You Make Me (23 page)

It was a bad idea. I knew it was a bad idea even as I was pulling on my shoes. I didn’t bother to change, still wearing jeans and a flannel shirt that I’d worn to class. Heath didn’t need or want me to dress up or put on makeup. I didn’t have the patience for it, not when I felt itchy with anxiety. I needed answers, the truth. Heath would never hide the truth from me, even if it hurt.

I half expected to see Brian passed out on a stool when I walked in, which would have added to my agitation, but there were only three guys in there and none of them were my brother. It was too early, most likely. Or maybe Ethan and Aubrey had some kind of conspiracy going to make me miserable. Though I didn’t really believe that. Ethan didn’t have a cruel bone in his body, and I knew deep down, that he had ended our relationship because he knew that I couldn’t love him the way I loved Heath. He hadn’t meant to hurt me.

Aubrey I wasn’t so sure about.

But either way, Brian wasn’t in the bar, which was just as well. I needed to process the whole flirting with my best friend issue before I dealt with the possibility that Heath was encouraging Brian’s alcoholism.

The door closing behind me felt conspicuously loud, and the guys at the bar did turn and look at me in interest. Two just gave me a brief glance before going back to their beer and conversation. The third checked me out, so I gave him a glare. It wasn’t hard to pull one off. I was in a foul mood.

Heath always said he wanted the wild Cat. He was about to get her. The one who spoke her mind and let all her emotion boil over.

The guy’s eyebrows shot up before he went back to his drink.

I didn’t see Heath at the bar so I crossed the dim room and took the stool furthest away from the other customers. I had been to the Tavern only a few times, and never with Ethan. He didn’t like that type of dive bar, where the sole purpose of being there was to get drunk, as fast and as cheaply as possible. I had been there with Aubrey and a few other sorority sisters and it hadn’t really been my scene either. It felt even less like my scene with the room so empty.

My seat was cold and a little sticky and I wasn’t sure where to put my wallet and keys. I almost never carried a purse because at school I had a backpack and when I wasn’t at class I never needed the crap that most girls carried around. A purse felt like a burden to me, but now I wished I had one to hang on the back of the chair instead of dropping my stuff on the bartop.

I had asked Heath when he had learned to tend bar and he had said it was a recently acquired skill. When he appeared from the backroom, a stack of clean barware in his hand, it struck me that it seemed out of context. Not at all Heath. Then again, I still had a hard time picturing him in the military, even though I’d seen the pictures that Tiffany had sent me. To me, he belonged on a boat.

He paused, clearly startled when he saw me. “Hey, baby.” He smiled and leaned over the bar, glasses still in hand, and kissed me. “What are you doing here?”

I wasn’t sure what to say but it didn’t matter because he knew he well enough to know something was wrong. He pulled back and studied me.

“What’s going on? You didn’t even kiss me.” He set the glasses down and put his elbows on the bar, leaning forward. “What did I do? It must be pretty bad if you came here to tear into me about it.”

The fact that he sounded so matter of fact and unconcerned about the idea that I could be upset with him, pissed me off. “Did you exchange numbers with Aubrey?”

There was no reaction from him at all. He didn’t look guilty or surprised or worried. “Yes. Awhile ago.”

“Did you know she was my best friend and Ethan’s sister?”

“At that specific moment?” He shrugged. “I’m not sure. I may have had some idea that she knew you, but I don’t remember the exact moment I realized her connection to you and Frat Boy. Why?”

“Because she said you flirted with her, that you sent texts to each other.”

“I guess that was flirting, yes.”

His continued lack of emotion only spiked my anger. “Did you fuck her?”

But I had pushed him far enough finally to garner a reaction. His eyes narrowed. “Are we really doing this here, right now?” he asked.

A chill went up my spine. He was warning me to back off, and somewhere in a rational place in my head, I knew he was right. But I had to know. I needed to know. To what purpose I couldn’t say. I just felt like I’d shatter into a million pieces if he didn’t give me full disclosure.

“Yes. We’re really doing this. It’s a yes or no question.”

“No. I didn’t fuck her. Nor did I want to fuck her. I wanted to fuck you.”

