Chapter 24
Angela
While Garrett’s in the bathroom, I retrieve my laptop and curl into bed but there’s no way I can concentrate on work. My head is swimming. Drunk on wine, on him, on being pushed against a wall and carried to bed. On the swollen erection pressing against my hip before he left the room.
If fate has anything to do with Garrett and me being here together, then she has a twisted sense of humor.
He finishes in the bathroom, stepping into the room wearing a pair of plaid pajama pants and a t-shirt with the words Cheers ‘n Beers on his chest. His feet are bare and his guard is down and oh, for fuck’s sake, I’m not going to make it through the night.
“Jesus. It’s freezing in here.” He beelines for the AC unit and messes with the settings. “Are you cold?”
I nod, appreciating the way the tee stretches across his back, the cotton adhering to muscles that beg my fingers to feel, to explore. After several minutes, he steps back, shaking his head. “I can’t get it to turn off.”
“That’s gonna suck. Especially with only one of us having access to the blanket.”
Garrett gathers the comforter from the floor and yanks the sheet off the bed. “You take the blanket. I’m good with the sheet.”
“I can’t let you sleep on the floor with nothing soft to sleep on…”
“You don’t have to let me do anything. This is what’s happening, Angel. I’m fine.” He arranges the sheet on the floor, then stretches out, wrapping one edge of the thin material around him.
“Wanna watch some TV?” I ask, rolling my eyes at his stubbornness.
“I’m good to turn off the lights and try to get some sleep.” Garrett squishes his pillows into submission, barely glancing my way.
“Yeah. Sure. That’s good too.” I close my laptop and flip off the light, but sleep won’t come. Not with him, right there, just a few feet away. My body is aware of his presence, every nerve, every cell, lit up, electrified.
The way he looked when he pushed me against the wall…
It unlocked something in me. Something real. Something deep. Some primal part of me that wants to be claimed and taken and protected…
But then he ran out of the room like I’d slapped him and has barely been able to look at me since he came back.
It’s a good thing we’re leaving Bliss tomorrow.
He’ll go back to his life, and I’ll go back to mine.
We’ll communicate about work via text and email and this whole thing between us can die down.
I can’t take this tension, this back and forth. How many times can he make me feel like he wants me only to reject me before I lose my mind?
“Are you asleep, Angel?” Garrett’s voice is so low, I wonder if I dreamed it.
“No. Are you?”
“Not even for one minute.”
The words grit into the room with an undercurrent of desire, and I can’t. I just can’t. I divert the conversation.
“Is it because you’re uncomfortable?” I ask. “I feel terrible, up here while you’re down there.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not. This mattress has to be better than the floor and I’m freezing with the blanket.
You’ve got to be miserable. Come on, this thing is huge.
You could take that whole other side and it’ll still be like we have two separate beds.
” I sit up and flick on the light, then gesture at the space beside me like a game show model.
“We can even put pillows between us, if that’ll make you feel any better. ”
“It’s not necessary.” Garrett rolls over, tugging the sheet even tighter around his shoulders and back.
“I swear to God, your lips are blue.” I stare him down, unimpressed with his obstinance. “Sharing a bed doesn’t mean anything. I’d do the same for anyone else in this situation.”
“Fine.”
Garrett grabs the sheet and pillows off the floor, then stalks around the bed to climb into the other side. For as much as I pretended this was no big deal, it feels like a huge freaking deal once he’s stretched out on the sliver of mattress he allowed himself.
“See?” I say, as nonchalant as I’ve ever been in my life. “Isn’t that better?”
He grunts in response, so I flick off the light and curl up.
We might as well be sharing a twin bed, as far as my body’s concerned. There is no way I’ll be sleeping tonight.
“Angel?”
His voice sends a shiver of expectation down my spine. Is this it? Are we about to make a terrible mistake I’ll remember for the rest of my life? Will he roll over, trapping me beneath him? Will we finally succumb to the wildfire blazing between us?
“Yes?” The word slips into the room on a whisper, heavy with expectation.
“Thank you.”
I wait for more. For movement. For Garrett’s lips on mine, but he lays still, so I exhale a quiet breath and settle in for a restless night.