Garrett’s eyes, which moments ago had been smoldering and capable of causing a level ten combustion, became so cold I thought I’d suffer from some serious frostbite.
“Are we back to this then?” he asked, his voice breaking just enough to know he was feeling a lot more than anger.
I tried to get off his lap but his hands clamped down on my hips, holding me in place. His fingers dug into my skin and I wondered whether I’d have tiny little bruises to remind me of how once again I was treating this guy like crap.
But try as I might I couldn’t stop. “I thought this is what you wanted,” I said icily, reaching down between us to squeeze the part of him that was still hard and ready for me. Garrett moved his hand to wrap around my wrist and yanked me away.
“No, what I wanted was a girl who could set aside her fucked up perceptions for just one night. The girl who could let go and be something she wanted to be rather than who she thought she needed to be,” Garrett snarled, his jaw clenched and angry.
He lifted me off his lap and set me down on the bed. He picked his jeans up off the floor and shoved his legs through them, his rage barely suppressed. So perfect time to throw some gasoline on the fire, right?
“I would think a guy like you would be used to a girl just wanting him for a fuck,” I taunted. God, what was wrong with me? Why was I saying this stuff?
Garrett’s back went ramrod straight, he was still turned away as he put his shirt on. I watched in lavicious interest as it fell down and molded to his back and narrow shoulders. I was some sick kind of messed up. Here I was, stomping all over his fragile male ego yet again, but I couldn’t stop ogling him like a piece of meat.
Garrett put his hands through his hair and he seemed to be getting it together. He had to be experiencing a major case of blue balls. If he felt half the ache that I did between my legs than he was in some serious discomfort.
Garrett pulled his keys out of his pocket and turned his head so I could just make out his profile. “Bye, Riley,” he said and then he left my room, closing the door quietly behind him.
I sat there for a long time, staring at the door. And for once, I didn’t have a way to justify my actions. Not when they had been completely and totally wrong. And wrong was not a good color on me.
“So Garrett came back to the apartment last night,” Vivian was saying, causing me to choke on my bagel. Maysie leaned over and thumped me on the back, dislodging the bread from my windpipe. No sense in throwing up all over the table, even if my friend’s out of the blue statement had me wanting to spew chunks Exorcist style.
The name Garrett Bellows had given my upchuck reflex a serious workout the last few weeks. I hadn’t seen him since sex disaster number two. Generation Rejects had played at Barton’s a few times, but thankfully my shifts hadn’t coincided with any of their gigs.
Maysie had invited me to the dozens of parties that had been thrown but I turned down each and every one. My need to walk on the wild side was definitely over.
The morning after Garrett’s dramatic exit I had woken up pissed. At Garrett of course. Because it was easy to find fault in his behavior and much harder to place blame on myself. Why did he have to make it into something that it wasn’t? Hadn’t I made my intentions perfectly clear? What was the problem? When had we ever pretended to be good for each other? When had we decided to make sex into something more than lust?
Because I missed that meeting. Last I had checked, Garrett was still a boy who barely tolerated me. Who couldn’t function on the same level as the rest of us. This was the guy who didn’t give a toss about anything unless it was a pair of boobs or a bowl pack of weed.
So when did he become the whiny girl in this scenario? I didn’t like feeling guilty. It irritated me. So I refused to feel that way.