Perfect Regret ( BOOK 2) (25 page)

The town slowly disappeared as we drove deeper into the countryside. After fifteen minutes or so the van took a turn onto a gravel drive before parking in an overgrown lot. Garrett pulled a couple of flashlights out of the glove compartment.

“Come on,” he said, sounding unusually excited. I got out of the van and waited as he pulled an old blanket and his guitar case off the back seat. Was he expecting us to hang out on a blanket outside in fucking December?

“Uh…” I began, ready to voice my very loud disapproval of this plan. Maybe he was trying to be romantic or something. I was going to tell him not to bother. That he could save his sentiments and take me somewhere warm.

Garrett gave me a wry look, as if reading my mind. “Don’t say anything. Just come on.” He held out his hand and I reluctantly grabbed it. He gave my arm a little shake. “I won’t let you freeze, Ri. Promise,” he vowed with a wink.

I grumbled under my breath as my teeth started to chatter but I followed him through an over grown field toward a row of trees. Garrett handed me a flashlight after turning his on. “You’ll want to watch where you’re walking. There are some holes along here,” he said, indicating the uneven ground.

I was all about some good old fashioned outdoor fun. I loved to hike and had spent most of last summer learning the trails in and around the Blue Ridge Mountains. But even I had my limits. And they definitely applied to traipsing through a field in the middle of the night in a short skirt in freezing temperatures.

But I followed Garrett knowing that come hell or high water I was ready to follow him anywhere. Crazy how a few months can change your mindset so completely.

“If I fall and break my ankle, your ass is carrying me out of here,” I whispered harshly.

“Why are you whispering? Are you afraid Big Foot will come and eat you?” Garrett joked and I swatted his arm.

We walked into the line of trees and come through in a clearing by a river. There was a fire pit off to the side surrounded by a ring of rocks and some chairs. There was a picnic table and a dock with a boat tied to it.

And most importantly there was a small cabin nestled back in the trees. Garrett pulled me toward the small building, stopping in front of the door. He reached out to rest the flat of his hand against the smooth wood, his head bowed.

I put my hand on his shoulder, not understanding the sudden change in his mood.

“Are you okay?” I asked him softly.

Garrett’s shoulders heaved and then he looked up at me. In the gleam of the flashlights I could see that his eyes were wet. “I haven’t been here since…they died,” he said in a rush and I understood that this place had belonged to his parents. And him taking me here meant something extremely important.

I opened my mouth and then shut it; I didn’t know quite what to say. Garrett squeezed my hand before dropping to dig his keys out of his pocket. Fumbling in the dark, he finally found the right one and put it into the lock. With a squeak he pushed the door open and we walked into the heart of his past.

W
e were met with a blast of stale, musty air. Garrett felt around on the wall until he found a light switch. He flicked it on, illuminating the darkness to reveal a space that looked as though it had been neglected for some time.

The old, worn furniture was covered with a thick layer of dust and grime. There were cobwebs everywhere. I coughed and then fell into a fit of sneezing.

“This place is worse than I thought,” Garrett said more to himself. He went and opened a few windows to try and air the place out. The rush of cold filled the room and I was shivering all over again.

Garrett caught sight of me with my arms wrapped around myself and cursed. “Shit, I shouldn’t have brought you here. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He sounded so dejected that I forced myself to unwrap my arms and unclench my legs so I could walk over to him.

“Well, why did you bring me here?” I asked him.

Garrett lifted his shoulders in a sad shrug. “I was thinking about this place the other day and how much I loved being here when I was younger. Mom and Dad bought it when I was ten and we spent a lot of weekends fishing, swimming, doing your typical family stuff.” He walked over to the fireplace and picked up a framed picture that was covered in so much filth that you couldn’t see the picture beneath the glass. He pulled his sleeve down over his hand and wiped at the frame, slowly revealing the picture of a family smiling together in this very room.

The man and woman were the same people in the picture at Garrett’s house. And the boy smiling a full, happy smile with a head full of unmanageable blond hair was a younger, more content version of the man who stood beside me.

Garrett placed the picture back on the mantle and braced a hand on the wood as he peered down into the cold and empty hearth. “After they died, I couldn’t come back here. So I closed it up. Tried to forget about it. I kept the electricity on for some reason even if I never planned to come here again.”

He stood up straight and backed away. “But lately, the memories have been harder to ignore.” Garrett looked over at me as though I were the reason he was facing some deeply hidden demons.

“And you wanted to bring me here?” I pressed; wanting him to acknowledge what I hoped was the reason behind our late night visit to his family’s cabin.

