Chapter Six
T he cheerful, pretty blonde bartender practically bounced as she popped back up and smiled at Garrett. “Can I get you another drink?”
“No,” Garrett snapped, his eyes locked on me. “Give us a minute.”
“Oh, okay.” The bartender’s smiled dropped like her feelings were hurt. “Your food’s almost up.”
“Copy that.” He gave her a dismissive nod and pivoted on his seat to face me.
I watched her walk away. “That was rude.”
“Look at me,” he demanded, low and almost threatening.
I barely managed to suppress the shiver that went up my spine as I ignored his order.
He jerked my stool toward his massive body.
My seat hit his and the heat of his straddled thighs enclosed me, trapping me in a warmth I wasn’t prepared for. I glanced at his overly muscled thighs, and my hair fell in my face.
“What are you doing?” My voice came out too quiet.
Without hesitation, two thick fingers came up and he brushed my hair behind my ear.
Goose bumps raced across my skin as he grazed the very edge of my ear.
“You don’t get to tell me what I find attractive.” Deep and rough and nothing like the way he’d been speaking to me, his voice dropped to a sexual cadence that simultaneously put me on alert and made heat rush between my legs .
A heat I hadn’t known I still possessed. “I’m not telling you that.”
Those same two fingers pressed under my chin. Dominant and controlling, but more gentle than I ever could have imagined, he turned my face toward his, and his deep, stormy gaze locked on to mine. “You don’t get to tell me who I want.”
My mouth went dry, my heart dropped to my stomach, and my thighs pressed together of their own free will. Desire slammed into fear as the heat of his fingers burned my flesh. “I—” My voice broke, and I cleared my throat. “I wasn’t.”
The pressure of his touch increased as he reached in his pocket with his free hand and tossed his cell on the bar. His voice dropped even lower. “The exit’s behind you. There’re half a dozen bystanders within a twenty foot radius, and there’s a phone in front of you.”
My heart hammering to be freed, rational thought left me. I tried to swallow. “I don’t need—”
His thumb stroked my bottom lip. “You’re safe,” he whispered, a fraction of a second before his mouth crashed over mine.
Sheer panic robbed me of all reason, and every muscle in my body went stock-still except my mouth.
I gasped.
As if he had a right to kiss me, his tongue slid expertly in.
And maybe he did have that right, because with one single stroke, I was lost, and I was found.
The heat that’d flushed my cheeks spread like a wildfire, and desire engulfed me.
The restaurant, Nathan, my shitty life, the fake name, it all disappeared. Man and musk and warm brown eyes and strong muscles swirled into my head and I was flying. Nerve endings sang with desire as a large, rough hand wrapped around my nape and a Marine kissed me.
Angling my head into his dominance, a low vibration started in his throat and spilled into my mouth. One second he was kissing me, the next he was all over me. A warm palm landed on my thigh as strong fingers gripped at the flesh through my jeans. Stroking my tongue, demanding and getting a response, he teased, he dominated, he took control. Thick fingers grasped a handful of my curly hair, and he bit my bottom lip. Another groan vibrated his chest under my hands as he sucked the assaulted flesh between his teeth.
Leaning into him, stealing the moment, I didn’t think about the end game.
But I should have.
His mouth ripped from mine and shocking emptiness hit me faster than the desire he’d unleashed in me.
His lips wet, his chest heaving, his eyes darkened. “You,” he ground out, “do not get to tell me who I want.”
His hand still gripping my hair tight, I couldn’t have nodded if I’d wanted to.
But it didn’t matter because I didn’t have words to acknowledge him. I didn’t have anything except tingling lips and a pulsing core aching with need.
The bartender unceremoniously dumped two bags in front of us. “You’re all set. Need anything else?” Her demeanor a one-eighty from what it was before, she put her hand on her hip.
“No,” Garrett answered without looking at her.
I was screwed. Completely and utterly screwed. I wanted him. I wanted this man like I’d never wanted anything in my life, and not for just one night. But he was going back to the Marines, and I was who I was, and it was a mistake to leave my backpack in his truck. If I had it with me, I could’ve gotten up and walked out. Run out… if my knees weren’t feeling like tendons without bones.
Garrett leaned close and whispered, “Don’t.”
