Used (Unlovable, #1) (Unlovable Series) (16 page)

Most nights, I microwave leftovers and eat in my room since I work the ranch or my horses as late as possible just so I can avoid situations like this. I’ll be damned if they’re going to keep me from enjoying my favorite dish. I don’t know how I do it, but I chew and savor every bite even though Greer’s comment rings in my head,
“You don’t even love the kid you’ve got.”
I think it. All the time. But to have it said aloud … cuts deeply.

Greer and I clean our plates, and I’m up and moving while still chewing my last bite. I swallow a hunk of food because I can’t resist getting in one last jab. Turning, I mockingly assess my mother’s appearance. “Mom, you’ve done something different,” I revere. She doesn’t catch the not-so underlying sarcasm.

She touches her perfectly coifed hair, and then her hand flits to move around face. “Is it my new make-up?” she replies seriously.

“No,” I hum, pretending to ponder. “Oh, I know!” I snap, slapping my hands together. She preens. “Your roots are showing,” I deadpan.

I see her snort but can’t hear her over Greer’s roar of laughter.

G
REER WALKS ME
to my room after our disastrous dinner. When we’re just outside my room, he pulls me back by my elbow and pushes me against the wall with his body. Intertwining our fingers, he rests his forehead against mine. “Jesus, I don’t know how you live like this. You know, I already admired you,” he confesses as his lips make contact with my forehead. “But seeing all that firsthand, I have a new level of respect. You’re eighteen. You could … leave.”

“I can’t leave. I have too much invested here.” Lord knows, I thought about it. “You’re the only way I’m able to get through it,” I whisper. “You and my horses. If it weren’t for y’all …” We’re standing outside my bedroom. And I need him. I need him to make all that go away.

I push my butt off the wall and collide with him, rubbing myself against the front of his jeans. He hardens immediately. He’s so weird about having sex when my mom and Blake are in the house, so I know he’s going to take some convincing. I run my lips up his throat, teasing him with my tongue as I drop back down. I unravel our fingers and unsnap a button. Kiss. Another button. Lick. Another button. Bite. His hands trail around my hips to my behind, and he squeezes me to him. One hand runs down my thigh and latches onto the back of my knee as he brings my leg up to rest around his hip. I grind against him. “Mmm … Greer. You feel so good sliding against me. I want you inside me.”

He pauses from nipping at my ear. “Oh, yeah?” His smile presses against my throat.

“Oh, yeah,” I moan. “Come in my bedroom with me?”

“’K,” he readily agrees.
Yes!

Opening my eyes is my first mistake. Glancing down
his
body is my second. “You sick fucker,” I fume.

“Denver, what the—” Greer jerks back.

“Blake’s the fuck. That’s what.” Greer spins around, but by then, Blake has his arms folded across his chest, the lustful look having disappeared as well.

“Denver, I don’t think your mother would appreciate you bringing your boy toy into your room this late at night.”

Greer slides in front of me, blocking my view of him. “You were told never to speak to her. I’m pretty sure we made that clear.”

I slide my arms around Greer and pull him to me, standing on my tippy-toes to glare at Blake. He gives me an all too-knowing, all too-satisfied look. I see red.

I run one hand up Greer’s chest and the other down until I reach his belt buckle; he stiffens under my hands. I plant a kiss on the side of his neck before looking back at Blake and offering, “Want to join us, or you just wanna watch?”

“Denver,” Greer hisses.

Blake’s look falls, and he suddenly looks disgusted.

“Oh … I get it,” I hum. “Now that I’m Greer’s whore, I’m not good enough to be yours.”

He jerks back, blowing a quick breath through his nose, spins around, and heads back to his room.

Greer’s head drops to his chest before he mumbles, “That wasn’t right.”

“What? Making him feel uncomfortable? I live for that.” I run my hand down his jeans and try to bring him back to life.

His hand clasps mine, throwing it off. “I’m not in the mood anymore.”

“C’mon, Greer. I need you,” I beg in between the kisses I rain on his back.

Jerking out of my hold, he spins around and narrows his eyes at me. “Look,” he demands, pointing his finger at me. “I know you’re using me. I accepted that a long time ago. But not like this. I’m not fucking you like this.”

“Like what?” I ask, playing dumb.

“While I feel this way … while I feel this …
used
.”

R
OLLING OVER,
I groan as the beat in my head throbs harder. When Greer left me in an embarrassed, yet turned on, heaping pile of emotional shit, I went down and finished off the bottle of whiskey before stumbling back up here to collapse and pass out—fully dressed and spread-eagled across my bed.

God, I’ve said and done some stupid shit to Greer over the years, but last night I had really taken the cake, lined up my baseball bat, and smashed it to smithereens. I’ve stooped to an all-new level of low. Allowing others to control my emotions was stupid and pointless and unforgivable.
I
should be in control of how I feel, how I behave. I’m going to be out of here in four months. Controlling myself for that long shouldn’t be a problem. First up, no more using Greer. Of course, I knew I was using him. I knew he was aware of that too, but he’s never called me on it quite like that before. And after everything he’s done for me, I can’t continue to hurt him like this. I have to find other ways to numb myself. I whisper a prayer of thanks again for the fact that he’s going off to Wyoming for college. I’ll miss him. Every single day. But I know this is what’s best for him. And for me.

Reaching blindly for my nightstand, I hear several things crash to the floor before my hand curls around my cell.

