Unwillingly Yours (Warning: Love Moderately) (6 page)

This time, Jaike really did smile, and it widened when Derek groaned. “Now I can die happy.”

She giggled.

Derek’s jaw dropped. “Did you just…giggle?”

“I did not.” Then she ruined it by giggling again.

“It’s the end of the world, isn’t it? You smiled at me, you giggled, what’s next?” He suddenly pulled her close. “You’ll let me kiss you?”

In an instant, amusement turned into a conflicting mass of emotions inside her. Jaike was shy, frustrated, and excited – and she didn’t like feeling any one of them. She frowned at the fingers encircling her wrist, hating how the skin there prickled in awareness. “Let go, Derek.” She tried wriggling her wrist out of his hold.

“Why not?” His thumb slowly stroked her knuckles, making her imagine how it would feel when it was other parts of her body he stroked.

Jaike pushed the thoughts away. She couldn’t think like that anymore. It wasn’t right.

 “I like you a lot. You know that, don’t you? Take a risk with me, Jaike. Go out with me.”

“I can’t.” The more he pushed, the more Derek terrified her with the feelings he evoked. They were so…strange. It was the only word she let herself use. Anything else was too dangerous.

“Yes, you can.”

“No, I can’t.” Jaike added in a small voice, “I’m dating Angelo Va---”

“Then stop dating him,” Derek interrupted coolly.

“No, you don’t understand.” She swallowed convulsively, knowing instinctively that Derek wouldn’t like what she was about to say. “I’m Angelo’s girlfriend now.”

Derek’s hands fell away so abruptly it was as if she had burned him. His voice was hoarse when he asked, “What did you say?”

Jaike forced herself to smile. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?” She had said it to lighten the air between them, but the moment the words left her lips she knew it had been the wrong thing to say.

Derek looked like she had stabbed – no, he looked at her as if she was a no-good cheat who had backstabbed him.

“I’m not going to fucking congratulate you,” he bit out.

She had a sudden urge to cry. Rage, Jaike would have been able to handle but the look of betrayal in Derek’s blue gray eyes wasn’t something she had prepared her heart for.

When she started to bend her head, Derek snapped, “Look at me!”

She did as asked, her lips trembling.

 “Why the fuck did you become his girlfriend, Jaike?”

“I c-care for him.”

Derek looked like he wanted to throttle her. “Liar.”

She glanced around nervously, torn by her need to comfort him and her desire to run away. “Derek, people might hear us---”

“Fuck them.” He grabbed her shoulders. “Can’t you feel how different we are together, Jaike?”

She turned her head away from his searching gaze. “I’m Angelo’s---”

“Don’t say his fucking name in front of me!”

“Am I interrupting something?”

Derek’s hands dropped from her shoulders and he stepped away as Angelo came to her side. Derek was breathing hard, but his face was without emotion when he met the other man’s gaze.

Jaike bit her lip as hard as she could. If she cried Derek would think that she was feeling sorry for him, and he would hate her for that.

Angelo slipped an arm around her waist and glanced down at her with a gentle smile. “Hi, cara.” He was as handsome as ever, dressed in a foam green collared shirt and designer jeans. The difference between him and Derek was glaring, and the difference with how they made Jaike feel was just as blatant.

“H-hi.” Normally, she loved hearing Angelo speak, his faint Italian accent lending a sweet cadence to his words, his voice settling over her like a blanket of tranquility. But now it did nothing to quiet the riotous emotions battering her heart.

“No kiss?” Angelo asked with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

The words were still spoken in a feather-soft voice, but Jaike knew it was a test. In the days she had spent with Angelo, she had slowly come to know the secret side of him, the one that was forceful and jealous. That side of him wordlessly demanded for Jaike to make a choice now.

Derek was staring at her.

I’m sorry. Jaike whispered the words silently to him just as she tiptoed to kiss Angelo on the cheek. Angelo twisted his head at the same time and their lips touched.

She pulled back in surprise, but Angelo only laughed. “Sorry. I couldn’t help it.”

          Derek was gone. She didn’t have to turn around to know it. His presence was like a coat that kept her warm, and when he left she was all frozen inside.

          Angelo pulled her close, stroking her hair, kissing her forehead. “You chose me.” He said it quietly.

          She closed her eyes, breathing in his familiar scent and drawing comfort from it. “I’ll always choose you,” she whispered, knowing that the words were heartbreakingly true.

          She pulled away when she felt Angelo hardening against her.

           “Don’t look at me like that, cara.” He caressed her cheek. “I’m sorry. I was too fast, wasn’t I?”

          Jaike nodded.

          His answering laugh sounded forced. “Not even going to deny that, huh?” He walked away, leaning against the rails, his hands clasped over it.

