Page 36 of No Broken Promises

Except, as Remy wipes my juices from his mouth onto the back of his hand and smiles down at me, I know that I am lying. The bulge in his pants and the way he made me climax in less than two minutes against a wall outside my house calls me out as the liar I am.

The silent threat in his eyes both terrifies me and sends a shiver of excitement down my spine at the same time.

Jeremy Townsend is my kryptonite, and I just hope I have the strength to walk away when he is done with me.

15

REMY

Daisy walks at my side up the sidewalk of Parker’s house and sits dutifully as I knock on the door. I’ve never been so nervous in my life. Three deployments, all the years in the Marine Corps, and the experience I had as a cop, and I feel like everything led me to this one particular moment in time.

Nox answers the door with a smile on his face and the same suit he’d been wearing earlier at his concert. The only thing missing is his father’s Purple Heart. “You’re here?” He turns and shouts into the living room. “Moooom. Uncle Remy is here!” Then he is off like a rocket, and all of the nerves have vanished in a puff of smoke.

Parker isn’t wearing the same dress she’d been wearing earlier. Instead, she has on another pair of tight black leggings and a dark-green shirt. One that looks suspiciously like it had belonged to me in high school. Even with the curves that Parker has now, my shirt still hangs well past her hips.

“Is that my shirt?” I blurt the question, unable to take my eyes off her.

She looks down, tilting her head to the side as she thinks about it for a second. Then she grips the hem and holds the shirt out to inspect it like she is wearing a bib or something, and I am teased with the image of her bare skin and the bottom of her unbound breasts.

“Yeah,” she says, and I realize I’ve completely forgotten the question while I think about getting her naked beneath me again. “I think I stole it from you senior year.”

She rights the shirt, thankfully, and turns toward the kitchen where I see Nox going to town on a bowl of ice cream topped with caramel and fudge.

“What are you doing here, Remy?” She takes a step closer to me while she tries to keep our conversation quiet. “You need to go.”

“No,” I tell her. “Not gonna happen. As much as I want to get you naked and beneath me, we need to talk. Straighten some shit out. I knew if I left you alone for too long, you’d get it in your head that I’m using you for something sexual. So now, you’re stuck with me and Daisy for a little while tonight. After Nox goes to bed, we can talk.” I waggle my eyebrows at her. “After the much-needed conversation that we need to have, we can maybe get naked and have fun or do something naughty. Whatever you want.”

“Not gonna happen,” she mimics me, rolling her eyes as she says it. Then her gaze falls on the flag on her wall and the dog tags hanging beneath them. A dramatic sigh, one that seems to be pulled from her toes all the way through her body, escapes Parker’s lips. “Fine. You can stay. But after we talk, you’re going home.”

“Mom,” Nox says from the doorway with Daisy sitting at his side like he is her owner. “I’m giving Daisy a bowl of ice cream. Is that okay?”

I nod in response before Parker can tell him not to do it. “She’s a sucker for ice cream. No chocolate, though, okay?”

Nox takes off without giving me an answer and Daisy follows him, her tail wagging and her tongue hanging out of her mouth.

“Have a seat,” Parker offers. “I’ll only be a little bit. Nox just has to finish dessert and then get ready for bed, since he decided not to spend the night with Rose.”

She walks away, leaving me standing in the living room like a jackass. I take one look at the couch and decide that isn’t on the table for me. Instead, I follow her into the kitchen and pause at the doorway, doing my best not to interfere in their nighttime ritual. Daisy, however, has no such compunction. She plops herself in front of Nox, happily lapping the vanilla ice cream he put in a bowl for her.

While Parker washes the dishes and Nox chatters with Daisy about his concert and what he’d done for the day, I get to imagine what my life would have been like if I hadn’t pushed Parker away all those years ago.

Parker’s dress matched my eyes, and I knew she’d picked it out on purpose. Parker did that type of shit, and it made her happy, so I didn’t call her on it. Besides, knowing that she belonged to me as much as I belonged to her did something to my heart. She stood there, at the edge of the party, and waited for me to pay attention to her. Like my eyes hadn’t been glued on her the entire evening.

“Don’t know why you insist on coming to these things.” I handed her a cup of soda because she doesn’t drink, even if everyone else does. “You never really enjoy yourself.”

“You graduated boot camp, Remy. You did it. You’re a Marine.” Her voice filled me with images of her underneath me, completely naked. The same way I’d seen her in my dreams every single night of training. “We have to celebrate.”

A glimmer in her eye, one I hadn’t seen there before, had my heart skipping a beat. I followed her outside like the lovesick fool I was and hoped that she wasn’t about to ruin our entire lives. Our friendship was the most important thing to me, and the thought of losing it, of losing her, kept me from ever making a move. Kept me from making her mine.

“I want to be your girlfriend.” She didn’t pull any punches, and I couldn’t hide the pure shock and probably disappointment on my face. Her smile, so bright and shining a moment before as she told me her secret, the one she’d written to me about in boot camp, faded into nothingness. “What’s wrong, Remy?”

When she reached out, I did the only thing I could—I pulled away.

“I don’t want to be with you, Parker.”

Those fucking words were the biggest lie I have ever told in my entire life. And they all stemmed from the fear I had running through my veins at the thought of losing her. Even years later, the fear is still there. It is real. And the thought of finally having Parker as my own, only to lose her, practically cuts me off at the knees.

Her smile used to light up the room. Now, although those smiles are rarer than they should be, they don’t just light up a room. Parker, well, she is the center of the universe. At least, she’s always been the center of my universe. She just never has a clue.

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