by Nicky Shanks
What happened after Oliver and I left the bar?
Did Casey talk to Lucy about me?
Did she break up with him?
Is she okay?
This entire scenario has gotten so out of hand that I just wish something—anything—could pull me back into a normal, real life.
That’s why I’m here.
The English department is in a three-story brick building near the main road, and by the time I get there, I’m gasping for air and looking behind me to make sure Lucy hasn’t followed me. That’s too crazy—how can it be possible that Lucy and Heather are in my Economics class? I don’t trust that Heather didn’t have something to do with this just to mess with people’s emotions again.
I don’t trust her with anything.
A sinking feeling attacks the bottom of my stomach when I remember the piece of paper that Brandon handed me in that bedroom. It’s tucked away in my tampon drawer—somewhere I know Oliver won’t go snooping around—until I can figure out what I’m going to do about it. I can’t go to Randy about it, even though he would be the logical first person to run to. Randy isn’t exactly a friend to me these days. His text messages since I left his house started off robotic and now they’re just too overly nice.
Nora keeps me up to date about her cousin, Barney, and she hasn’t heard back from him yet. So, all night last night I spent with Oliver like a sitting duck. The wait for him to see right through me was agonizing, so I opted to sit with him on the sofa, watching several action movies and reading through more of Colin’s last journal as he held me close. That’s all we want…peace.
My phone rings before I enter the building and Nora’s name flashes across the screen. My stomach sinks so far down into my body that it’s hard for me to answer the call.
“Did you find anything?” I answer without saying hello; I have no patience for formalities.
Nora breathes heavily into the phone. “Well, I heard from Barney.”
“And?”
She sighs and carefully chooses her words. She knows it’s my first day of classes and she doesn’t want to disrupt my focus. “So, unfortunately, the license is real, Julie. There’s different options you can go through if you want to get divorced or whatever from Brandon. Barney can’t help you because he’s booked solid or something, but he suggested you find an attorney here to help you.”
“I can’t afford an attorney without Oliver knowing.” I have to sit down on the steps of the building. The heartbeats that are pumping through my chest are so loud and heavy that I dare myself to look down and see it trying to beat right out of my chest. I guess I knew, deep down inside my heart, that no one would let me believe the paper wasn’t real…that’s just the story of my life. I don’t get to have a sweet little romance with a man who sweeps me off my feet so wholeheartedly that it lasts forever without any obstacles.
That only happens in the movies.
“This is bad…this is so, so bad…”
“Hey, we’ll figure this out, okay?” Nora tries to comfort me. “I’m sure we can scrape up enough cash to get you a decent lawyer. I’ll talk to Staci and see what we can do to make this go away without Oliver knowing.”
That makes me want to throw up.
I don’t want to keep secrets from Oliver anymore—it never works out well. Even if the secret will hurt him for knowing it, and even if I’m following his own rules by keeping secrets in the first place. How can I get through this? How can I make him see that I had no idea about what Brandon had done?
“I have to get to class,” I tell Nora and immediately hang up the phone. I wait for her to call me back and yell at me for hanging up on her, but she doesn’t.
Even she knows I’m in trouble.
I get through my English Lit class without seeing or speaking to anyone I know, and it gives me the space I need to calm down and think about things. I finally decide that I need to talk to Brandon himself and figure out how this whole thing happened. I’m sure I can get the truth out of him now that he’s focused his obsessions on someone else.
Heather.
Does she know about this?
No, she would have said something by now…right?
I don’t have another class to go to today, so I head to the parking lot where I parked the rental car and let the silence fill my head once I shut the door behind me. I’m in an overbearing loop where things just won’t stop flittering about inside my mind, but that doesn’t stop me from pressing the start call button when I reach Brandon’s number in my phone.
“Julie?” He answers on the third ring.
I hadn’t thought about what I’m going to say to him, so when I open my mouth to speak, words just flow past my teeth like darts on a dartboard. “I need to know why I don’t remember getting married and I really, really need to know how to make it go away.”
He sighs. “This is probably a conversation we need to have in person, don’t you think?”
“I’m not meeting you anywhere, just tell me.”
I hear people talking in the background and he covers the phone for a few seconds to get them to quiet down. I’ve disturbed him during his workday, but I couldn’t care less in this steam-filled moment. He walks from the noisy room and shuts a door before uncovering the phone, and even his slightly elevated breath in my ear is pissing me off.
“You have to understand, Julie. I was in love with you. You were everything to me and I took it too far, okay? I’d been asking you to marry me for a year and you kept saying no. I didn’t know what else to do. I wanted you so bad that I did something stupid.” His heated voice vibrates in my head. “I was a different person back then…childish and unfair. I can’t take back what I’ve done to you. All I can do is apologize.”
A lump forms inside my throat; I want to scream and cuss at him, but he just gets deep inside my heart with that statement. I wanted that with him too, but something changed inside of him when he realized that he had to share me with the outside world. He became hostile and mean, keeping me locked up inside our apartment with no one to talk to besides him…when he finally chose to come back home to me, that is.