My heart ricocheting around in my chest, I managed to form two breathless words. “Don’t what?”
His hand tightened in my hair, and he held my stare for a weighted moment before he let go of me. “No regrets.” He palmed his phone and stood as he grabbed the takeout bag and pizza box in one hand. “Come on.” He pulled my stool out .
The man who’d kissed me without reservation, who’d melded my fears with his desires, he threw me a second time. Gentle like falling water, his large, rough hand, which held a weapon in the name of freedom, eased me off my stool and guided my body toward his in a way that aligned more than our hips.
As effortlessly as breathing, his step a lead for my body to follow, the man who’d kissed me like a conquering warrior led me to his truck. Opening my door like the gentleman he wasn’t in the restaurant, he helped me up on the running boards and into the passenger seat. Without a word, without making eye contact, he settled the food at my feet and shut the door.
As casual as if he’d never kissed me, he rounded the front of the vehicle, got behind the wheel and started the engine. Then finally, finally , his nonchalant demeanor cracked and the haunted look to his eyes came back.
One hand on the steering wheel, the engine running, he looked at me. “You want to talk about that?”
“No.” Definitely not.
“You want to hear what I’m thinking?”
Definitely, definitely not. “No.”
“You’re putting off vibes,” he said anyway.
I’m sure I was.
He exhaled. “I’m not gonna apologize.”
I didn’t care what he did, as long as he didn’t kiss me again. Not like that. I couldn’t know another kiss like that. It would ruin me.
“You got anything to say?”
So much, I didn’t know where to put it all.
He nodded to himself. “You’re pissed.”
This time, a response did come out. “Mm-hmm.” And getting more so by the second. At him, at me—mostly at me. Which, if I’d stopped for half a second to think about it, I would’ve realized the enormity of what was fueling my anger. But I didn’t. I didn’t want to acknowledge that he’d just given me the best kiss of my life. I didn’t want to think about how much I desperately wanted to tell him the truth about everything. I didn’t want to admit to myself that every offer he extended, I wanted to take. I wanted to take it so bad that I wanted to drown in his certainty that he could protect me. But I couldn’t afford to do that. I couldn’t even afford to acknowledge the fucked-up karma of life throwing me a bone, only for it to be a Marine who was going back to war in days, or even hours.
His intense gaze focused on me like he knew so much more than I was telling him. “You kissed me back.”
More than a statement, less than an accusation, he threw the comment out there like I had to respond to it. Like I had to deal with any of this. He’d kissed me, not the other way around. I wasn’t going to acknowledge his comment. I knew I was unfairly making all of this his fault, but I didn’t care. He never should’ve come after me.
“Fine.” His tone turned to shades of masculine pride, and he threw out more words like a fisherman casting an unbaited hook. “You know what I think? I think you’re scared. Of me, of whoever the fuck was in that black Mustang, of Dax. But you’re too stubborn to recognize what’s right in front of you.”
The silent for self-preservation person I’d become cracked, and the woman I used to be ripped through my protective shields and lashed out. “What’s right in front of me?” I threw my misplaced anger all over him. “Would that be an egotistical Marine making up damsel-in-distress scenarios so he can feed his hero complex? Or are you referring to the domineering jerk who thought he had a right to take advantage of a woman in public simply because there were witnesses?”
His nostrils flared as his hand tightened on the steering wheel, but his voice came out lethally quiet. “Do not, for one second, confuse me with the person who tried to crush you with a five-hundred-pound shelf full of glass bottles. I did not take advantage of you. I kissed you. And for the record, you kissed me back.”
Angry that everything about him in my life was temporary, I completely lost it. “No one tried to crush me!” I yelled, throwing out more lies.
“Then what the fuck happened?” he yelled back.
My chest heaving, my muscles coiled tight, everything inside burned. The urge to flee was so overwhelming that I wanted to throw the door open and run from everything he represented. The only thing preventing me was that I didn’t think I could grab my backpack and bike before he stopped me.
Worse, I wanted him to stop me. I wanted him to get me off this merry-go-round of horrible choices I’d made, but he couldn’t do that. No one could. And pretending for even a second that I was a girl who could have this real-life hero would only bring me more trouble.
And I couldn’t afford any more trouble.
Survival was a series of calculated steps, so I took one. “Take me home.”