Ripped

The daring lift of his brow surprises me. “Excuse me?”

“Enjoy that? Making me jealous?”

“What do you mean? Because I was watching Remington?” I stare at the sidewalk across the street. “All my friends have that and it makes me curious, but I don’t want it. I don’t need it. I want to be independent all my life,” I lie.

He chuckles softly. “Your nose just grew about an inch.”

“Fine. I may want it, but I don’t think I’ll get it . . . not that you’d understand.”

“I understand. I want something normal too, you know.”

I’m so surprised, I stop walking and whirl around to face him. “You want a wife? You have a freaking harem.”

“So? I want a wife someday.”

An elderly couple walks past us and I stare at their intertwined hands, weathered with age but still holding on to each other.

And they’re not even talking, as if they know all they need to about each other.

Suddenly all the memories of walks with Mackenna, unable to hold hands because we’d be seen, hurtle through my mind, and a new thought teases me, begs me to find out if that’s the reason he’s now so determined to hold my hand. When he drives. When we were in the restaurant. Even after we fuck.

The question hammers at me, at all my precious walls, and I’m so torn, I’m powerless to resist him.

Especially now, when his eyes glimmer in the moonlight, his face patterned with all kinds of interesting shadows that make him look hotter, his lips softer, his lashes longer.

“I’m not a jealous guy,” he says, studying me intently. “Fuck, maybe I am jealous. I’m insanely jealous. How come you smiled at him and not at me?”

“Because we’re fuck buddies. You want to think only you can make me smile.”

“I can make you smile. Hell, I can make you laugh like nobody’s business.”

I try to start walking, but he swings me around and takes my shoulders in his hands, whispering an order that sounds almost like a plea. “Mash up a song with me.”

“What?”

He pulls me close to him and hums against the top of my head. “Come on,” he urges, ducking to softly kiss the top of my ear. “Mash a song with me,” he repeats.

“You make me do some stupid things,” I groan.

“All part of my charm, Pink. Now come on,” he presses, his voice lulling me into a relaxed mood. Plus, how to resist the twinkle in those wolfish eyes? I love those eyes, even though they haunt me, see me, build me, break me . . .

I clear my throat, readying myself to lose what little pride I have left, and I give it a try. “ ‘Like a virgin . . .’ ”

He laughs and adds in that low, unique baritone of his, “ ‘Take me over, take me out, give me something, to dream about . . .’ ”

“ ‘Like a virgin, feel so good inside.’ ”

“ ‘Tastes so good it makes a grown man cry . . . Sweet Cherry Pie!’ ”

I start laughing. We’re so ridiculous, but Mackenna eases me back against a storefront window, adding some awesome lyrics from Miss Independent. “ ‘And she move like a boss . . . Do what a boss do . . .’ ”

“ ‘I don’t believe a masterpiece, could ever match your face,’ ” I whisper from Kylie Minogue.

“ ‘When I see you, I run out of words to say . . .’ ”

God. It feels like he’s singing to me. And . . . is that “Beautiful,” by Akon?

I’m so affected and drawn into the moment—the sudden memory of when I lost him—I go for a slow one from the Fray. “ ‘Where were you when everything was falling apart . . . all my days, spent by the telephone . . .’ ”

He comes in with Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” “ ‘I hate to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain . . .’ ”

And I’m suddenly full-blown emotional with Rihanna’s “Take a Bow.” “ ‘How about a round of applause . . . standing ovation . . .’ ”

He drops his voice and strokes his silver ring across my lower lip, just like I watched Remy rub Brooke’s. “ ‘And you can tell everybody, this is your song . . .’ ” Elton John.

“ ‘I’m falling apart, I’m barely breathing . . . ,’ ” I softly sing, from Lifehouse’s “Broken.”

And then him, his voice low and smooth, “ ‘Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel like you’re nothing, you’re fucking perfect to me.’ ”

Pink’s perfect song in his manly voice makes me pause, and suddenly I can’t think of anything because I both feel serenaded and accused, as though I just unknowingly pieced my feelings into random songs and random words, and blended them with his.

