Page 1 of Need You to Choose Me

PROLOGUE

Olive

Ifeel thepang in my heart before he cements my fear into words. I hear his even breathing, deep and contemplative with every lift and fall of his naked chest beside me. I feel the weight in the mattress dip as he shifts away from my hold, distant and angry at the changing atmosphere I created with my honesty.

The end crackles between us like a dying fire, yet I still feel the burn of the flames as cold frustration radiates from him. He swings his legs over the side of the bed and starts collecting the clothes we’d scattered in a hurried frenzy across his bedroom floor.

“I thought we had an agreement,” Alex grumbles with his back turned to me, the taut muscles he’s worked hard for stretching as he slips on his shirt.

When his tan skin is covered, I let out a tiny breath. “We did,” I say quietly, grabbing the blanket and covering my torso as I sit up.

“Then why?” His tone is short as he grabs his boxers and slides them on next. When he stands and turns to me, there’s an accusation on his pinched face.

As if this ismyfault.

But it’s his too.

I let go of the blanket, letting it pool around my waist. His icy blue eyes wander, flaring with the heat I already miss as he takes in my bare breasts. Only minutes ago he was doing ungodly things to them with his mouth and hands, and we were enjoying every second of one another’s company. How did we get here?

His gaze sears into me as his nostrils flare open. I’ve never looked like any of the puck bunnies who chase him around. They’re all glamorous and put together—petite, skinny, and every man’s wet dreams. But Alex always looked at my curvy, size-eighteen body with the kind of lust that made me feel ten times more beautiful than any of those other girls. It didn’t matter if I had a face full of my favorite makeup or was wearing something frumpy that made me look tom boyish.

His attention was always on me.

Even now, those gorgeous ocean eyes fill with just as much heat as they do frustration—like a storm brewing into something far bigger.

I do that to him.

Me.

“Don’t pin this all on me, Alex. It takes two to wind up in this sort of situation. Feelings don’t blossom out of nothing.”

“Situation,” he scoffs, raking a hand through his dark brown hair that’s grown out over the last few months. He evades his eyes from my large assets pebbled from the cold temperature of the room. He gingerly walks over and grabs my clothes and tosses them onto the foot of the bed. “Get dressed.”

“Alex—”

“We agreed, Olive,” he cuts me off coolly, pinning me with a daggered look that makes me swallow the rest of my words. What could I do? Beg? Plead? I’m not that kind of girl.

I never will be. I have too much pride.

“We agreed. No attachments. No feelings. No—” His teeth grind, leaving his jaw ticking.

Jesus Christ. He can’t even say it.

“Love,” I finish for him, gathering my clothes and starting to dress myself. My jerky movements aren’t rushed, but the shake to my hands as I hook on my bra and pull the borrowedhoodie over my head don’t go unnoticed by the man shredding everything I’ve given him tonight.

A huge piece of my heart.

My trust.

The hope that I so foolishly felt.

Sure, we’d had an agreement. But I thought time had made us into…more. I’ve never said those three words to anybody other than my family and friends. I always thought when I finally said them aloud to a partner, it would be reciprocated. My heart twists not that I know just how wrong I was to assume.

He turns to give me privacy as I slip out of his bed as if we haven’t seen each other naked plenty of times before. We hadn’t necessarily said that we were exclusive, but he’d told me as long as we were seeing each other he wouldn’t touch another woman. He would hold me long after the orgasms had subsided, and finger-comb my hair until I’m lulled to sleep. He’d brush hips lips against my head tenderly and murmur my name in contentment until sleep found him too. He never asked me to leave or walked out after the deed was done.

That means something. To him and me.

No attachments?

---