Chapter 38
Shay
What. A. Freaking. Jerk.
What nerve Landon had walking up to me, looking all dapper, rich, and famous, like he hadn’t stomped on my heart and left me to die all those years ago.
What nerve he had to keep following me around that evening.
What nerve he had to keep trying to reconnect with me after all those years had passed.
I’d imagined what it would be like running into Landon a million times in the past. I’d played out scenarios of how I’d react. I’d gone through every version of it, too. There were three top situations I’d settled on the most.
1. Instant love. I’d see him, forgive him for everything he did, and ignore the fact that he disappeared, broke my heart, and left me for Sarah freaking Sims.
2. Unleash the rage of a million demons. I’d snap at him, tossing out every curse word in the Urban Dictionary, not acting my age or displaying any form of class.
3. Be like Michelle Obama. When he went low, I’d go high. I’d appear above it all. I’d smile, nod, agree, and let him know we were civil and fine. I’d comment on how we were so young when we were dating, say I’d moved on, and wish him well.
Option three was what I was trying to accomplish, but truthfully, I didn’t wish him well.
There was a good period of time I wished him massive diarrhea during a red carpet event.
I wished he’d trip on the steps before accepting his many Oscars.
I wished he’d go bald at thirty. There were many things I wished for Landon, but I definitely didn’t wish him well.
“I hate you,” I repeated as he stood in front of me, looking dumbfounded.
His face dropped, and my stomach rolled as I repeated the words.
“I hate you so much it makes me want to scream. I hate how you just showed up at my place after all this time, with no rhyme and no reason. I hate that you walked in as if we could just be the people we were before and fall back into some normal conversation. And mostly I hate you because it was the only way I was able to stop the aching in my chest from the pain you caused me.”
“Shay—”
“Don’t.” I shook my head, feeling the whiskey coursing through my system. “Don’t do that. Don’t say my name like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like it still belongs on your tongue. I worked hard to get over you, Landon. I worked hard to get over the hurt you caused me, the heartache you created. So excuse me if I don’t feel as if we can have anything more than friendly conversation.
I have to hate you, Landon,” I said, my voice low and shaky.
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t, you’ll be able to break me all over again.”
“Shay,” he pleaded, moving in closer. I kept backing up until I bumped into a wall, and he boxed me in. The heat of his body pooled around mine, and I tried to ignore the thumping of my heart pounding against my chest.
There it was—the fireworks, the angst, the indescribable feeling Landon always unleashed in me.
The yin and yang of emotions he’d been able to build up inside of me confused me so much.
I wanted to push him away while pulling him in closer.
I wanted to slap him and let my fingers linger against his skin.
I wanted to kiss him. Gosh, I wanted to kiss his full lips that were only inches away from me, breathing their hot breaths against me, his cupid’s bow so perfectly shaped, so perfectly full, so perfectly . . .
No.
“Hear me out, Shay. I’m not that same boy I was when I left you all those years ago. I’ve done a lot of work on myself.”
“I know that,” I agreed. “But you never came back. ‘When I get better, I’ll come back.’ Remember? Or did fame make you forget?”
He lowered his head. “I remember, but if you let me explain.”
“I don’t care,” I lied. I had to lie. It was the only way I could keep from allowing myself to completely melt into him.
The truth was, I did care. A big part of me loved hearing that he’d found his way, that he was OK.
A bigger part of me craved the answers I’d never received from him for why he never came back.
But another part was still aching from the way he’d broken me. On his way to self-discovery, he took a sledgehammer to my heart, and now he stood over me as if he was expecting me to give him my all.
There was no way I’d do that again.
I wasn’t that same, naive, full-of-hope girl that I once was, and I wouldn’t make that same mistake twice. I’d given him my all once, and he had treated it like trash, something to be tossed out because someone better came along.
“I’ve changed too, Landon. I’m not that same girl you knew.”
“I know,” he agreed. “I can tell. You’re stronger. Wiser.”
“Your compliments do nothing for me.”
“That doesn’t mean they aren’t true.” He ran a hand over his face. “Do you really hate me?” he asked, his voice low and controlled.
“No,” I said. I blinked my eyes shut. “But that doesn’t mean I want to be your friend.”
“I’m not asking you to be my friend, Chick.”
“Then what are you asking?”
“I don’t know,” he confessed as he raked his hands through his hair. “It’s odd being around you after all this time. I can’t act sarcastic and light with you. Not after all we’d been through.”
“You don’t even know me anymore, Landon. We were kids back then who knew nothing about life.”
“I’d like to get to know you again.”
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I would.”
I huffed, growing annoyed by his words. So, what? He got to pick and choose when he came back into my life? Now I’d managed to fit into his schedule?
The whiskey swirled inside me, and my heart was trying its hardest to escape my chest because it didn’t want to feel so much. I’d worked hard at shutting off my emotions a long time ago when it came to men. Leave it to Landon to walk in and effortlessly flip that switch.
He moved in closer, and my hands landed against his chest and lightly shoved him. “Screw you, Landon.”
“There it is. Now we’re getting to the real emotions,” he said, stepping in again. “Tell me what you’re feeling, Shay.”
I shoved him again. “Screw you for right now.” Shove.
“Screw you for the years of silence.” Shove.
“And screw you for making it impossible for me to trust again.” I kept listing off all the emotions shooting through me as I shoved him repeatedly.
Tears burned at the back of my eyes as I lay my hands against his chest.
Shove. Shove. Shove. Pull.
Pull?
I pulled him closer. I pulled at his suit, bringing him in toward my chest. I pulled him inches away from me.