He’s watching me, waiting for something to happen.

“This right here.” Wearing a genuine smile, he looks up at the sky, then swings his finger between me and him. “There’s nothing better. No better song. I could mash songs all day and be in heaven.”

“You have horns, Kenna, you’ll never set foot in heaven.”

“All the more reason I need to find my own little version of heaven here on earth.” He smirks, and looks at me in his sweet, wolfish way as we once again start walking toward the car.

“See, a song was made to be alone. A duet?” he says, thoughtful as our feet pound the sidewalk. “Every singer has a part. Everyone knows what they’re saying. But a mashup, you take two songs created to stand alone, and you mash them. And although they’re meant to be alone, together they’re crazy and don’t even make sense, but somehow, they do.”

I start past him, down the block. “Whoa, what’s wrong?” he says.

“I can’t do this.”

He stops me and pulls me around. “Yeah, you can, Pink. You can do this.”

“Being with you again is destroying me!” I cry.

He stares at me and takes me by the shoulders. Anger and frustration and love—yes, love!—rear up in me, but my voice is weak and forlorn.

“What is it that you want, Mackenna? What do you want from me?”

He clenches his jaw and looks at me with eyes that scream their torture. “I had your heart once, Pink, and it wasn’t enough. I have your body now, but it’s not enough.” He holds my face in order to force my eyes to stay on his as he demands, “I want your mind, your dreams, your hopes, your fucking soul. I want it all.”

I feel like I just lost a battle.

I feel . . . destroyed.

I kid myself that I hate him, but I don’t hate him. What I feel for him is unchanging and unstoppable. Nothing about my feelings for him has changed—only the other feelings it gave me. It used to feel good, loving him. I felt whole, excited, happy to be alive. Then he left and I hated feeling that love. It ate at me, corroded me, haunted me. Now here I am, thinking I could find closure while sharing his bed. His kisses. Learning more about him, and what he’s doing. Liking it too much.

I can’t kid myself into blaming him for my mistakes. I can’t kid myself into blaming him for me not being able to get over him.

My anger was my disguise. But now he’s taken off my mask.

And I. Love. Him.

I still do. Always have, always will. I love this man—this rock god—as much as a drummer loves his beat. But it’s clear to me that we can never be, even if the miraculous would happen and he could love me back, and be true only to me. Even then, it could never work.

Ever.

He has no idea, no idea. But I do.

“You can’t have it all,” I whisper, praying he doesn’t hear the tremor in my voice. “You already took it. You took it, and now I have nothing left to give to anyone.”

“Listen to me,” he says with quiet command, forcing me to look up at him, into his face, carved with relentless determination. “The woman I see now is not nothing, she’s everything. Everything. You broke me too, Pink. Us . . . us broke me.”

He reaches into his jeans pocket, and I blink at the ring he holds out.

His promise ring.

Is this a promise ring?

What are you promising me?

Me.

My stomach plummets as I see the familiar yellow gold band, the tiny diamond in the center held up by six legs, as if begging for attention. “Don’t,” I whisper.

He clenches his jaw. “Pandora, I didn’t leave you because I wanted to. I left you because I had to.”

“No you didn’t. You didn’t have to!”

“I fucking did. And if you don’t believe me, you can go ahead and ask your mother.”

“What?” Tears blur my eyes. “What does she have to do with anything?”

“She never wanted us together, babe. I’m sure that’s no news to you.”

“That still doesn’t mean you had to give her more power over us than she already had over me.”

“She had power over my dad. Over his sentence.” A stony look crosses his face, and his voice grows hard with rage. “She offered to cut his sentence if I left you alone. She told me I wasn’t worth even a moment of your day wasted thinking of me. I promised her I’d be back for you. Hell, I told her I was going to be good for any woman’s daughter, especially hers. All I was waiting for was for my dad to serve his sentence. I have been planning for years to come back to you, Pandora!”