          Jaike knew what he wanted and, oh God, she wished she could give it to Angelo. Maybe someday she would but not now. She could make her mind rule her heart, but her body wasn’t hers to command. It only answered to its owner, and it wasn’t Angelo.

          Angelo glanced at her over the shoulder, a tender smile on his face, the rising sun in the distance creating a golden halo around him. “How about taking a side shot of me?”

          “Sure.” She smiled back, her body instantly relaxing at the familiar twinkle in Angelo’s eyes. This Angelo in front of her was the one she wanted, the one that kept her normal.

Jaike hurried to position, kneeling down again so she could get a different angle of Angelo.

          Click.

          When Angelo started to move, she shook her head. “One more.” She stood up and backed a couple of steps. When she took the shot, Jaike swallowed back a gasp.

          Derek stood at the foot of the bridge, the look on his face leaving her cold.

One Year Earlier

Midnight was the best time to take photos of the campus, especially after stressing over finals. All the streets were brightly lit but empty, the silvery sheen of moonlight turning whatever it touched into a black-and-white still painting.

          Jaike stretched luxuriously, arms over and behind her head, her joints aching after being on her knees taking close-up shots of roses that were just about to bloom. The night was colder than usual, making her wish she had worn something thicker than her cotton shirt and denim shorts.

          Looking around, Jaike found nothing familiar in her surroundings. Even after two years of college, her mind still couldn’t quite grasp at how enormous the university’s property was.  

          Just as Jaike was about to turn around and retrace her footsteps, something rustled behind the trees, followed by sounds that seemed like moans of pain. Jaike stilled, waiting for another sound even though she prayed at the same time that there wouldn’t be one.

          Another pain-filled moan emerged, and Jaike quickly fumbled for her pepper spray and torch from her pockets. Keeping her footsteps quiet, she slowly walked past the row of rose bushes circling the gazebo, her heart beating faster as the moans grew more frequent and louder.

          “No more.”

          “Shut up. You know you want this.”

          “No.”

          “Yes.” A grunt in the darkness.

          “No!”

          Reaching the edge of the bushes, she stepped past it and shone the light at where the sounds were coming from.

          The moan turned into a shrill scream. “Shut the light off!”

          “I’m sorry!” Jaike gasped, unprepared to see a couple making out instead of the rape scene she was expecting. She clumsily struggled to switch the torch off, wishing there was a way to forget what she had just seen.

          The girl had her arms around the tree’s bark, bent halfway so that her ass was up in the air while the man she was with thrust in and out of her from behind.

          “Mind your fucking business next time, bitch,” the girl snarled.

          Jaike looked up in dismay and was even more embarrassed when she saw the girl hastily putting her clothes on. “I’m sor---” Her voice died when the guy turned around, revealing a familiar set of features, but now the dark hair was matted with sweat, blue-gray eyes wide in shock.

          She walked away. But it wasn’t enough and soon she was running. Her feet pounded the pavement in heavy steps, the pain lodged inside her heart making her breath come out in broken gasps as she silently urged her legs to move faster.

          “Wait!”

          Jaike almost fell down in her haste. But it was a futile effort, and he caught up with her in seconds, forcing her to spin around to face him. It felt like the worst kind of déjà vu, a nightmare that only the most twisted mind could create.

          Moonlight cast Derek’s face in light and shadows, with not even a single shade of gray to numb the pain.

          He had been fucking another woman.

          The thought made Jaike gasp involuntarily, and when she noticed his partially unbuttoned jeans, a broken cry slipped past her lips.

          Derek cursed when she saw where she was looking at, his fingers automatically going to the buttons. “Jaike---”

          She shook her head furiously. “You don’t have to explain.”

          “Then why are you looking at me like that?”

          Jaike couldn’t speak. She knew that the answer to it was inside her somewhere, but she had buried it so deep she didn’t know where to find it anymore.

          Derek swore and she flinched at the sound of it.

          “Don’t look so goddamn hurt,” he snarled.

          She lifted her chin. “I’m not!” But her voice shook at the end.

          “Fuck! Fuck!” A look of bitter rage darkened his face and Derek looked around wildly as if searching for something he could thrash violently. “What did you fucking expect me to do, Jaike? You’re another guy’s girlfriend!”

          “I know!” She shouted the words out. She had to. If she let herself soften just one bit, she would break down, and she wouldn’t ever be the same again if that happened.

          “What did you think I’d fucking do? Wait for you forever?”

          Jaike shook her head, crying now. She hurt. They both hurt. But she just couldn’t see a way out for both of them to escape with their hearts intact.

          He grabbed her hand and placed it on his dick, which was still fully erect. “Do you feel that, Jaike? I’m fucking hard for you all the time and it’s goddamn hell knowing I can only touch myself and imagine that it’s you. When I fuck some other girl, I have to pretend she’s you.”