Page 38 of Ramsey & Emerson

You couldn’t just go around telling people that hated you that you loved them. There were rules to fighting with the enemy, and love was so not in the rule book.

“Pardon?”

Yeah. Pardon.

I’d gone with ‘pardon’ because I had nothing else. I could feel the asshole chuckling behind me, and I wanted to elbow him right in the mouth. I wanted for him to take the words back.

“I said that I love you,” he repeated, his voice firm and confident.

Now, I could do one of three things right now; I could roll over and tell him I loved him, too. I could bash him in the head with my nightstand lamp, then kick him the hell out of my house. Or I could get up, go take a shower, and buy myself some time to figure out how his words were making me feel.

Well, I for sure wasn’t going to roll over and profess my love. I had morning breath, so that just wasn’t going to happen. Then I glanced at my lamp and realized that the little guy was quite innocent in all this and didn’t deserve to be a casualty of war. So, it looked like the winner was the shower and some time.

“What are you doing?” he asked as I threw the covers back, then fought to get out of his hold.

I didn’t think that he’d let me go take a shower, so I went with a guarantee. “I need to go pee…uh, unless you’re into that kind of thing,” I answered sarcastically, hoping to mask my nervousness.

“I am not,” he confirmed as he removed his arm from around my waist.

I didn’t waste any time after that. I jumped out of bed, then practically ran to the en suite. I didn’t have time to be embarrassed that I was only in a tank-top and panties, either. Besides, he’d seen a lot more on Thursday after that bullshit with Jamie Turner.

I brushed my teeth, removed my clothes, and then stepped into the shower. I turned the water on as hot as I could stand it because I needed theheat to ease the tension in my muscles. Ramsey had me wound tighter than a top.

I guess what I needed to do was take the emotion out of it and look at him logically.

He was a dick.

He was abusive.

He was arrogant.

He was stubborn.

He was a bully.

He was rich-and, yes, that was a negative when you used your wealth for evil.

He’d done his best to embarrass and humiliate me.

He’d been cruel and manipulative.

Ramsey Reed was an asshole.

An. Absolute. Asshole.

The answer was easy.

Run.

Run and don’t look back.

Then I closed my eyes under the scalding hot water, and my chest felt like it was caving in at the thought of never being near Ramsey again. He was just the kind of bad idea that my twisted mind and neglected body craved. Plus, he’d just told me that he loved me.

I spewed out a bitter laugh.

The fact that I would even be needy enough to believe him was reason enough to lock me up in a crazy house. I knew-I knew-that he was just playing with me by telling me that. It was another one of his games. Still, Jesus Christ, if he didn’t make my body sing and all common sense flee.

It didn’t matter how long I hid myself in this shower; I wasn’t going to unravel everything complicated about my association with Ramsey in a short fifteen-minute shower. So, instead of dwelling on it, I washed my hair, then conducted an actual shower.

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