I swallowed hard, not sure if that was reassuring or not. “Then why did you flirt with her?”

“Because I was bored and she was flirting with me and I was angry with you for being with Ethan.”

It should have been enough. But I was so unsatisfied with his answer, for a second I wondered if I was in some twisted way sorry that he hadn’t, so that I could hate them both and never have to feel this much emotion ever again. It was scary, to be dangling on the edge like I was, so vulnerable. He had the power to destroy me again and that made me both angry and terrified. I knew in some small corner of my brain I was sabotaging our relationship to protect myself, but it didn’t stop me. I barreled along at full speed.

“Let me see your phone.”

He made a sound of disgust. But he pulled his phone out of his pocket and tossed it on the counter. “The password is Comfortably Numb.”

His favorite Pink Floyd song. I wondered if that meant anything.

“Have at it. I have work to do.” Heath walked away, asking the guys at the bar, “You good? Or can I get you something?”

I picked up his phone. He didn’t have a case for it and it was scratched up. Warm from being in his pocket. I knew that the reasonable thing to do would be to just stand up, follow him down the bar, and hand it back to him. That if he trusted me to have his password, he wasn’t hiding anything.

But it was too tempting. I couldn’t stop myself. The compulsion to see for myself was a feverish, iron grip on my soul. So I typed in his password and I went to his texts, scrolling down. My name was first, not surprisingly. Then there were some angry texts from Darla, which he had not responded to. Texts from guys whose names I recognized as friends from the service. Then there it was- Aubrey.

There weren’t a lot and they dated from the week after Homecoming.

They weren’t full of any substance. Just generic flirting.

But then I saw an exchange Aubrey had started that made me feel sick.

Send me a pic of you.

I don’t take selfies.

No, you know what I mean.

Not really. Spell it out for me. I’m slow.

Show me your junk.

If you want to see my dick just come over.

Where do you live? Haha.

He’d typed his address. No other response than that.

There was nothing more from her either.

It made me think that she’d gone over, they’d had sex, both gotten what they wanted, and had casually lost interest in each other.

I was disgusted. Horrified. Furious with both of them.

I had spent weeks agonizing over my relationship with Ethan and how to maintain a friendship with Heath because I still loved him, and he had been casually slipping his dick to my best friend?

Feeling like I was going to throw up, I grabbed my keys and wallet and half stood, half fell, off the stool. I made enough noise that Heath looked in my direction and came back toward me. “Satisfied?” he asked.

I did it without thinking. Without meaning to, honestly. I wasn’t even aware it was happening until it was too late to do anything about it.

But I hurled his phone at him. Hard. And I missed.

It careened past him, into the mirror behind the bar, making an appallingly loud crash, and knocking over a cocktail shaker, which fell to the floor along with the phone.

Heath stared at me in shock, his eyes darkening with anger. He flipped up the bar top at the end of the bar, ignoring his phone, and came around to me, steps quick and intention obscure.

“I…” For a second I panicked, indecisive long enough that he was able to firmly grip my hand and drag me into the back room.

He shoved me inside and slammed the door shut behind us.

Then he locked it.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” he demanded.

It suddenly seemed like I had.

Chapter Nineteen

The back room was an office and storage room, liquor on shelves all around us. It was small and poorly lit and I felt very aware of the fact that he was risking his job stepping away from the bar. That I had risked his job by showing up there and demanding answers that could have waited until he got home. That I’d made a scene and that I was damn lucky that mirror hadn’t broken.

“Shouldn’t you be out there?” I asked, nervous.

“Oh, now, you’re worried about my job?” He snorted. “The guy sitting at the end of the bar is actually the owner. I’m sure he has it covered.”

Fabulous. His boss was right there. The guy I had actually glared at when I had walked in. “Shit. I’m sorry.” Heat flooded my cheeks. “I didn’t mean to throw your phone, I really didn’t.”

“What is going on? Why are you so jealous?”

“You gave Aubrey your address. She asked to see your junk and you said if you want to see my dick, come over, and you gave her your address.” I felt miserable, desperate. My voice sounded foreign to me, high pitched and hysterical. Shrewish.

