Used (Unlovable, #1) (Unlovable Series) (17 page)

I shake my head at him. “You do it.”

He shoves his jeans down to his ankles. Grasping my boots, he tugs them off and yanks me to the edge of the tailgate. Standing me up, he unzips and whips my jeans down, making me step out of them. My body burns with the heat of a thousand suns. Grabbing our jackets, he lines the bed with them.

His eyes find mine, his look piercing me. “If having you like this is all I get, then I’ll take it. Haven’t you realized that I need you too? If you’re using me, I assure you that it’s a two-way street.”

“How exactly are you using me?” I gasp.

“I use this—” he runs the back of his hand down my neck, between my breasts, over my stomach, and flips it to lightly cup the vee between my legs “—to be close to you. To be a part of you.”

Grabbing his hand, I force him inside of me. “Use me, Greer,” I groan.

Before I see him moving, he’s thrown me back into the bed and has my legs splayed open before him. He hooks one leg around the roll bar and slams into me at the same time. I grind myself against him as he hammers into me. “Use me,” I demand over and over again until my voice grows hoarse, and it becomes a pleading whisper. And every time I do, his thrusts grow harder and harder. Just when I think it can’t get anymore intense, he loops his arm under my other leg and drapes it around the other bar. Clutching my hips, he relentlessly drives into me until I shriek his name and lose myself in an aching cloud of ecstasy.

W
E DON’T SAY
a word until we’re both dressed and sitting back in the front of the Gator. If it weren’t for the cold settling in, after the incredible things he made me feel, I’d still be lying back there, panting for air. As it is, I’m trying to calm my breathing and my hands before I drive us back to the barn. I turn to see how Greer’s holding up. His head is resting on the back of the seat, a content smile on his full lips. I can’t resist. I lean in and give him a little kiss on his bottom lip, making his mouth twitch. He gives me a wide-eyed look.

“What?”

“Surprised me,” he says.

“Sorry,” I grumble.

He pulls me by my neck back to him and gives me a better kiss. “Don’t be sorry. I’ve got one thing going for me that means everything,” he whispers against my lips.

“What’s that?”

“You find me irresistible,” he says with a smug grin. I chuckle against him for a second before straightening back up. He is so right, but the thought that plagues me rears its ugly head—is it him that I can’t resist or the escape he offers me?

Just as I turn the ignition key, a random thread from last night’s conversation tugs at me. My head darts his way. “What did you mean last night when you said ‘we’ told you not to speak to her? Who’s ‘we’?”

Bracing his foot on the dash, he brushes an almost-invisible piece of dirt from his knee. “I was hoping you didn’t catch that.”

“Greer,” I warn.

“Chicken,” he says with a catch. “My dad and I confronted him. My dad threatened that if we got word of him messing with you again, or so much as speaking to you, he’d trump up some charges and have him arrested.”

Turning away from him, I stare out over the field for a few moments as I let that sink in. “You told your dad … what he did.”

He blows out a resigned breath. “I tell my dad everything. I only wish I’d told him before …”

“Before what?” I ask, looking back at him.

Giving me a rueful smile, he whispers, “Before we made our arrangement.”

It hits me that neither of us ever thought to tell another adult besides my mother. We trusted her to keep me safe, which, in retrospect, was beyond naïve. When that didn’t work, I took matters into my own impulsive, immature hands, and now look at the damage I’ve caused him. Could all of that have been prevented if we had gone to Judge Tanner first? The thought is too depressing, by far, so I dismiss it.

I glance over at Greer, who is warily regarding me, and joke, “You owe me a bra.”

“What?” he laughs.

“You ripped my bra, sir,” I say with flourish. “A true gentleman would replace it.”

He doesn’t miss a beat. Giving me an impossibly naughty look, he reminds, “You don’t like it when I’m a gentleman, remember, dear?”

“On this, I will have to insist,” I say proudly.

Chapter Thirteen

Then

“
I
’D DO ANYTHING
for you. Haven’t I proven that time and time again?”

I run a hand over my chest, trying to catch my breath, before pulling my bra over my breasts and fastening the buttons of my shirt. “Yes, you have. And what you just did for me was … incredible.”

I hear him zip before he props himself up on his elbow. Leaning over me, he kisses me softly on the cheek. “It’s empty. Meaningless. What we have. We’re getting ready to go off to college, go our separate ways for a while. I don’t want anyone else. I’ll never want anyone else … I want us to go our separate ways—but together.”

I laugh when he nips my chin with his teeth. “Greer, what does that even mean?”

“It means that I’m yours, and you’re mine. We may be a few hours away from each other, but we’ll see one another on the road and when we come home to visit. And we’re … together. Like a real couple. That’s what I want. And I know somewhere deep down that’s what you want too.”

My eyes mist over as I take in his earnest look. I don’t respond.

“Dammit,” he says softly before he sits up to put his boots on.

The sane, rational part of me screams,
Yes! Yes, I want to be yours, and I want you to be mine.
But the damaged place that’s in control says,
No. No way. You’ll destroy him just like your mother did your father. And here’s your chance to end this. Out of sight, out of mind. He’ll meet someone amazing and move on.

He springs up, picking his shirt up along the way. Exhaling, he brings it up over his head and stretches it out with both hands. He’s grown taller but remained lithe, and his muscles were compact things that were way stronger than they appeared. My eyes run down his frame and linger on his trim hips for a second before his shirt hits me in the face.

“Quit objectifying me,” he barks out. “I already feel like a piece of meat to you most of the time.”

“You shouldn’t feel that way,” I protest.