Garrett ran his hands through his hair and gripped his scalp. Then, looking at me, he moved his hands to cradle my face. “Yes. I wanted to bring you here,” he stated.

“Why?” I asked.

Garrett let out a noisy breath. “Because very few people know the real me. So many see me as the guitarist of Generation Rejects. The townie that throws the crazy parties. The stoner who fucks around and likes to have a good time. But not you, Riley. Okay, maybe at first that’s what you saw.” I grimaced at this but Garrett ran his thumb along the bottom curve of my lip as if to stop my guilty thoughts.

“But now, you see
me.
And I want to give you every little piece of the person I am. Of the person I used to be. Because I love you, Riley Walker. And I want you so deep in my life that you can’t ever leave,” he said softly and I couldn’t stop the tears from falling freely. What the hell was it about Garrett that turned me into a pile of hormonal mush?

He kissed me tenderly. Not a sexual action, but one filled with love and devotion. And there wasn’t a girl on this planet that could resist the feel of his lips promising the world.

I opened my mouth to admit my own feelings. To bare my soul to the one person who should see it but Garrett pressed his thumb against my lips silencing me.

“You don’t need to say anything. Not right now. Right now, I need to be with you…here. Please,” he pleaded as if I could deny him anything right now.

I kept quiet and nodded my assent. Garrett leaned in kissed me again and then released me. Quietly, he went about building a fire in the dusty fireplace from wood that had been left from an earlier time. Once the fire was raging, he unrolled the thick blanket he had brought from his van and laid it out on the floor.

Sinking to his knees on the ground, he pulled me down beside him. I fell to my own knees and faced him in the flickering light of the fire. For the first time tonight I wasn’t freezing my ass off. I was warm and completely at peace.

Slowly, Garrett pushed my jacket off my shoulders. I wiggled out of the sleeves and tossed the coat onto the couch behind us. I cringed at my overzealousness. But I was totally ready to get naked and sweaty with him. And here he was trying to be all sweet and romantic.

Garrett laughed. “My girl is a little over excited,” he teased and I flushed at his endearment. He called me
his girl.
Typically I balked at possessive titles. I was a modern woman after all. But somehow, being Garrett’s anything felt like the most wonderful thing in the world.

My trembling hands began to unbutton his shirt. I tried to slow myself. You know, take my time. But I found that I was practically tearing the buttons off in my haste to get him out of his clothing. Garrett couldn’t stop laughing as I pulled his belt off in one rambunctious tug.

“You really can’t let me take control of anything, can you?” he asked and I wondered if that bothered him. Garrett grabbed my face and kissed me soundly. “And I love you for it. I wouldn’t have you any other way,” he responded firmly, grabbing the hem of overly girly blue blouse and pulled it up over my head.

We were still on our knees facing each other. Garret only in his jeans, me in my bra and skirt. And suddenly my haste to get naked faded and I just wanted to spend an eternity staring at this man who had somehow, someway become the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

“You are so fucking gorgeous, Riley.” He traced the line of my collarbone, his finger dipping into the crevice between my breasts, unleashing a wave of chills over my skin.

“I’m scared as hell you’ll wake up tomorrow and realize you can do a lot better than me. That you and me, we’re too different and this can never work.” Garrett bent low and replaced his finger in the valley between my breasts with his mouth, suckling the skin and eliciting a throaty moan from my throat.

“Please don’t wake up thinking that. Because you and me could be something wonderful. I swear to God I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you,” he said into my skin as he kissed a line up chest and up the side of my neck until he sucked my earlobe between his teeth, making me gasp.

“You don’t need to prove anything to me, Garrett,” I rasped, finding it hard to talk. Hard to breathe. Hard to think. All I could do was feel his lips on my skin. His fingers now removing my bra from my body in a single fluid motion.

“I already
know
we’re something incredible. And I need you in my life, Garrett. I can’t imagine my existence without you,” I said with such conviction it made Garrett pull back and look me in the eye, as if waiting for me to shout
just kidding!

“You really mean that?” he asked, sounding so vulnerable it made my heart ache. I wasn’t quite ready to declare my love for him but I could share with him how intense my feelings were.

“Yes, I mean it. You and me, on paper we’re all wrong. But that’s okay, because the reality is we just work. I don’t know why. But we do. And I want to take this road with you, wherever it leads us,” I said, smiling through the blubbering mess of tears that were wreaking havoc on my face.

Garrett’s face lit up and then he kissed me. And he was through with being soft and gentle. Because this time when he touched me, he was all desire and heat and an overpowering need to
consume.

