“Yeah, we made a stop there before flying to Nepal.” Even after her death, he protected her. That is love, or at least the kind of love I want. Rachel’s words came back to me, and everything finally clicked. She might have wanted the space she asked for, but she needed me to fight for her. Not just to sit back and wait for her to make a choice, but to show her that I’d protect her heart the way I should have the last time I held it.
I had to get out of this damn bar and find her.
“It really has been a busy term. You need some stress relief?” she asked, her eyes making clear what her offer really was.
This was the shit that was going to lose me any chance of being with Rachel.
“I need some stress relief,” Alex muttered.
“I actually need to g—” My words failed as I caught sight of Rachel across the bar. She had on some kind of getup that must have qualified as a dress, and it gave her super-petite frame million-mile legs.
Fuck me.
Her hair was down, sleekly brushing just under her chin, the purple highlights caught in the club’s lights. She looked like every man’s untouchable dream, the girl you knew would either give you the best sex of your life or the fastest ass kicking you’d ever receive.
To me, she’d always been an intoxicating combination of both.
She smiled at some overgrown meathead who leaned on the table next to her, openly ogling her breasts between comments that made her laugh.
My Rachel, laughing. Smiling. Did she just touch his arm? Look up at him through her lashes? Holy shit, was she flirting with him?
He brushed her hair back behind her ear.
Oh, hell no.
I was halfway across the club before I realized I’d taken a single step. Rachel did a double take when she saw me, her eyes raking up and down my body. Even though she arched that damn eyebrow at me, her lips parted.
That’s what my Rachel looked like when she was interested.
Not this smiley, flirty version this guy thought he was getting.
I didn’t stop until I was within kissing distance of her. She tilted her head at me, her lips curving at the edges.
“Can I help you?” Meathead asked, puffing out his chest like I gave a fuck who he was.
“Nope,” I answered without looking away from Rachel.
She shifted her weight and held my gaze. So damn beautiful.
“Is this guy bothering you?” Meathead asked Rachel.
“Every day of my life,” she answered.
“Look, I don’t know who the hell you think you are,” Meathead started.
“Hers. I’m hers,” I finished. There. Line drawn in the fucking sand. I was here to fight.
Her eyes widened, and all trace of playing left her face. “Landon…”
“Rachel.”
She looked over to Meathead. “Can you give us a second, Thomas?”
He looked between us and then swore under his breath. “Yeah. Sure.” He grabbed his beer bottle and left.
“Seriously?” I asked her.
“What? He’s in my geography class, and he asked me out this afternoon.”
“And you said yes?”
“Apparently,” she answered. “Just like you said yes and ran off with physics girl this afternoon.”
“She’s my lab partner.”
“Sure, that’s all,” she said sarcastically and took a sip of her cider before putting it on the table next to us.
Why the fuck didn’t she believe me? Because you haven’t given her a reason to.
“It is all. And what is this? Payback?”
“This is me living.” She shrugged.
I tucked my thumbs into the front pockets of my jeans to keep my hands off her. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to kiss her or throttle her, and neither was a good option. “I thought you were thinking about us?”
“Thinking means weighing my options.”
“And he’s an option?”
“Everything and nothing is an option,” she answered, sipping from a bottle of hard cider. “And if I marched over every time a girl had the nerve to touch you, I’d live plastered to your side.” She peered around me. “As a matter of fact, I think you’re being missed right now.”
“I don’t give a fuck.”
“You’d hate to miss an opportunity to uphold your name, wouldn’t you?”
I would have fired back if that little comment hadn’t been accompanied by a flash of pain in her eyes. “I’m exactly where I want to be.”
“Sure. For this five minutes, because I’m shiny and fun to chase. Every girl has fallen in your lap the last couple of years, right? I must be an intriguing little challenge.”
“Damn it, Rachel. I thought we made some progress in Nepal. Is it always going to be one step forward and two steps back with you?”
“In Nepal it was easy to remember why I fell for you. Here on the ship, it’s so much easier to see what you’ve become. How many have there been, Landon? How many memories are in your bed nowadays?” She forged on ahead, her eyes glossing over with a layer of what I was hesitant to call tears. “Can you remember them all?”
Heat rushed through my veins, a nauseating mixture of anger, shame, and the bitter taste of regret. My brain screamed at me to retreat and lick my wounds, to try again with her when she wasn’t on offense.
My heart reminded me that I was going to have to fight for this woman with every weapon in my arsenal if I wanted her.