“I do, and I’m just telling you like I’ve been telling you the whole damn time. You have nothing to worry about.”
“She’s telling the truth,” Stacey agreed. “Garrett’s not going anywhere. In fact, he told me he’s going to invite you to stay at the house, but he’s not sure if you’ll say yes because you haven’t been home in a while.”
That made Hannah very happy. “We’ll see,” she shrugged.
“You are so full of shit.” Shell threw a piece of paper at her. “Stop playing hard to get and just let the man get you. He’s hot, you’re hot, go have a houseful of hot kids.”
“Oh my God, don’t say that around my mother.” Stacey held up her hands. “She has grandchild fever. She’s extremely excited that Garrett has a nice, normal-looking girlfriend. I heard her talking to her friends about it the other day.”
They had arrived at the mall, and Hannah hopped out of the backseat. “Can we please go shop and stop taking about babies? Don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”
* * *
Garrett and Jared lay poolside, watching the rest of the guys swim. It was probably going to be another long night on the strip, so the two of them were trying to catch up on some sleep while the women went shopping. Garrett had drifted off, and Jared was trying to follow behind, but Garrett’s phone was blowing up.
“Man, you might need to check your phone.” Jared poked his friend. “It’s been going off consistently for the last fifteen minutes.”
“Even though I know this phone is my lifeline, it sometimes pisses me off,” Garrett yawned, clearing his throat as he picked it up and started scrolling through the messages.
“That motherfucker.”
The way he said the words caused the hair to rise on Jared’s arms. “You okay?”
“Not in the very fucking least. I’m gonna kill that asshole with my bare hands. Swear to God,” he was mumbling as he punched in numbers on his phone.
“What are you talking about?” Jared was thoroughly confused, and the only one who could answer a question at the moment was completely pissed off.
“Ashton Coleman.”
“I thought you and Hannah were over that little piece of shit.”
“Me too, but obviously, he isn’t over her.” He flashed his phone at Jared who opened his mouth, then shut it, opened it again, then shut it again. “Am I gonna need to bail you out of jail?”
“I don’t know, keep your phone by you.” Garrett was gone in two seconds flat. Jared wasn’t sure where he was going, but he didn’t like the look in his friend’s eyes, and he hoped against everything he held dear that Ashton Coleman was not in Las Vegas.
* * *
Hannah let herself into the hotel room that she and Garrett were sharing, hoping that he was already there. She held a new dress in her hands to go with the new shoes she’d gotten on her shopping trip with the girls. They were pink and sparkly, something that had become a bit of a trademark for her. Excited didn’t even begin to describe how she was feeling. They were going out tonight, and she wanted to look good for him. It made her happy to look good for him and to make him see her as a woman. Not to mention, one night with him hadn’t been enough. She needed many more. Her soul needed to be around his to breathe, and it had been too long since she’d let out a good, long breath.
“Babe?” she called as she put her stuff down in the hallway. He had surprised her yesterday by booking a large suite for the two of them. She enjoyed the space and hoped that maybe they’d get to christen most of it before the next few days were up. Her face burned as those thoughts crossed her mind. They were out of character for her, but Vegas held great memories for the two of them. She had missed him in the few hours she had been gone.
“In here.” His voice was deep, and her stomach did a somersault. That’s how excited she was to see him. Kicking off her shoes, she took off at a run for the living area.
He sat on the couch, looking out over the strip, the glass wall that made up the suite allowing him to do so. She ran over, throwing herself into his lap and holding on with both arms around his neck.
“I missed you so much!”
It took a moment for it to sink in, but it did when she realized he hadn’t put his arms around her in return. He had barely even acknowledged that she had launched herself at him. Even more oddly, he sat with his sunglasses on, she couldn’t see his eyes.
“Is something wrong?” she questioned, backing up off of him and standing so that she could look down at him.
He cleared his throat and grabbed the iPad that sat next to him. Her stomach continued to flip as he turned it on and then tapped it a few times. Within minutes, he turned it to face her, and what she saw there made her stomach drop like she was on a roller coaster.
“You want to explain this?” he asked, his voice different than she had ever heard it before. He was obviously pissed, but she couldn’t tell if it was at her or not.
Reaching down, she grabbed the iPad and scrolled through the website. It was a gossip site, famous for busting all celebs for anything that they might have done. It seemed that this time, they’d busted her. Pictures that she had taken and sent to Ashton towards the end of their relationship, all in her underwear, thank God, were up for the world at large to see.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she told him, throwing down the iPad. “Why would he do this to me?”
“Why wouldn’t he? He’s an ass; I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that.”
Garrett’s voice was hard and lacked emotion. She had never heard him like this before, and it left a cold spot where she was normally warm around him.
“Those were for his eyes only…”
“You’re about three more words from really pissing me the fuck off,” Garrett fumed, getting up to pace around the room.
“I’m sorry,” she started, running her hands through her hair.
“Goddamn it, Hannah. Why are you sorry? You didn’t leak these pictures to the press. That fuckin’ piece of dog shit did.”
