Meant to Be Yours: New Adult BBW College Romance (Derek and Jaike Book 2) (8 page)

She shook her head. “I can’t even remember my name. I just know I want you—”

He kissed her again, harder this time, his tongue sweeping in. He couldn’t help it, knowing she was being honest with him. This would teach him about trying to punish his lovely Sub. Every time he did, it was obvious it would only backfire on him, leaving Derek even more frustrated than Jaike was.

Outside the pool center, he told her, “Stay here and wait for me. I’ll get you something to drink and then after that, we’ll go home and we’ll fuck. Right away. Understood?”

She could only nod, wide-eyed. It wasn’t as if his tone allowed for any argument.
 

As he started to leave, Jaike noticed the bodyguards around them. She recognized some of them by face and knew they were all Derek’s. “Derek?”

He stopped walking and turned back to her. “What is it?”

“I...” She hurried to him, not wanting any of his bodyguards to accidentally hear her as she muttered self-consciously, “Why won’t you ask any one of them to get my drink?” It wasn’t that she wanted him to act like a spoiled brat. She just wanted him close to her.

Derek only had to take one look at Jaike’s face to know why she had asked the question. His teeth gnashed against each other as he did his best to suppress his need for her. Goddammit, why was it taking her so long to understand the truth about her feelings? What had happened to her in the past that had made her fearful and distrust her emotions so much?

Just one word from him, and he knew his father’s expert staff could uncover every skeleton in her closet. But he would not do that. He wanted to earn Jaike’s trust, wanted to wait until she was the one to tell him about herself – he wanted to feel like he deserved it when the day would come and she would tell him that she loved
him.
All of him, even the side he could only reveal to the girl he loved.

Looking down at her, he admitted the truth in an uneven undertone. “I’m doing my best to make things normal between us. From the very first time we met, you held my being a Christopoulos against me.”

“I…”

“Don’t deny it. You did.”

She turned red. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t get me wrong, baby. I’m not mad at all about it. If anything, it just makes me want you more. At least I can be sure you’re with me for my body and not my money.”
 

She opened her mouth to protest—

He asked wickedly, “Unless of course you’re with me for another reason?” His blue-gray eyes gleamed. “Perhaps because you’re in love with me?”

She shut up.
That
was something she wasn’t ready to talk about, and if it meant admitting she was with him for his body, well, so be it.

He laughed. “My stubborn Sub. One day, you’ll realize how well I know you.”

“I already know.” She couldn’t help sounding disgruntled. “And I still don’t understand how it happened. How you know me so well…”

He kissed her on the forehead. “I know you that well because you’re meant for me. And soon, you’ll realize that you know me just as well.” He stepped away. “Now, be a good girl and stay here while I get a drink for you like any other normal boyfriend would do.”

She couldn’t help but smile as she watched him walk away.
Normal boyfriend?
There wouldn’t ever be a time someone like Derek Christopoulos could be described as normal. Not someone as perfect as he was.

“Ms. Hepburn?”

She looked back in surprise and saw one of Derek’s bodyguards holding her bag.
 

“Sorry!” She had been so…so…so sexually infatuated with Derek she hadn’t realized she had forgotten her bag at the gym.
 

“We’re happy to carry it for you, Ms. Hepburn. But I heard your phone beeping inside it and it might be an important call.”

“Oh. Thank you.” Taking the bag from Derek’s bodyguard, she unzipped it and rummaged through the contents for her phone. “Aha,” she exclaimed when she found it, unaware that doing so made Derek’s entire security team exchange grins. Most of them had been with Derek since birth, and it was their first time to see their employer date someone as refreshingly genuine as Jaike.

It was Marcy, sending her a text message.

Don’t freak out. And I mean it.

I just heard the news, and I made sure to confirm it before texting you.

Angelo and Rosie have broken up – and the people who were there heard him say very clearly that he still loves you…and that he’s only loved ever you.

The phone slipped from her hand.

“Baby? What’s wrong?”

Her head jerked up. She was so stunned to see Derek back that she could only wordlessly accept the bottled water he handed to her. By the time she recovered, he had already crouched down and was reaching for her phone.

“No!”

But it was too late.

Derek would have given the phone back immediately to Jaike if one of the words on her screen hadn’t jumped out at him.

It was a name.

Angelo.

Chapter Six

“Say something.” They were the first words she spoke since Derek had read Marcy’s message on her phone. He had been just as silent, unbearably so. And he hadn’t touched her the whole time, not even once.

A small part of her had been grateful for his silence. It had allowed her some much-needed time to think. She just couldn’t understand why Angelo would say something like that. He loved her? He was still in love with her? He was the only girl he had ever loved?

The thought sent a painful, bitter twinge to her heart.

If all those were true, then why had he betrayed her like that?

She looked at Derek again. “Derek—”

He shook his head, not looking at her as he said curtly, “Not here.”

By the time they reached her room, her heart was in her throat and it didn’t help that there were even more people looking at them now. News definitely traveled at lightning speed in Christopoulos University, especially when it had to do with a guy like Derek.

