hate when that happens.

“
No but I’m sure you’re going to tell me,” he says, the warmth gone from his eyes, his jaw set tight and his lips an ominous line.

“
Because you wanted to break up with me. If what happened freaked me out, it traumatized you.”

“
I did not want to break up with you,” he states vehemently.

I shake my head in denial and retreat a step. His response is to follow me step for step until we’re almost touching, chest-to-chest, his harsh breath stirring strands of my hair.

“
Yes you did, Scott.”

“
What the hell, Becca? Why the hell would you think that?”

“
Why? Why?” I cry as the scene rushes from the past to assault me sharp and vivid. “Because the second I told you I was pregnant you couldn’t get far away from me fast enough.”

CHAPTER FOUR

S
COTT

Talk about being blindsided.

“What the hell are you talking about? I didn’t bail on you.” I sputter out my protest.

Eyes storming and her hair a dark stream of unruly tangles, she stamps her foot. I’m momentarily distracted by the sight of her boobs bouncing. I’m brought back to earth when she jabs her finger into my chest, her nail sinking in deep enough to make me wince.

“Scott, you went home the day after I told you and I could barely get in touch with you for a
whole week
. I didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to know when I was getting the shaft.”

“Wait a minute, you knew I had to go home between the summer sessions.”

I’m treated to an exaggerated roll of her eyes. “Yeah and how very convenient for you. Something comes up at home at just the right time. I betcha if I hadn’t called to tell you the good news, your ass would never have come back. I wouldn’t be surprised if you were already planning to transfer to another school.”