He laid me down on the blanket, our skin hot from the pounding lust between us and the fire raging a few feet away. He pulled my skirt down over my hips and I lifted myself up so he could slide it down my legs. His hands slid their way back up until the held my hips and his lips worked a trail to my aching breasts.

He took one nipple in his mouth and arched up to meet him, a loud cry echoing from my lips at the feel of his lips around the sensitive bud. As he worked my flesh, I made short work of the rest of his clothing.

When he was completely naked, I felt him press his hard length between my legs. A thin strip of fabric the only thing separating us. And I was ready for that barrier to take a hike.

“Take my panties off,” I breathed into Garrett’s mouth. When he didn’t move quickly enough for my liking I growled against his lips. “Now!”

Garrett chuckled and immediately complied. Hooking his fingers around the waistband he gave them a vicious yank, tearing them away from body.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” I purred in satisfaction, watching as he threw the scrap of ruined fabric into the fire. Garrett resumed kissing me and I turned into a liquid puddle as his fingers found my wet center. Stroking, touching, loving every sensitive inch of me.

Thrusting a finger deep inside me, we both groaned in absolute delight at the feel of it. “I love it when you touch me,” I whispered, needing to validate all the ways he blew my mind.

Garrett pulled his finger from my body and began to make wet circles around my throbbing clit. I moaned low and deep as he pushed two fingers inside me again. “I love touching you, baby,” he whispered back, watching me as I rode the cresting wave he was unleashing on my body.

While his hand worked between my legs, his other hand came up to cup my breast. Rubbing my hard nipple between his thumb and forefinger. When my orgasm hit, it was a violent burst that took me by surprise. I had orgasmed before, but nothing like the complete meltdown I experienced just now with Garrett’s fingers deep inside me and his mouth on my breast.

I was a trembling, quivering mess when he finally pulled his fingers out of me and put on a condom. Barely able to wrap my legs around his waist, Garrett put his hand underneath my rear and lifted me up so I could meet him as he thrust deep inside me.

“Oh God!” he groaned, stopping a moment as my body adjusted around him. Feeling him like this I knew I was where I was meant to be.

Reaching around I gave his ass a little smack, startling him. He peered down at me questioningly as he slowly withdrew from my depths and then plunged forward again.

“I’m not gonna break, cowboy. Fuck me like you mean it,” I challenged, throwing my head back. And accept my challenge, he did. Garrett fastened his lips to the base of my throat and gripped my hips as he thrust into me as hard as he could. I screamed at the top of my lungs as he screwed my brains out.

Garrett’s yells joined my strangled cries. The shadows of our bodies loving each other in a brutally passionate way urging us on and over the edge. And when I came, it was knowing he was right behind me.

Afterwards, we lay in a sweaty, tangled heap. Our legs were pretzeled together, our arms clinging. My ear was pressed against his chest and I could hear the erratic thud of his heart. He was still deep inside me and I knew he needed to dispose of the condom but I didn’t want to move. This connection was the most amazing thing I had ever felt.

When we were finally able to breathe again, Garrett slowly pulled out of me and made quick of wrapping the condom in a tissue and putting it out of sight. He was back in my arms before I could complain about missing him.

“Please tell me this is real,” he said quietly into my hair, his hand running lazy trails up and down my back.

I looked up at him and kissed his chin. “This is as real as it gets babe. There’s no getting rid of me now.”

Garrett leaned back and pulled the battered guitar case over. I lay there, completely naked as he started to mess with the strings.

It was such a surreal moment. Garrett Bellows and Riley Walker, in the afterglow of some seriously amazing sex, sitting together in all of their nude glory. And I didn’t feel remotely self-conscious. A first for me.

Garrett started to thumb a tune. Just a simple combination of notes but it was amazing. Then looking at me with eyes full of the most beautiful emotion I had ever seen, he began to sing.

My mask means nothing

You see who I am

Breaking me down

on the ground where I stand.

I wanted to lose you

In the face of your pain

Stranded in the dust

Hounded by shame.

You hated

I loved

I was wrong

You were done

If tragedy had a soul

It was mine you took hold

Caught in the vice

It felt so right.

Terrified to lose

What I never could keep

Drowning in regret

Push it down deep.

But the sun does shine

On the wicked and mean

You licked all my tears

Scraped my heart clean

Together we are more

than the sum of it all

Mighty shall stand

While the weak shall fall

My mistakes almost ruined

The place I belong

Beside you, behind you,

For ever how long.

Take this heart

That no longer bends