Page 29 of Battling the Enemy
He crossed his arms over his chest before saying, “I’ve never had a girl over here, Delaney. Except for Em and Linnie, you’re the only girl who’s ever been to my house.”
Em and Linnie?
The personalization caused butterflies to take up residence in my stomach. Saying his nicknames for Emerson and Roselyn was taking this to a seriously personal level. Deke’s reputation preceded him, so I didn’t consider anything we’ve done sexually as personal. He hadn’t done to me anything he hadn’t done with a dozen other girls. But using Emerson’s and Roselyn’s nicknames with me was super personal.
After throwing my hair up in a wet bun, I shrugged a shoulder and said, “It’s none of my business who’s been here and who hasn’t.”
Deke stepped to me and he made sure to scan the length of my body before his eyes settled on mine. “Everything that has to do with me is now your business, Lamb,” he replied.
I decided to test him.
“Okay,” I challenged. “So, then, are the rumors about you, Liam, and Roselyn true?” His face became an instant mask. “So, then, I guess everything that has to do with youisn’tmy business.”
He looked down at me and I knew immediately where I stood with him, and it wasbehindRamsey, Liam, Emerson, and Roselyn. Deke might want to sleep with me, but I was beginning to realize that my assumption about being a challenge was spot on.
“Don’t ever ask me about Roselyn again,” he said impassively-emotionlessly.
I was such a goddam fool.
Chapter 19
Deke~
Inever imagined I could feel so many different emotions all in one night.
I had gone from cool, and chillin’ at Ramsey’s, to frantic and worried when Ava called, to surprised at seeing Delaney drunk and dancing, to pissed off and wanting to kill Reynolds again, to sympathy when Delaney had thrown up everywhere, to anxiousness when I finally got her back to my place, to irritated when she tried to explain herself, to horny when I thought about her naked in my shower, to consumed when she had walked out of the bathroom in only my shirt, to tired when she quietly mumbled that she didn’t have a hair tie, to cocky at her jealousy when she thought the hair tie belonged to another girl, to raging mad when she had asked about Roselyn.
A couple of months ago, a video of Roselyn and Liam having sex surfaced where Liam explained, quite clearly in the recording, how I had been an extra in the bedroom. That video and the person who took it had been taken care of, but while no one outside our group had seen the video, rumors of its existence had still started. We all had done our best to shut the rumors down, but there were still mumbles here and there.
Last year, Liam, Roselyn, and I had entered into a ménage relationship that lasted about a year. It had been born out of the need to protect Roselyn from her fuck of a stepbrother, but it had grown into love for Liam and Roselyn. And for me, Linnie had become one of my closest friends. And as much as I cared about Delaney, I would not be telling that story. It was Roselyn’s story to tell, and if she never felt comfortable with Delaney enough to tell her, well, then, so be it.
There was also the issue of Delaney’s take on the truth. Would she be jealous of Roselyn? Would she insist I could no longer be friends with her? And, if she did, how big of a hypocrite would I be when I wanted Delaney nowhere near Winston and she hadn’t even slept with him?
I could admit I was at a loss on how to handle this, but I knew I’d never betray Roselyn and Liam by sharing a secret that wasn’t mine alone to share. So, I switched gears. “What were you doing at Trent’s party tonight, Delaney?”
She sat back on my bed, and no lie, seeing her on my bed was fucking with me. I hadn’t lied when I told her I’d never brought a girl here. Even when I was sleeping with Roselyn, we hooked up at her house or Liam’s, but mostly at her house. It was easier to pass our cars off in her driveway as that we were there to see her stepbrother, Brandon. Roselyn didn’t have a reason to be at mine or Liam’s house.
Delaney looked up at me from the bed and hit me with the truth. “I was trying to forget the clusterfuck you’ve turned my life into,” she replied. “I was also hoping to hide from you a little longer.” So, I was right. She had been avoiding tonight.
I stepped towards her until I was standing right in front of her and she was forced to open her legs so I could fit in between them. I stared down at her and it wasn’t lost on me that she was in the perfect position to suck my dick. Suddenly, the night of the beach party came back and the look on Delaney’s face as Melissa sucked me dry.
I had never wanted a blowjob from a girl so badly in all my life.
It was all I could do to focus on our conversation, but I did my best. “Why?” I asked. “You already know how this is going to pan out.”
She shook her head. “It’s so easy for you, because you’re used to taking whatever it is you want,” she said. “My…decision to be with you affects more than just if I orgasm.” I didn’t like how she was reducing what we had to the basics of sex, but I let her continue. “I have to deal with Winston and the fallout from our parents now that…now that I’ve changed my mind about marrying him.”
Delaney will never know what her words have affected. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she deadpanned. “Maybe not pay for my college? Maybe disown me? Kick me out of my home?”
I reared back. “All that just because you don’t want to marry Reynolds anymore?”
“That arrangement wasn’t made out of some deep-seated need to see Winston and me happy in life, Deke,” she sneered. “That arrangement was made so our parents’ businesses could combine and become a medical powerhouse. Do you honestly think they’re going to take kindly to me messing that up for them? Especially, since I’ve gone along with their plans all these years?”
She had a point.
She had a point, and if her parents were like the rest of the parents of Sands Cove, her happinesswasn’tparamount to what they wanted from her.