“Remember that night when we shared the tequila my boss gave me? Right after you found out about my affair with Rachel?”
“Yes.” I play that night over in my mind a few times quickly, trying to piece together what he could possibly have done… “You didn’t.”
Brandon’s voice shakes. “I got you drunk and took you to a twenty-four-hour chapel in Worthstrom, that city that they call ‘Little Vegas.’ We got married and went home so you could sleep it off.”
Oliver is beeping through my phone call with Brandon, but I hit the ignore button, hoping he’ll just think I’m still lurking around the classroom having a good time. In fact, I’m not having a good time. I’m having a horrible time figuring out how someone could do this and how I’m going to get out of it.
“So, we’ve been married for two years and I didn’t even know?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Actually, October twelfth was our anniversary, so a little over two…”
His voice drifts off and my entire body floods with so much heat that I have to roll the window down. I’m steaming up the car with my hot, exasperated breath and I’m about three seconds away from a panic attack when his voice comes back into play.
“If I could take it back, I would. I’ll get the paperwork drawn up to get divorced, okay? Don’t worry about a thing, I’ll take care of it all. I’ll get a lawyer in my office to do it or something.”
I lick my dry lips. “What exactly were you hoping to gain from this? Just another thing you had control over, right? You wanted to control me so fucking bad that you stooped to tricking me into marrying you? I’m only twenty-three, Brandon! We were too young to make that kind of commitment and I don’t care what you say…you’re messed up beyond repair.”
You’re only two years older and you’re marrying Oliver Jackson…
Shut up!
He lets me yell at
him for a few more minutes before stepping back in. “Look, Jules, I said I’m sorry and I’m going to fix it, okay? Just go home to Oliver and when I get things in order, I’ll call you and we can set it up so Oliver never has to know.”
Oliver never has to know.
Rule number three: Keep your secrets safe.
Even if they will hurt someone in the end.
“Fine,” I growl before hanging up on him. I’m really in no position to drive but I do anyway—I can’t sit here steaming in the school parking lot much longer. I don’t have any classes for another two days and that’s too much time to dwell on something like this. The entire twenty-minute drive back to Oliver’s apartment forces me to think about what I’m going to say to him and how I’m going to break his heart. I have to do it gently; he’s still wounded, after all.
I force myself to nod at the security guard as I pass him; he watches the war waging between my head and my heart before I push the elevator button and step inside. I wonder if he can feel the emotions bleeding through my skin as the doors close and I start feeling suffocated. I gasp for air and clutch my chest, trying to breathe, but the panic has now set in and I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do. I know what the right thing to do is…but is it really the only right thing to do?
The apartment is eerily quiet when I walk inside. I don’t hear Oliver talking on the phone doing his business or shuffling around in his bedroom. I do smell something amazing that wafts from the kitchen, so I turn to find out what the source is. Breathing deeply, I follow the invisible ribbons of deliciousness around the corner and my eyes nearly pop out of my skull.
Oliver stands in the kitchen, wearing nothing but a chef’s apron, grinning from ear to ear.
“Welcome home, baby.” He puts a spatula down and reaches out for me. Still shocked, I trail my gaze down his tall, muscular body and swallow the huge lump in my throat. I push it down into my stomach and let it sit there, ignoring the gnawing feeling that I need to tell him my secret before letting things get too out of hand. “I made chocolate chip pancakes to celebrate your first day of class.”
I let my eyelashes touch my cheek when I blush and look at the floor; I know he likes it when he has this particular pull over me. How can I be married to someone else when this godlike creature wants every part of me to be his? Maybe I can let Brandon take care of this and never speak of it again…maybe I can trust him to keep his word and undo the chaos he’s created.
“I only had two classes today—hardly anything to celebrate.” I look back at him and smile.
He twirls me around and laughs. “You’re a good enough reason for me to celebrate anything. I don’t care if you just went to the grocery store…I’ll always be happy to see you walk through the door.”
Crap.
He deserves to know.
Oliver’s eyes get dark as he licks his lips and moves slowly toward me. I know what he wants—the same thing he wanted in the shower on Saturday morning—but I can’t sleep with him when I know what I know…it wouldn’t be right.
“I’m so glad you’re home.” He breathes into my hair once he’s captured me and pulled me into his warm, naked body. “I miss you when you’re gone.”
I smile against his hard chest. “I wasn’t gone for more than a few hours. You better figure out something to take up your time besides missing me.”
“Oh, baby, I’ll never stop missing you. But, funny you should mention that…” His frown finds me as he lifts my chin up to see him. “I actually have to leave town for business in a few days. Will you be okay without me? I want you to come with me, but you just started classes and I knew you’d say no.”
“You’re right, I would say no.” I giggle. “Some time apart might be good for us.”
His eyebrows rise before he opens his mouth. “You sick of me already?”
Even on my tiptoes, my lips hardly reach his mouth. He leans down the rest of the way to meet me and everything that’s happened since I walked into my first class and laid eyes on Heather washes away. It’s just me and Oliver again, just the way I like it.
Okay, so there’s a looming secret that I have to address too.