He was aware that his voice was getting louder the more he talked, but he couldn’t help it. The woman in front of him was his; he didn’t want others to see her the way he did. Just the fact that she had done this for Ashton, of all people, pissed him off. He wanted to rip off the kid’s dick and shove it down his throat.
She turned around to face him, tears in her eyes. “This is so embarrassing. I never meant for others to see those.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” the tone of his voice was so smart, she couldn’t help but let the tears fall.
“You could be a little bit nicer about this. It’s not like I’m the only one you’ve ever slept with. Do you want me to tell you about these?” she asked, her voice becoming shrill. “Do you really want me to tell you what these represent?”
Pushing his hands out to the side, he turned his palms upwards towards the sky. “Please enlighten me baby, because this doesn’t seem like your shtick.”
That hurt, but she refused to let him see it. “This was the end of our relationship. We hadn’t seen each other in a few weeks, and to be honest with you, it had more than a month since he had kissed me, since he’d made any kind of advance towards me. I wanted him to want me. I wanted to feel pretty and sexy and loved. You know, all of those feelings that women want. It started out as a joke.” She walked over to the glass window and looked out at the strip. “I had gotten a new bikini, and I wanted to see what I looked like in it, so I asked Shell to take my picture. When she did, she told me I looked hot and I should send a naughty picture to Ashton.”
She could hear him breathe deeply behind her, but she wasn’t going to stop this now. He wanted to judge her; he could know everything about what had transpired.
“Stupid me, I went back to my hotel room that night and did just that. Only, those pictures of me wearing a bra and panties was as naughty as I got. I sent those to him.” She turned around to face him, pointing at the iPad. “And do you know what he said?”
Garrett refused to answer. He just hitched his chin up further and glared at her. She assumed he glared because he still wore the sunglasses, not allowing her to see his expression.
Her chin trembled. She hated to admit this to anyone, much less to this man who had her heart and could make her day better by just smiling. “He said maybe if I lost a few pounds, they’d be enough to get him going.”
She crumbled into herself then, tears flowing, sobs gushing out of her body.
His heart was breaking as he watched her, but Garrett couldn’t make himself turn off the fury he felt, and it wasn’t even at her—it was at Ashton. At the same time, he wanted to shake her and make her see what a horrible piece of shit Ashton was, but she continued to make excuses for him. She refused to see the bad in people. Shaking his head, he fisted his hands over his chest, tucking into himself.
“Never mind that at that time I was puking up everything I ate and working out three hours a day,” she continued, tears rolling now. “I still wasn’t good enough. I’m never going to be good enough.”
She used present tense, and that got him back in the game. “Stop Hannah, no one said you aren’t good enough.”
“Don’t tell me what to do. That’s like him.”
He saw red. “Do not ever compare me to that shit for brains, ever. Do you understand me?”
She didn’t answer, and he advanced on her. For a split second she was scared. “I said, do you understand me? He liked you a certain way, I don’t. I like you just the way you are. He didn’t like to have something to grab onto when he’s fucking you, I do. Don’t change who you are because of his narrow-minded ideas of how women should look.”
“I hate when you talk like that,” she whispered, a tear dripped down her cheek, over her lip. “We aren’t like that—it’s not crude like that.”
“Sometimes it is what it is, Hannah. It’s not always fucking rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes real life gets in the way.”
His words caused her to shrink back, almost like he had hit her with the back of his hand. “Why are you being so mean?”
Finally, he ripped off his sunglasses and she could see the green of his eyes. There was anger, pain, compassion, but there was also something here that she couldn’t place. “You think I’m being mean? How the fuck do you think I got the Reaper nickname? It wasn’t just something that people made up, Hannah. I’m an asshole sometimes, and I’m sorry that you’re getting the pissy end of it this time, but it is who I am. I am not always a nice guy.”
“I know, it’s just…what do you want me to do?”
“Nail his ass to the wall. Get out in the press and tell them what a lying sack of shit he is. Don’t let him walk all over you again.”
“Is that what you think I did last week? Let him walk all over me?”
“You should have made as big a fool outta him as he made out of you. It would have taught him a goddamn lesson is what it would have done.”
She shook her head. “I’m not like you; I don’t have to get even. I know in my own heart what I’m okay with and what I’m not. Don’t let him ruin our time together…please?” she begged.
He couldn’t do it. He stayed completely silent as she pleaded with him.
“I’m going to go into the bathroom and change into the amazing dress and shoes I just bought. When I come out, I want us to go out with our friends and have a good time,” she told him. “Can you please just do that?”
Garrett shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t let that little prick get away with talking about the woman I love that way. It’s not in my makeup. So you do what you want to do, but I can’t promise you I won’t be a fuckface tonight, and you can take that to the fuckin’ bank.”
He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room, leaving her there in his wake.
“Great way to tell me you love me,” she yelled back at him, completely sure he didn’t hear her. And just for good measure she added. “And you know I hate the ‘f’ word too!”
No matter what happened, she was determined that this would remain a good day.
