Remy(40)

When I notice the shock on her face, I force myself to release her.

Holy god, why’d I just do that? Why’d I say it like that? I sound like a fuckup. I thought she would one day stomp away and slam the door? Hell, all I have to do now is count the seconds. My nerves are run ragged like wires. I haven’t slept, and everything I’ve told her is not even half of the truth. My chest is a mass of tangles as I go grab a pair of pajama bottoms, then I grab a T-shirt from the closet.

I can see her struggling with the word. Bipolar.

Manic-depressive.

Crazy fucking loon.

I give her time to process and clench my hands, the T-shirt still at my side, and I feel like a grenade is about to explode inside my chest as I watch her struggle. I’ve just shot my plan of taking it slow and proving myself to her all to fucking hell. I’d been postponing. Biding my time. Maybe I didn’t want her to know. I wanted to pretend she’d never have to know. And I could be just this normal guy with her. I’ve tried all my life not to let it define me, even when for years that was the only thing I was.

Nobody told me I was a fighter, or that I could be a friend, a son, or a companion. All the medics told me was I was bipolar.

And now she knows. She knows this is me—and I’ve lost her. Before I had her.

I’m still adjusting to the fact that she will want nothing to do with me when, one by one, she slowly flicks open the top buttons of her top. At first I’m sure my brain is fucking with me. One button pops open, then the next, revealing sweet, tanned skin, more and more skin. My pulse jumps and my throat starts closing from the force of my need. Somewhere in the room, someone speaks, and it’s probably me. I’m in denial. I can’t believe it. I won’t believe it and she better get out of here before I do. “I’m take as-is,” I warn her. “I’m not medicating. It makes me feel dead and I intend to live my life alive.”

She nods.

I clench inside, right there, where my fucking heart is, as her fingers keep moving over her buttons.

“Take your clothes off, Remy.”

She flicks open her last button and parts her shirt through the middle, and my fingers spasm so hard at my side that the T-shirt I hold falls to the floor.

She’s so beautiful my eyes devour the parting of her shirt and the smooth skin she just revealed, and I still can’t believe something so beautiful and perfect would want to be with me. “You have no idea what you’re asking for,” I rasp, and I don’t know who I’m angry with. I’m just angry that I’m bipolar, and right now nothing can convince me that I’ll ever be good enough for her.

“I’m asking for you,” she counters.

“I won’t let you fucking leave me.”

She holds my gaze steadily, and my heart pounds so fast in my temples, I can barely hear her. “Maybe I won’t want to.”

My heart whams hard in hope, and I feel like it’s about to break all the ribs around it. “Give me a goddamned guarantee. I won’t let you fucking leave me, and you’re going to want to try. I’m going to be difficult and I’m going to be an ass, and sooner or later, you’re going to have fucking enough of me.”

She tosses her shirt to the floor and then pushes her skirt down her hips. She stands in a cotton bra and panties, her chest heaving, her eyes so deep and endless I feel sucked down to the pit of me. “I’ll never have enough of you, never,” she breathes.

I swear, in my life, nothing can come close to this. To the way I need her. Want her. Fucking love her. I’m being devoured on the inside with my feelings, tons of stuff I’ve never felt in my life, and a low, hungry sound rips unbidden up my throat.

She stops breathing, while I’m breathing so hard I can hear myself in the room, and I need to grab her to me so bad, I curl my fingers into fists at my sides as I speak roughly to her. “Come here then.”

She looks at me helplessly, and I wait, my heart crashing into my rib cage as I take her in, in that underwear. She’s the sexiest, hottest thing I’ve ever seen, every little muscle in her body sleek and compact, while her hips are curved like a soda bottle, her little nipples poking into her bra. When she takes the first step forward, my entire body tightens. Her pulse flutters, and my mouth waters with the need to taste her, suck her.

She stops a foot away, and I reach out and instantly tangle my hands in her hair and yank her head back, burying my nose into her neck. Her feminine scent makes me growl, and as she shudders and scents me back, I lick a wet path up her neck and engulf her in my arms. “Mine.”

“Yes, yes, yes, Remington, yes.” She fists her hands in my hair and I inhale her like a madman, then I grab her face and drag my tongue up her neck, her jaw, and lick the entry of her lips.