“You fail to remember that I’m completely naked beneath this apron, Julie Remington.” He winks and smiles at me. “Or the fact that I’ve already unhooked your bra and unzipped your jeans without you even realizing.”
I look down and notice that he’s right; my jeans are unfastened and I can feel my bra slipping off my shoulders. He picks me up and sits me on the counter, pressing his naked body between my legs while he kisses and nibbles at my neck. I lose myself in his warm lips against my bare skin and his rough fingers gripping my waist beneath my shirt. He groans into my ear as he nibbles the soft part and I find my hands around the back of his neck, tugging at his hair in pleasure.
“Oliver…the pancakes…” My breath is ragged as he presses harder into my legs. He reaches over and turns off the burner, moving the skillet to the other side of the stovetop. His long, dark eyelashes capture me when he caresses my jawline and leans down to kiss me again. His dark, shaggy hair is tangled between my fingers as he picks me up and fastens my legs around his torso before taking off to the bedroom with my body literally in his hands.
He’s already naked, which is unfair by the way, so I reach underneath the apron and grip his hard-on in my hand, gently squeezing to send pings of pleasure up his body. He moans when I touch him, throwing his head back so I can see how defined his chest and shoulders are when he flexes them without even trying.
Oliver is a god.
He has the body of something unreal.
And a heart of gold.
But I’m lying to him and keeping secrets.
I don’t let that thought enter my mind again; I make sure to push it far enough down into my brain that I can enjoy this with him and not feel guilty. He’s my fiancé after all—it’s not like we’re strangers.
There I go…justifying everything.
When he can’t go on any longer, his hands grip my sides and he lifts me up again. He bends me over the bed and I hear his hitched breathing as he slowly peels my jeans from my body, letting me step out of them before he trails kisses up the roundness of my ass then my spine. He kisses my shoulders and puts his thick lips everywhere imaginable; my body shakes beneath him…I’m ready for him.
I’m ready to let go.
“Julie.” He breathes and playfully bites the flesh of my hip. “From the moment I laid eyes on you again, I knew I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from wanting you.” I feel his thumbs in the band of my panties and he slowly removes them too. “You were made for me, baby. You were created to contain the beast inside of me, and I don’t know how to live without you.”
Did he say again? Like he’s met me before?
I mumble something that even I can’t comprehend. His hands tug off my shirt and bra without any real effort. He braids my hair that flows down my back and holds tightly onto it. After he rips open a package, I can feel the rim of his erection playing with my swollen, bare flesh. He breathes in so deeply that it’s hard to hear him blow it out, but when he tugs backward on my braid…he pushes inside of me and the whole world explodes.
I don’t remember much after that. I’m so lost in the moment and the pleasure that Oliver gives me that it’s hard to even open my eyes. His skin is on fire as he slows down and curves my body upward, combining our flesh. His hard chest presses against my back and it’s the best sensation I’ve ever felt. His fingers untangle from my braid and my hair flows down my left side. His teeth gently graze the back of my right shoulder blade and I can feel his broad smile against my bare skin.
“You like it when I do that?” He chuckles and his teeth hit my skin once again. I shiver beneath the pleasure waves and we stand still with him still inside of me. “You taste so fucking good.” He growls and clutches onto me a little harder.
I’m not one for dirty talk during sex…Brandon used to try and get me to say dirty t
hings to him when he did what he wanted with me.
Oh, crap.
Julie…don’t think about that.
Oliver.
His hard breaths against my ear bring me back to where I want to be. Oliver’s small moans are exotic—he can’t get enough of me, and that’s the biggest turn-on of all. I feel the build inside of me as I arch my back a little so he’ll be forced to hold onto my hips. It grows inside of me like nothing I’ve ever experienced before…nothing comes close to the tingling happiness about to burst from my chest.
Everything is perfect.
I linger in a small moment of unawareness where everything around me just…doesn’t exist. I can create any thought I want to and twist it how I want my story to end. My story ends with Oliver: I’m over a thousand percent sure of that. He kisses the back of my neck and thrusts slowly into me, but I can feel his need for me growing thicker by the second. I think he’s going to let me explode this way, but inside of my euphoric moment, he pulls out and flips me around to lay me gently back onto the bed. As he kisses my jawline, I feel him enter me again, except this time it’s like the shower sex we had a few days ago. He’s attentive and caring; he’s controlling himself because deep down inside he knows he can’t do it forever.
I lock my eyes with his bright emerald balls of fire. Sweat wets his dark hair and it’s matted to his forehead, so I reach up and brush it back a little and he slows down to smile. “You are incredibly perfect…do you know that?” His lips find the tip of my nose. My hips arch up to meet his, wanting more.
“I’m not perfect,” I whisper and arch my hips more so he’ll get the hint.
He laughs, nuzzles against the side of my face, and then gives me what I want while holding my arms down over my head. I break free and claw at his back; it’s so hard that it revs him enough for his body to tense and my euphoric moment is shared by the stars in his eyes. I let him catch his breath before releasing mine and my entire body is pulsating so fast that there’s a small chance I’m having a heart attack.