I pull up his contact information and stare at his face for moment. I’ve never figured out how someone could look so angelic and so rugged at the same time, but he always manages to pull it off. His look is so unique, so striking, that it didn’t matter where in the country we traveled to, people always paused to appreciate it.

I snapped this picture of him while we were lying alongside one another down by our creek. It was our traditional first ride this past summer. I dozed off for a few minutes until I stirred, feeling overly heated from him devouring me with his eyes. I peeked out at him with one eye, and the look I’d felt him giving me didn’t change.

“Don’t move,” I whispered, sliding the phone out of my pocket and snapping his picture.

“Why’d you take that?” he asked.

“Because I’ve never seen anyone else look at me like that … and I don’t ever want to forget it.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m the most precious thing you’ve ever seen.”

“I’ll never let you forget that,” he vowed, sealing it with a kiss.

That ever-endearing look disappears as my phone times out, and I unlock it quickly to bring him back up.

How ‘bout mending fences?

I have to wait several minutes for him to respond.
Meet you by the barn in 30.

K

Once he shows up, I’ve got the Gator packed and ready to go. He jumps in without a word, and I whisk us off to the back forty. The sounds of hammers, the rough-cut saw, and the wildlife that teems back here, usually undisturbed, are the only noises that ring out for hours. Without even discussing the process or who will do what, Greer and I work side-by-side, in sync with one another while repairing the fence that runs between our properties.

Again I find myself wondering why I can’t accept all that Greer offers me. Why I can’t be whole. Why I can’t be normal. I remind myself that, while he thinks himself in love with me, it’s only because he doesn’t see the real me. If he saw the real me, he’d run for the hills. Well, he did get a glimpse of the real me last night and did run for the hills.

When we’ve run out of materials, I drive the John Deere into the little meadow that is surrounded by a circle of trees. The barrenness of winter has crept over the land, leaving trees to look like they’re made of only sticks, and a wide-open space filled with dead, brown grass. When the wildflowers bloom back here in the springtime, it looks like an alternate universe. How can something so utterly dead be brought to life like that?

Killing the engine, I sit for a few minutes before breaking the engulfing silence. “I’m sorry, Greer.” I don’t even look over at him.

“Me too.”

“Are you kidding me?” I finally glance at him. “You have nothing to be sorry for. You’ve never done anything but be there for me. God, what a curse that’s been laid upon you … I can’t believe He burdened you with me.”

“If you’re a curse, then I’m gladly damned,” he whispers, running his calloused thumb along my jaw. “I shouldn’t have said that last night about you using me.” I start to speak, but he silences me with a look. “You can’t use someone who is willing, Denver. That was stupid of me. I knew what I was doing when I got into this with you. You laid all your cards on the table. I just always hoped that you’d move beyond all that pain, all that self-hatred, and see me. See me, waiting here for you. Accepting you. Wanting you.” His thumbs sweep up to run under my eyes to catch my tears.

The pain-riddled words … kill me … but make me stronger at the same time. “We can’t do this anymore, Greer. I can’t use you like that anymore. What you saw last night … that is the real me. I still want us to be friends, but no more screwing around. I can’t be the cause of all
your
pain anymore,” I punch through my tear-laden voice.

He opens his mouth, looking determined to argue with me but snaps it back closed before mumbling, “Shh … come on. Let’s eat.” He climbs out of the front of the Gator and walks around to the back.

While we’re eating Greer regales me with story after story of our youth and all the trouble we stirred up around here, which soon has me laughing the sweet kind of tears. He says he’s getting sentimental since our time is getting short.

“Do you think you’ll come back here?” I ask him.

His brow furrows. “Of course I’m coming back here.” He hesitates for a second. “Are you thinking of not coming back?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’d be best not to. If I win enough money on the circuit, I can buy my own place and start over. I don’t know if I even want to have a place this big and run a cattle ranch on my own. I’m thinking I’ll just stick to breeding and training barrel horses.”

“On your own …” He leaves the words hanging in the air.

“Greer,” I whisper. He has to know that we’ll never be together.

“I’m not dating anyone,” he states. I turn to him and see sheer panic burning in his eyes. I tilt my head, wondering where he’s going with this, and his mouth slams down onto mine. I wince and cry out. His hands are in my hair, pulling me back and drawing me in simultaneously. For a moment, I revel in his rough but worshipful assault. His tongue thrusting in and out of my mouth reminds me of what I am trying to break off with him.

I pull back slightly. “Greer, no. We can’t. Not anymore,” I mumble against his lips. He pulls my head back by my hair and works his lips down my throat while one hand begins to unzip my jacket. He’s so practiced with me that in seconds, he has my shirt unbuttoned and my lace-covered nipple in his mouth.

“Greer,” I groan, as he tugs and pulls with his teeth. “Please. Stop.”

Both of his hands move to cover my breasts, and I hear a rip before His rough hands massage me. My head falls back, and I whimper, my reasoning for not doing this quickly evaporating. I grasp at the vapors of my argument once more. “No, I don’t want to do this anymore,” I try again. It sounds weak, even to my own ears.

“Do what?” he murmurs around his sucking and his kissing.

“Use you anymore.”

He tilts his body to the side and shoves his hand down my jeans, his finger sliding into me with ease. “Then I’ll use you,” he rasps. My resolve shatters as his finger works in and out of me, rotating and pinching over my little bud before he pushes back in again and again until I am an incoherent, writhing mass beneath him. He slips his hand out and stands. “Take your clothes off,” he tells me.