Centimeters. Millimeters. The air in the space between us became harder to breathe as he stared down at me with such intent in his eyes.
I should’ve shoved him again. I should’ve pushed him away.
And yet instead, I yanked his expensive tie toward me and pulled him into the deepest kiss of my life.
I kissed him with my love and then with my hatred.
My hands wrapped around his neck as he placed his hands behind my back, kissing me as if he was relying on my lips for his next breath of oxygen.
His hands fell beneath my ass, and he lifted me into the air as I wrapped my legs around his waist. He pressed me against the wall, his hardness pushing against the fabric of my dress.
I dropped a hand down and hiked the dress up my thighs, allowing him to thrust his hips forward, showing me his want, his need, everything I’d been missing over the years.
“Shay,” he growled against my lips.
“Don’t talk,” I ordered as my hands moved to his belt buckle, scrambling to get it undone before I came back to Earth and realized the massive mistake I was partaking in.
I’d regret this in the morning when the whiskey faded and reality set in, but in the heat of the moment, feeling him pressed up against my thigh, feeling his throbbing need, wanting to remember what it felt like having him so deep inside me, I gave in.
Whiskey and memories won that night as I ordered for my once-hero-turned-villain to take me right then and there.
A pool of heat filled my stomach as his hands wrapped around my thong and he ripped it off.
His eyes were dilated and his touches were controlled as I slid his pants down to his ankles.
He locked eyes with me and waited for a second as his hardness rubbed against my core, almost as if asking permission to enter.
I nodded once, and that was all he needed. He slid himself so deep inside me, I almost cried out from the unbelievable pleasure.
“Oh my gosh,” I whispered, laying my head on his shoulder and moaning into him to muffle the sound. I then looked up and locked eyes with him. “Don’t be a fucking loser, Landon,” I whispered against the edge of his ear, trailing my tongue against it. “Fuck me like you mean it.”
That was when I saw the flash of madness unleash from him, and he began pounding into me, wild, untamed, and unleashed.
And it felt so good that I couldn’t hold in my orgasm much longer. As I released myself against him, he dug his fingers into my back, holding me up as he kept feeding his cock into me. I hated him. I hated him so much for making me feel so good.
“For me being a fucking loser, you sure come pretty hard,” he murmured, tangling his hands in my hair. He tilted my head back and made me lock eyes with him. “Now. Come for this loser again.”
He placed me down, pressed me against the wall with my ass facing him, and he began to pound me from behind, lifting my left leg onto his left arm.
I cried out from the bliss of our sins that night.
I didn’t know what it was that we were doing, because I was so pissed off at him, but still .
. . it felt so good. Was this just sex? Was it hatred?
Was I screwing the first and only man I loved with nothing but spite?
And if so . . . how could something so wrong feel so right?
I came three more times for him in three different positions before he began to reach his end. “Shay, I’m going to . . .” His words faltered as his thrusts intensified, pounding more and more, and then he let himself go, giving me all of him.
I loved that I did that to him—made him fall apart inside of me.
Then, after we both reached our climax, reality came settling back in. We stood there for a few seconds, almost dumbfounded by what just took place.
He slid out of me, and I worked to find my footing. A chill filled the room, and all the heat that had been there moments ago faded away.
I pulled down my dress and smoothed my hands over it, realizing that my panties were now ripped off.
He parted his lips, but no words came out. That was a good thing. There wasn’t anything left to say. At least in my mind there wasn’t.
“I should go,” I said, gathering my things and trying to tame the wildness of my hair and my heart.
My heart that I didn’t know still knew how to beat for a man like him.
Stop it, heart.
Turn back off.
“Wait, we should talk,” he said.
“I think we’ve done enough already.”
I headed toward the door, and he reluctantly followed after me.
As we walked out of the room, the security guy guarding the room looked both Landon and me up and down with a devilish smirk on his face. He proceeded to hold his hand up to Landon with his chest puffed out with pride.
“Hell yeah! I knew you’d nail it down. She’s hot, man,” he exclaimed to Landon, as if Landon had done some kind of good deed for the Dicks Across America movement by getting in my pants.
My chest tightened from the whole interaction.
Was that the whole reason he walked into that room with me?
To get laid? For an old-time bang? To see if his past tasted as good as his present days?
Did he mention it to that security guy before entering the room?
Was I just a game to him? Did I give him exactly what he came for?
A fury of anger settled in my gut.
Landon didn’t high-five the guy, but he kept following me. “Shay, wait,” he called out.
I tried to push back the emotions building up inside me, because I felt like crying, and I wouldn’t cry over something as stupid as sleeping with Landon.
Even though during the sex, it felt like the greatest memory of us—of who we used to be.
It felt as if we were meant to be together, as if our bodies moved as one and he understood exactly what it took to take me to that next level.
It felt like I was his, and he was mine again.
If only for a few moments in time.
I walked off, feeling as if I’d just been slammed into a wall with a semitruck. My body ached not only from the soreness of how Landon rocked me but also from the pain of how he rocked my soul.
He wasn’t supposed to be able to do that anymore.
I’d spent the past years trying to delete every part of him from my entire being.
But it turned out first loves were unable to fully erase from a person’s psyche.
A part of Landon would always live in my heart.
From his kiss alone, he unlocked that corner of my heartbeats—and then proceeded to break it all over again.
I stopped drinking for the remainder of the night, and regrettably, Landon stayed on my mind. Once I got home, I began to write, feeling an overflow of inspiration due to the boy who once loved me. The boy who I once stupidly loved back.