When she got home, she wasn’t even surprised that Derek had somehow managed to have all his things moved in it. Again, without her permission – but this time she didn’t give a damn. All she cared about was knowing what Derek thought about Marcy’s message. She wanted to ask him about it, but after his cutting response a while ago, it was hard to find the courage to talk about it again.

So instead she found herself babbling, “Did you get your friends to help you get your stuff in here?”

His back to her as he locked the main door shut, Derek only shook his head in response.

Her heart sank a little at that, but she refused to feel defeated. She felt so panicky, and she didn’t like it. She knew she had nothing to be guilty about, but even so, it was how she felt. She had already hurt Derek once when she told him she wished he was Angelo. She didn’t want him hurt like that ever again.

But how could she let him know that when he refused to talk to her?

Derek knew he was not being fair to Jaike. He knew it, but he couldn’t damn well help it.
Goddamn Angelo Valencia.
Why the fuck did he have to say something like that? Even though Derek hated Angelo completely, he also knew the other man was not the type to lie. If he really had said something like that, then he must have meant them. And if he had, what now?

Was he supposed to let Jaike go to the “better” man?

Was he supposed to forget he had once tasted her body, that she had once become his?

“I r-redecorated my bedroom.”

The words from Jaike were completely unexpected, making Derek’s head snap towards her.

Jaike swallowed when she found herself at the center of his attention. Gathering her courage and praying he wouldn’t shut her down again, she asked, “W-would you like to see it?”

Jaike’s words had Derek brooding. Did she really want him to see it, or was this just her guilt talking? Did she want to go back to Angelo’s arms now but was unable to because she felt she owed it to Derek to stay with him?

He heard himself saying, “I want to see it.”

A tense, hesitant smile broke over her face. “G-great. Follow me then.”
 

Derek did, and regret washed over him at the stiff way Jaike held herself. He had frightened her, made her feel insecure about herself, dammit. And to think all he wanted to do was love her.

When he entered the bedroom, Derek was surprised to find the entire room decorated in shades of lime green and black. It was a ghastly combination, and he couldn’t figure out why she had selected the colors.

“Black’s my favorite color,” she told him after a beat.

Since lime green was his, he understood right away what she couldn’t make herself say directly.

She waited for him to say something.

But he only looked at her, and the way he did made her heart beat fast in terror. It was as if he was thinking if there were enough reasons for him to stay with her.

“Derek?” She stopped when she was right in front of him. She had barely survived when Angelo abandoned her. If Derek was to do the same thing, she knew it would devastate her completely – a betrayal that she was certain she wouldn’t ever be able to recover from.

“Please say something,” she whispered.

But he still didn’t, and the look on his face forced Jaike to look away. It was as if he had turned into stone, and nothing she could say would ever reach him. “Derek, please.” She thought about explaining herself, about what she thought the first time she read Marcy’s message. “Please say something. Angelo—”

Derek spat something in Greek, something she didn’t understand but distinctly sounded like a curse. A second later, he had pushed her to the bed and he was lying on top of her, his eyes wild with rage and desire. In an instant, she realized that he had misunderstood. She had wanted to explain about Angelo, but instead he thought she had called him by another man’s name.

“Never say his name in my presence again.
Never
.” His tone was dangerously soft. Almost barbaric.

The moment he heard Jaike call him by another man’s name, something inside him had snapped. She was supposed to be the one. She was supposed to be the one he had been waiting for all his goddamn life so why, dammit, why did she want another man?

“I will never give you to him, not even if you beg me for it.” He kissed her hard, his passion no longer controllable, fury lending his lust a painfully sharp edge. He tore her clothes away from her body, all the while waiting for her to scream at him, to tell him he was being a boor, to scream at him that he was practically raping her.

But she didn’t, and somehow it only made him angrier.
 

“Fight me,” he growled down at her even as he tore her bra away. “I don’t want your fucking pity. If you don’t want me to take your virginity—” He ripped her panties violently from her body. “Then fight me!”

He waited for her to look at him like he was a monster. But she didn’t.

Instead, all she did was reach out to him, her hands shaking as she cupped his face. “I don’t pity you.”

Jaike’s heart ached when Derek only gazed at her with guarded eyes. To the world, Angelo Valencia might appear the kinder man compared to Derek, but Angelo was a bastard when and where it mattered. Angelo had betrayed her while Derek, he hadn’t abandoned her, had never stopped wanting her all these years even if fear had pushed her to seek safety in another man’s arms.

She whispered. “I wasn’t calling you by his name, Derek,”

Her words had him whitening, and she couldn’t help but stroke his cheek, wanting even more to comfort him. “I’m telling the truth. I only said it because I wanted to explain…” She inhaled deeply. “I wanted you to know that even if he said those things, it
doesn’t
matter to me. I have you.” Blinking back tears, she whispered, “I choose you—”

Derek pulled her down to kiss her, fiercely, and she returned the kiss with abandon. When he let her go, she was breathless, but his eyes were still wild and feral, his tone harsh as he said, “You are mine, Jaike. Tell me you understand that.”

“I do.”

His hand gripped her hair. “I will never let you go. Not even if you beg me to. You were meant to be mine.
Mine
.”