Page 71 of Fake Shot

“No questions ...” she says, but I tighten my grip on her with my left arm and use my right hand to tilt her chin up so she’s looking at me.

“Jules, you can’t lead with a sentence like that and not offer an explanation.”

“I don’t owe you an explanation, Colt.”

“You’re right. But ...” But what? I don’t deserve to know this about her, or know anything else that she doesn’t want to tell me. “...maybe talking about it would help?”

“I’ve talked about it ad nauseam with my therapist and my sister.”

“And has that helped?”

“I’m still a virgin, aren’t I?” The question is sassy and sardonic, but it seems to hide real pain—or real fears, at the very least.

“Can I ask you a question that’s probably going to piss you off?” In response, she rolls her eyes as if to say,Everything you do pisses me off.But I think I’m learning that this is just part of her defensive strategy. “How do you know for sure? I mean, you were so drunk you don’t remember getting married. Are youpositivethat douchebag didn’t take advantage of you?”

She burrows her cheek into my chest. “Look at you getting all possessive,” she teases, trying to redirect the conversation so she doesn’t have to answer the question. I wait her out and finally, she says, “I was having my period. I still had my tampon in that morning.”

“God, Jules,” I say as I stroke her cheek. “I’m so fucking sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, it really is. I always felt guilty because, even though I made sure you got back to your room safely, it didn’t stop everything that happened afterward. Now I know that ittrulyis my fault.”

“I was in charge of my own emotions and my own decision-making that night, Colt. I’m the one who’s responsible. Just like I’m the one who has to decide when I can trust someone enough to move past what happened.”

“What’s preventing you from taking that last step?”

Why am I asking her these questions? Why am I prying into something that isn’t my business? Is it because she’s quickly become one of the few people I trust enough to sharemy secrets? Or is it because I can’t stop thinking about her? Can’t stop imagining us together? Have pictured myself having sex with her almost as often as I’ve taken a breath lately? Jerked off to images of us together? Want her so bad that I’m having a fucking crisis of conscience over her?

“You mean, besides the lack of quality men in this world?” she says.

“Yeah.”

She sighs, and I think she’s done with the conversation. But then she says, “I think sex is one of those things where I would have to trust another person implicitly in order to be able to...do it. And I’ve never met a guy I can trust like that.”

I have so many thoughts about that—about the fact that sex doesn’t have to be an emotional experience, how it can just be about blowing off steam and feeling good. But I guess I don’t have the control issues or the fear that Jules does, so it’s easy for me to disassociate sex from emotions.

“You’ve never met a single guy you trust enough to have sex with?”

She lets out a little snort of laughter. “The circle of guys I trust, and the circle of guys who want to sleep with me...they just never seem to overlap.”

Do you trust me?The question is on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t dare ask it.

Her family is my family, and they don’t want me with her. Jameson is my best friend, so he told me what everybody else was thinking: I’m not good enough for Jules. And they’re right. I’ll hurt her in the end, or she’ll hurt me. Either way, I can’t risk damaging my relationship with the Flynns. Even if,for a brief moment, every once in a while, in quiet times like this when it’s just the two of us, I go stupid and think there’s a chance Jules and I could actually work out.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

COLT

“Colt,” she whispers while poking me in the stomach. It’s still dark out, but the light is starting to creep in.

I rub one eye with the back of my hand but can’t rub the other because she’s got her head on my pillow, our faces pressed together, so that I don’t have access to it. “What time is it?”

She snuggles in closer. Our legs are already intertwined, as we apparently wrapped ourselves around each other in our sleep. As she shifts, her thigh presses into my cock and she laughs, a low, throaty sound that has me growing even harder against her. She hums her approval. “Time for you to listen to the brilliant idea I just had.”

“Okay.” The word is full of trepidation because she sounds wide awake and excited. After her sadness before falling asleep last night, this has me on high alert.

She keeps her eyes locked on me when she says, “I think you should be the one to take my virginity.”

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