Page 45 of Rush
“Hey,” I whispered, kissing her shoulder.
“Bucket list item five,” she muttered, her voice still heavy with sleep.
I tensed. “What?”
“Number five,” she repeated. “The question marks… I know what they mean now.”
“And what’s that?”
“I needed to experience what I’d been missing.”
“What you’d been missing?” Her words sucked all the warm feeling out of my body and replaced it with stone-cold dread.
“I’ve only ever been with Hunter,” she replied, slamming a metaphoric knife right into my chest. “Now I know…”
Everything inside me shattered. Fuck Ryan,check. A wild romp with a bad boy MMA fighter blew out all her cobwebs, gave her a glimpse at what she thought she was missing out on—which didn’t seem to be anything at all—and satisfied her morbid curiosity over my dick. Now she was free to go back to her job, find a new rich bastard to shack up with, and repair her perfect,shallow, little life.
“You thought this was…”Fucking hell. I practically vaulted out of bed and pulled on a pair of shorts.
Her mouth fell open as she sat up, clutching the sheets to her naked chest. “You mean… This was more?”
“Fucking hell,” I cursed again. “Fucking hell.”
“Ryan?”
“All this fucking time…” I fisted my hands in my hair.
“What are you talking about?”
It was pointless keeping the truth from her now. Not after I’d come inside her and she’d told me it was nothing but a stupid item on her bucket list. I’d helped her.I’d believed in her.
“You only ever had eyes for Hunter,” I said, my lip curling. “Then all these years later, you came running to me… Once a fool, always a fool!”
“Ryan…” She was trembling, her confusion clear.She still didn’t get it.
“The graduation party…”
“In high school? What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I went to see you that night, to tell you…” I couldn’t do this anymore. This…torture.
“But you didn’t…” she argued. “You didn’t go to that party.You weren’t there.”
“You were too busy sucking Hunter’s face to see me,” I said, snarling. “How could I go in there, tell you how I felt, and fuck up everything? You looked so happy, Jade. I was just some deadshit kid with no future.”
“And you just left?”
“Of course, I left!” I bellowed. “What the fuck could I offer you? Shallow, little Jade Forsyth, who only had eyes for money. The one thing I had, my love and devotion, wasn’t enough for someone like you. It still isn’t.”
“That’s not true!”
“Pack your shit, and get out,” I demanded.
“What?”
“Pack your shit, and get out,” I repeated, this time more forcibly. “When I get out of the shower, I want you gone. For fucking good. I’m so done with this bullshit. You never gave a stuff about me.Then or now.”
“Ryan!” she pleaded. “I didn’t realize. I didn’t mean…”