“Don’t tell me how to feel, Denver.”

“I—”

Whatever I was going to say dies out as he shouts, “Life or death!” I sit up and start to ask him what he means, but he’s moving quickly to the opening of the loft. “Life or death situation,” he says as he teeters on the edge. “You have to choose. Be with me, or watch me bite it? What’s it gonna be? Come on, Denver,” he cajoles me with a laugh.

I laugh loudly at his over-the-top ultimatum.

His face falls, and his eyes bore into mine. “I’m serious.”

I shake my head.

“Choose.”

“No.”

“OK,” he says with a shrug before propelling himself backwards from the top of my barn.

“No!” I scream, as I scramble to the edge. I mean, it’s not a big enough drop to kill him, but it could hurt him.

When I peer over at him, he’s lying in the middle of the corral on a pretty large chunk of the bales of hay that we threw out for the horses earlier. He looks like he’s about to make a snow angel, or hay angel, as the case may be. I giggle at him. Idiot. “Denver Magnolia Dempsey, will you be mine?”

“Go home. You’re drunk!” I joke, trying to distract him.

He shakes his head at me. “I’m serious.”

I want to scream at him for pushing me. But I don’t have the right. And he wouldn’t understand my truth anyway—I can’t be his when I’m not mine to give. I’m a slave to my emptiness. It’s stolen into every aspect of me and owns me so thoroughly.

“I’m giving you as much of myself as I’m able, Greer,” I say, slightly above a whisper.

He closes his eyes and nods. “Your body will have to do for now,” he says after a minute. “Can you come help me up? I think I broke my ankle.”

I shimmy down the ladder and make my way over to him. “You’re crazy you know that,” I say as I take his hands in mine.

“Crazy for you,” he whispers. He winces when I pull him to his feet. “I really did hurt myself,” he mutters, astonished.

“Idiot,” I say aloud this time.

A
PERSISTENT BUZZING
wakes me up. Pulling my phone from my nightstand, I hold it in front of my one opened eye before rolling them both at Greer’s smirk on the screen. “What Greer?”

“Hey, Denver. It’s not Greer. It’s Walt.”

Wide-awake, I sit straight up. “What’s wrong?”

“Umm …”

“Is he hurt?”

Walt hesitates for a second, but it feels like a year. “Not like you think. He’s just drunk. I can’t bring him home or to my house. He told me to call you.”

“Of course he did.”

“Want me to take him home anyway? He can deal with the consequences.”

“No,” I say running my hand over my hair as I think fast. “His parents would freak. Bring him to the barn. I have a bed in the tack room. He can sleep it off in there.”

“’K. Thanks, Denver.”

“Yep,” I say quickly before disconnecting. It’s my fault he’s acting like this anyway. After his ultimatum in the barn, he left to go hang out with his buddies since I had to pack to go to my dad’s. He told me he was going to go drink me off his mind. I begged him not to. We usually reserved drinking for hanging out in my barn where nothing bad could happen. He told me there was only one thing that could keep him from going and doing just that. I didn’t respond. And at my silence, he left.

I texted him on and off throughout the night, trying to check on him. He ignored me all night until he sent me a picture of him with his tongue down some random chick’s throat with the caption. “I’m good. Real good.”

Asshole.

Bitch
, I promptly remind myself.

After throwing on some boots and a hoodie over my pajamas, I grab an extra blanket out of the closet before heading out to the barn.

Walt’s pulling up as I open the door. Greer swings from the truck as soon as it comes to a stop. “Hey, baby,” he shouts. “My ankle don’t hurt no more. All healed!”

I roll my eyes. More like too drunk to feel. Walt jumps out and steadies him as he walks him over to me. “You sure you can handle him? I can call my mom and make something up so I can stay.”

I blow out a breath and look at Greer’s now-slack face. “No, it’s fine. I’m just gonna put him down in here, and we’ll both go to sleep.”

“You make me sound like one of your horses, Denver. Not your property,” Greer slurs.

“Whatever, Greer. You know what I meant.”

Walt helps me get him situated, and I walk him out so that I can close up behind him. He thanks me again and tells me briefly how out of control Greer had gotten that night.

“Y’all having problems?”

“No. Why?” Lie.

“He kept saying ‘If your best friend doesn’t love you, nobody will.’ Then he was taking polls on how many people had been broken-hearted and all kinds of shit. I’ve never seen him act like that.”

I nod because I have, to some extent. He can’t hold his liquor. Beer? He was good. Not so much with the hard stuff. “We had a little fight. He’s not happy with our going to different schools. And I’m leaving for Mississippi tomorrow.”

“Ah. Well, he, uh … he loves you. If you should ever stop … um, you know, he’d be there for you.”

Walt is a good guy. He’s the only one of Greer’s friends who’ll even speak to me. So I feel about two inches tall when he hints at my reputation. “We’ll be fine,” I say with a pasted grin. “He just needs to sleep it off.”

We say our good nights. I lock up and find my way back to the tack room. I have a daybed in there for when one of the animals is sick or due to have a baby. I’m glad it’s big enough for me to crash with him. I really don’t want to leave him alone.

I lock the tack room door behind me and move through the room, grateful for the moonlight guiding my way. I toe off my boots and climb under the covers with him. Wrapping my arm around him, I fit myself to his back. Curling up to Greer is the most natural thing in the world. I kiss his neck before laying my head down beside his. Closing my eyes, I allow myself to drift to one of my favorite daydreams. The one where I’m not evil, Greer’s not bitter, and we’re happy together. I’m only happy there for about thirty seconds.