Page 5 of No Apologies
And, okay, if she was being completely honest with herself she was also jealous because Cash was a Bomar. He was a member of the ill-reputed, outlaw clan that ran the dark underside of their tiny little town. A family full of rough, dangerously sexy men that could not be tamed.
Truth be told, Skylar wanted one of them for herself.
She’d been telling herself for a long time now that wanting one of them was nothing more than a silly fantasy. The Bomar boys ran roughshod over every girl with daydreams about domesticating them. And every girl in town had them, daydreams and crushes that turned into broken hearts because they would never settle down.
Only, Jemma had domesticated Cash and ruined that theory in less than one month flat.
Cash had settled down, happily. He was a one-woman man, always had been. He loved Jemma. He’d pined for her for years, had proposed to her as soon as he won her back and knocked her up in record time. He was downright anxious to get his girl down the aisle and start their life together officially.
And if Cash could do it, why couldn’t the others? Why couldn’t the one she wanted? After all, he was Cash’s twin!
She wanted him. Thought about him all the time. Lusted after him, even when she was mad at him. And God, she was mad at him. She always seemed to be mad at him these days. But did that lessen her desire? Nope. It only made her think about how rough his edges were, made her wonder if he would cut her if he ever let her get close enough to actually touch him.
She had a feeling if he ever did it would be rough and wild and the flush those thoughts caused didn’t have a thing to do with her fever.
Just like the accompanying pain in her gut couldn’t be attributed to her sickness either. At least not to food poisoning. That was all due to the self-loathing she felt for daydreaming about a man that she didn’t even like all that much at the moment, a man that had made it clear on more than one occasion that he didn’t want her the way she wanted him. Most importantly, he was a man that wasn’t her boyfriend.
God, that made her the absolute worst. Who did that? What kind of woman lusted after another man when she already had one? A bitch, that was who. She was a total bitch.
Trey was a good guy. He was probably the best guy she’d ever dated really. Grade-A husband material. He treated her like a princess, was emotionally available, had never displayed any anger issues and, at least to her knowledge, had no arrest record whatsoever.
In short, he was everything she was supposed to want and the complete opposite of the man she couldn’t stop thinking about.
Her stomach cramped again when her phone buzzed and she saw Trey’s name pop up on the screen. As if she needed a reminder about how great her boyfriend was? He’d been calling to check on her all day.
He’d offered to come over and keep her company but she’d refused. She didn’t want anyone seeing her like this, least of all the man that she’d been planning to break up with this weekend. Since she was too sick to do that, she’d rejected his attempts to bring her things like soup and juice but that hadn’t stopped him from texting hourly with funny jokes to keep her entertained.
The latest one read:
I’m not saying I’m Batman. I’m just saying we’ve never been spotted in the same room together. Throw up a bat sign and we’ll see who shows up to save you.
If she didn’t feel like such a shit, she probably would have laughed. He was so sweet. He knew she was sick and was trying to make her feel better. Of course he had no idea that all of his messages only served to make her feel worse that she was going to break up with him when she was back on her feet.
She didn’t want to hurt him. That was why she’d put it off for months. But it wasn’t fair to either of them to be in a relationship that wasn’t going anywhere. He deserved a girl that looked at him the way Jemma looked at Cash, the way she feared she sometimes looked at Cash’s brother.
Her phone buzzed again and she winced when Katy Perry started cooing about kissing girls. Again. She really needed to mute the thing. It was giving her a headache and if Jemma was here she’d punch her right in the ovaries for being an overprotective pain in the ass that kept calling.
Okay, probably not the ovaries, at least not until bouncing baby boy Bomar came into the world.
“What?” She groaned, burying herself in her blanket fort as she answered.
“You don’t sound better. Do you feel better?”
She fought an eye roll solely because she was certain it would make her throw up again, “Yep.”
“Liar.”
“Nag.” She managed a smile for her best friend, “You’re barely even pregnant and you’re already in overbearing mother mode. Have you been taking lessons from Melanie?”
“Don’t call your mom by her first name, you know she hates that.”
“Ha! You’ve totally been talking to her haven’t you? I knew it.”
“Stop changing the subject, I called to check on you. How are you feeling?”
“Fantastic. I think I’m going to order in Chinese for dinner. Spring rolls and orange chicken.”
Jemma gave an exaggerated sigh on her end of the phone, “There’s no Chinese delivery in Old Settlers. Can you be serious for five seconds, please?”
