Perfect Regret (Bad Rep #2)(27)
Author: A. Meredith Walters

Garrett took a step forward and I moved back, pressing myself into Jordan’s truck door. “If I wanted to punish you, Riley, I’d put you over my knee and spank the shit out of you. A red ass is the least of what you deserve,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, his eyes which had been coldly observing me, had turned hot enough to burn.

“What I deserve? I’m not the one who took advantage of drunk girl in a state of total vulnerability. The whole thing is predatory. You should be ashamed of yourself,” I said fiercely. My words seemed to shock Garrett because he stopped his slow advancement, his face blanking.

“Is that what you think? That I took advantage of you?” he asked softly and I knew the idea that I actually thought that hurt him. Hurt him deeply and that softened the hard layer around my heart just a smidge.

Garrett pushed his messy hair back off his forehead in a gesture I was coming to find meant he was flustered. “Shit, Riley. I was drunk. You were drunk. It happened. I never meant to take advantage of you. I just thought” he stopped abruptly and I knew that I needed to hear what he was going to say.

“Thought what?” I demanded, my tone leaving no room for refusal.

Garrett looked at the ground and I found his sudden unsurety disconcerting. Garrett was a confident guy. This person in front of me was decidedly uncertain.

“I don’t know. I thought you wanted to be with me. What a f**king joke that was. I should have f**king known better,” he laughed bitterly and bent to pick up his guitar case. His shoulders were tense and he wouldn’t look at me. Somehow, someway I had laid this man low and I felt an immeasurable amount of guilt about it.

“Come home with me,” I said and I wanted to bite my tongue. Where the hell had that come from? What was wrong with me? This was so not what I needed. This was not good for me in any way. But right now, this is what I wanted and that trumped any sense I had of adhering to my status quo.

I knew that my friend wanted him. That she was making a play for the very guy I was proposing to come home and knock boots with. Where was my sense of loyalty and friends before hos or whatever? I was being a slut. But I wanted this man to make me dirty.

Garrett’s head snapped up in total shock. “Excuse me?” he asked, staring at me as though I had been speaking gibberish. Oh god, I wish I had been speaking gibberish. Because I couldn’t take it back now. And that sick, masochistic, seriously deluded side of me didn’t want to. Because it had officially taken me over. There was no other explanation for the complete personality transplant I was experiencing.

All I knew was that he had touched a nerve. His earlier admission exposed a side of him I would never have thought existed and it struck a chord in me. He was again that boy in his living room, telling me I was beautiful.

I wanted him. Tonight. And I couldn’t think beyond that. The implications of my choice would have to wait for another day. Because something else was guiding my decisions right now. And it wasn’t my head.

I stepped into his personal space, not touching him, but close enough that I could if I wanted to. “Come home with me. Just one more night. I want to know if throwing away my morals was worth it,” I said wishing the words had sounded a little less prudish. But whatever, I sort of was a prude.

Garrett laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Are you serious?” he asked after quieting down.

“As a heart attack,” I replied. Part of me knew he could reject me outright and make me look like a complete and total ass. But staring into his blue eyes I knew he wouldn’t. He wanted this, whatever it was, as much as I did.

He pulled out his keys and nodded his head in the direction of his van. “Come on then,” he said. He didn’t take my hand. He didn’t say another word, just headed to his vehicle, leaving me the choice to follow him or not.

You bet I followed him.

10

Clearly this whole no strings attached sex thing was a lot less awkward when you were falling down drunk. Or maybe it was just as awkward and I thankfully couldn’t remember any of it. I didn’t know what to say. Sure I had initiated this, but now that Garrett and I were heading to my apartment I felt like a tool.

I didn’t do casual sex. Every time I had been intimate with someone (not counting the guy who would be jumping into my hotbox in a matter of minutes) I had been in love, or at the very least, committed to them. It wasn’t in my psyche to be able to handle a quick round of wam-bam-thank-you-ma’am.

Case in point, the utter shitfest I had created after sleeping with Garrett the first time. So why, do you ask, was I allowing myself to slide vagina first back into another emotional landslide? Oh because I had somehow morphed into an absolute idiot. I was now a chick obsessesed with her own destruction apparently.

Because that was what the Garrett Bellows sexcipades promised.

My ruin.

Was I being overly dramatic? Perhaps. But there was something in the way I felt with Garrett that took me out of my comfort zone and thrust me, without preamble, into the cold, hard world of lust and want. I had never been ruled by my hormones.

I wasn’t a girl who made life decision based on what was going on between her legs. But Garrett made all sense of logic take a flying leap out the window. Or maybe it was the person I had slowly been turning into since Damien had dumped me. I felt a change at a molecular level that was both unsettling and exciting.

Garrett parked in front of my apartment building and shut off the engine. He looked over at me and I was thankful I couldn’t see his face in the dark. I was already humiliated with the way I had suggested this whole thing.

“You sure?” he asked me. This was my moment. My chance to back out and return to the place where our one time indiscretion had been a fluke. Because if we did this, it changed things. I couldn’t go back to pretending I had made a choice based on alcohol and the need for a rebound.

Because tonight, I was stone cold sober. And while I still felt the aftermath of my heartache, this would be no rebound bang.

This time I would be dancing the horizontal mambo because I wanted to and for no other reason. Because I was attracted to my complete antithesis. The guy who up until a month ago, I wanted nothing to do with but now had slithered his way under my skin. He was like a freaking parasite, sucking away everything but the desire to get him naked.

Could I flip my world on its axis like that? Was I ready for the fallout?

I opened the passenger door. “Come on,” I said shortly, getting out. I headed up the stairs, not waiting to see if he was following me. Because I knew he was. And it had nothing to do with confidence or being self-assured. Nope, it had everything to do with basic chemistry and knowing despite everything, Garrett and I had that in spades.