Chapter Thirty-Six
* * *
Garrett knew that he’d had too much to drink. He was very well aware of that, considering he was having a hard time keeping his eyes open. The words he and Hannah had exchanged with each other before they came out with the rest of the group had been so far from nice and polite that he felt like he needed to go to church. They had been rough, and he was still feeling raw. Things couldn’t always be happy, he knew that, but he hated fighting with her. He really hated fighting with her. They didn’t get to spend much time together, and he didn’t want to spend it arguing. She had been upset with him the whole night and even more so when he had all but demanded she go to the bar and get him another shot. At one point, he recalled, he told her he could be a bastard, and she was getting it in full effect tonight.
“Hey, isn’t that her ex-boyfriend?” Bradley pointed to where Hannah stood at the bar.
Swinging his gaze over to where she stood, he spotted the man that pissed him off beyond belief. Sure enough, it was Ashton Coleman. Just knowing that he was in the same breathing space as Hannah made Garrett want to beat the shit out of him. The things he had said in the media, the pictures, and the fact that they had argued about all of it caused Garrett’s blood to boil.
“He touches her, I’m gonna go apeshit,” he warned the guys at the table as he took another drink from the bottle sitting in front of him. It wasn’t like he needed another drink, it was just a distraction—he really was afraid he’d kill the guy.
His green eyes flashed with barely leashed anger as he trained his gaze on his woman and the asshole standing next to her at the bar.
* * *
“Ashton, now isn’t the time for you to be doing this. Do you understand?” Hannah sighed, grabbing the tray of drinks she had ordered for the guys at the table. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Garrett watching them, and she wasn’t sure how long he would just let them stand there and shoot the breeze. His eyes were murderous, and she wanted to avoid a confrontation between the two of them—no matter what it took.
“When is a good time? I know I hurt you, and I’m sorry that I ruined what we had.”
She couldn’t understand his reasoning. “So you think leaking pictures of me to the media in various stages of undress and telling them that I cheated on you is going to make me take you back?” she hissed angrily. “It embarrassed me, not to mention you’ve really ticked off Reaper.”
“I’m not scared of him.” Ashton ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry that it embarrassed you, but what we had was good. I wanted you to remember that.”
“You’re crazy. You cheated on me because you said I was a cold fish and I couldn’t sexually satisfy you. Now you’re telling people that it was me who cheated on you, and then you released pictures of me that I never intended for other people to see. Again, I ask, are you crazy?”
“Jesus, Hannah, it’s not like you were naked in any of them.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she screamed at him. “Those pictures were private. I sent them to you because you were my boyfriend and because I was trying to put a spark in our relationship, trying to hold onto something that I never had. If I would’ve known you were screwing other women behind my back, you can bet your ass that I never would have sent them to you to begin with.”
“What a mouth on you? Did he teach you how to cuss?” Ashton’s gaze sharpened. “What else has he taught you how to do?”
His tone was ugly and what he was suggesting sounded dirty. Nothing that she and Garrett did was ugly. He had taught her the beautiful part of sharing your body with someone else. There was nothing cheap or dirty about it, and it really made Hannah mad to hear Ashton try to belittle it.
“That’s none of your business. Please, get out of my way,” she told him.
Instead of doing what she asked, he grabbed her arm and turned her to face him. He moved his hand down her
body and lightly cupped her breast. “You know you miss it.”
She didn’t have a chance to respond. He was a blur as Garrett tackled him to the ground.
* * *
All he saw was a black and red haze as he threw his fists at the man under him. He could hear Hannah in the background, from what sounded like a million miles away, telling him to stop. But he couldn’t. The crack of this asshole’s bones against his felt so good.
He grabbed Ashton’s hair and pulled his ear up to his mouth. “You are a piece of shit who doesn’t deserve to touch any woman, much less mine. You don’t get to decide if other people get to see that luscious body that I get to see. That’s my decision. You see that.” He shoved Ashton’s face around so that he could look at Hannah. “You had that, and you lost it because you’re a dumbass. That’s mine now. You don’t touch what’s mine. We clear on that?” He grabbed Ashton by the throat and hauled him up, pushing him against the top of the bar.
Ashton coughed, nodding.
“I asked you a question motherfucker…are we clear on that?” Garrett asked, shoving his arm up against Ashton’s throat.
It was then he felt small hands against his biceps, soft hands. Those were the hands of the woman he loved, and he fought against the anger and rage in his body, in his mind.
“He can’t answer unless you let go of him. You’re choking him,” Hannah said slowly, so that he could understand, as she pulled at his arms.
All of a sudden, he realized what she was saying and released his grip from around Ashton’s throat.
“We’re clear,” Ashton coughed, heaving in a huge breath, trying to hold himself up at the bar.
Garrett pushed a finger in the other man’s face. “Just in case you didn’t know who I am…my name is Reaper, and if you want something to do with her, you come through me. You apologize to her because you don’t deserve to breathe the same air that she does. You hurt and embarrassed her. She didn’t deserve that, you apologize right now.”
“I wasn’t thinking, Hannah. I’m sorry,” he wheezed, his face red.
Only The Beginning (Rockin' Country) Page 23
