Remembering Us by Stacey Lynn Page A

his breath pick up, the tick in his jaw, the anger, and then the sadness unfold. Every emotion I experienced in my dream plays out in his eyes and in his facial expressions as I silently watch him.
    “That’s not the point.” I don’t think whether I had revenge sex with Brendan is the point, although the thought alone makes me shudder and gives me a sick feeling in my stomach.
    “Then what is it? I didn’t mean to kiss Britnee. She just pulled me to her before I could stop her.”
    “And you kissed her back. I saw you.”
    “I was twenty-years-old and a walking ball of hormones. I had a hard-on all night long from that fucking dress you were wearing. I was stupid, and it took me a second to register what in the hell was happening. But I didn’t want her. I wanted you.”
    He stands up from the table and walks toward me in the kitchen. His nostrils flare and I know what he’s thinking about because I’m thinking the same thing. The way his touch felt like fire through my dress. The way I wanted him. The way I wanted his fingers to dig into my skin and pull me into him. God, I felt it all in my dream and even now standing in front of him, I don’t understand the physical pull he has on me.
    Like I’m drawn to him, whether I want to be or not.
    “Tell me what else you remembered, Amy. Tell me what happened in the dream before that part.”
    My jaw drops and my eyes widen. My pulse begins dancing across my skin as Adam walks up to me. With his hands on both sides of the counter, he’s blocked me into our u-shape kitchen and I can’t escape. I take a step back until my back hits the wall. The zipper of my dress digs into my skin and I move against it, hating the feel.
    I shake my head. “It’s too much.”
    “Too much what?” His eyes drop to my feet and slowly rake up every inch of me. One side of his lips twists into a sneer when he hits my dress at the knee. He hates it. He hates that I’m not being the me he knows, but rather the one I was before. The two sides of me are confusing. One I don’t know, and one I remember but I’m not sure I like.
    Too much of this, I think. Too much heat and fire. It’s explosive and powerful.
    It’s scary.
    It makes me want to jump off a cliff just so I can drown in cold water.
    “I can’t do this.” I hear my own doubt and breathlessness as his eyes pin me against the wall. It doesn’t take anything else besides a look of his narrowed eyes that are clearly warring against something to keep me frozen to the wall.
    “Do what, Ames? Let yourself feel again?” He takes a step forward, and then another, until he’s standing inches in front of me, towering over me. “Heaven forbid you remember what it’s like to feel something. That’s what it is, isn’t it? That’s what you’re so afraid of. That’s why you’ve gone back to being the ice princess with this stuck up little dress.”
    I shake my head, but inside I’m screaming, “Yes!” at the top of my lungs.
    I clear my throat. It’s dry and scratchy and feels like I’ve been screaming though I haven’t said a word. “Ice princess?”
    He laughs softly, just once, and then a finger comes out and barely brushes my yellow shoulder strap. I shiver, not sure if it’s because his finger burned my skin or scared me.
    “You know what it means.” His breath flows over me, caressing me, and my knees shake. His tone is deep. Seductive. Yet dark and twisted at the same time. Like he’s seducing me with sin and something inside me wants it even though I know it could destroy me. “You were the princess. The girl who had it all figured out. Every action perfectly scripted according to the plan your parents wrote for you.”
    Blood begins to boil under my skin, and yet I can’t move away. He’s right. He’s completely right. I hated my parents for that. I hated never meeting their expectations but trying my hardest anyway. It was a battle I always lost but a war that I never gave up, so determined to make