“She was just flirting, being a dick tease. I called her bluff. I knew she wouldn’t come over and she didn’t.”

I wanted to believe him. I stared at him, willing him to tell me the truth, trying anxiously to win the war with my own insecurities. “Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure!” he exploded. “When have I ever lied to you? If I had sex with her, I would tell you. But I didn’t and even if I had I would have been wishing the whole goddamn time that it was you, because I wanted to be fucking you.”

His anger made me crumple. I hit his chest with my fist, frustrated. “This is all your fault!” I said. “You shouldn’t have left me. You left me and now I don’t know if this is real.”

“I never left you,” he said, shaking his head, jaw set, nostrils flaring. “I was forced to go. And I came back and you were the one who had left me. You were the one with a ring on your finger. You were the one who moved on, who gave up on us.”

“I didn’t give up. I was forced to give up, just like you were forced to leave.” I was crying, and I was landing a punch on his chest with every other word, keys jangling in my hand, frustrated and hurt and angry and scared. Most of all I was scared.

“Calm down,” he said, grabbing my hand.

I struggled, my wallet tumbling out of my hand to the floor. “No.” Then I hit him again, only my swing was higher this time and I accidentally grazed my fist across the bottom of his chin.

Before I could even open my mouth to apologize he had grabbed both my wrists and turned me, so my back landed against the locked door. “Stop it, Cat.”

“Let me go,” I breathed. But I didn’t want him to. Ever.

And I wanted him to fight for me, like he had promised. Prove to me that I was it for him. The one he loved.

“No. I’m never letting you go.” He kissed me and it was hard, angry, dominating. “You’re the only one I want. The only one I’ve ever wanted.”

Heath kissed down my neck, sucking the top of my breast through my shirt. He still gripped my wrists tightly, holding me in place against the door.

“I don’t believe you,” I said, even as I fought the urge to gasp as his tongue ran everywhere I had bare skin exposed.

“Yes, you do. You’re just being stubborn. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

I yanked my arms, trying to break free, displaying that stubbornness, trying to exert my control. Regain it.

But when he suddenly let go of me and leaned away a few inches to study me, I didn’t go anywhere. I stayed put, heart racing, body tingling, hands still over my head pinned to the wall. He gave me a sexy smile of triumph. “That’s what I thought. You’re a good actress, but ultimately you want exactly what I do.”

This time when he kissed me, he bit my bottom lip. He swallowed the gasp I gave, while his hands jerked open the button on my jeans and tore down the zipper. He wasn’t really. I couldn’t believe he would.

But he was. And he did.

And I wanted him to.

He ripped my jeans down to my knees while his mouth assaulted mine. “Tell me you love me,” he demanded. “Tell me if I give you a ring you’ll wear it and forget forever that I wasn’t the first to give you one.”

I was breathless, aroused, shocked at how damp I was when his fingers stroked inside me. “I love you,” I said, knowing that I had always and forever would.

When he thrust inside me, I was forced up on my tiptoes, grabbing onto his shoulders for balance. Shock and pleasure flooded me. “Oh, God.”

“What else?” he demanded, holding himself still inside my body, a hot throbbing tease.

I met his gaze, insensible and overwhelmed, but knowing that what he wanted to hear would be nothing but the truth. I could say and mean it from the very depths of my soul. “Yes. Give me a ring and I’ll forget him forever.”

He made a sound in the back of his throat and then he moved, pounding into me, squeezing my leg up onto his hip to give him a better angle to push in deep. “You trust me.”

It wasn’t a question. But he was right. I did trust him. It was just when there was so much to lose, I was terrified that I would. I nodded, feeling frantic, emotions and arousal squeezing me, holding me tense and desperate. “Yes. I trust you.”

Heath pressed his forehead against mine, our breath intermingling in hot urgent pants as he took me hard. I was shocked that I had an orgasm. There was so much friction, so much raw thrusting, that I didn’t think I could without the stimulation to my clit, but I had an internal orgasm. One that came from deep inside me and burst onto his cock with a velocity that had me biting the shoulder of his shirt so I wouldn’t scream out and give us away.