“It’s fine,” she told him, still holding onto Garrett’s arm.
“It’s not,” Garrett argued.
She cupped his cheeks in her hands. “I love you for doing this for me, but it really is. There’s no reason that you should get in trouble over him. Let’s just go,” she pleaded with him.
“I’m shitfaced, aren’t I?” he asked her, stumbling now that the adrenaline was no longer flowing through his body.
She couldn’t help the laugh that came out of her mouth. “You are, but we’re gonna have to talk about this in the morning.”
* * *
Garrett knew that sometime over the night he’d swallowed a lot of cotton. That had to be why his mouth was so dry. Cracking an eye open, he closed it quickly as he realized it was light outside and that light hurt. Hurt badly. He moaned, pulling the blanket up over his face, but even that hurt. His hands were killing him.
“What the fuck did I do?” His voice sounded wrecked, even to his own ears.
“You don’t remember?”
That voice was Hannah, that he knew. “Not really,” he admitted, sitting up and putting his hand over his eyes.
“Let’s see if this rings a bell,” she had a seat next to him and handed him a bottle of water, along with what looked like some Tylenol. “You and I had a huge argument about some pictures that Ashton released to the press. We yelled at each other, you were especially mean, but then you told me you loved me before you ran out of the room.”
It was slowly coming back to him, and he felt like a piece of shit as he remembered their argument. “God, I am so sorry.” He put his head in his hands. “I never meant for it to come out that way.”
“I know.” She ran her hand along his back. “I know that you meant what you said too.”
“I did.” He looked at her. “I swear to God, I did. I so wish I could have given you a better ‘I love you’ than that.” His eyes were bloodshot and he licked his lips. “I’m so sorry. I am like him.”
“No, no you’re not. Not at all. You just had too much to drink, we were mad at each other, you saw him put his hand on me, and you flew off the handle. You protected me. Maybe not in the best of ways, but you did.”
“Is that why my hands hurt?” He flexed both of them and for the first time noticed dried blood on them.
“Yeah, you beat the crap out of him. I thought you were going to choke him to death.”
“Damn, I’m sorry,” he apologized again. “I haven’t lost control like that in a long time.”
“I know. Jared told me that it had been a while since they saw you go crazy.”
“It has been. I learned to control it for the most part. It takes a lot for me to snap, but I guess I hit that point last night.” He ran his hand through his hair. Out of anything that could have happened, he hated that she had seen that. “I didn’t want you to ever see that side of me,” he whispered.
“This may surprise you,” she told him softly. “But I liked it. It was hot.”
He chuckled. “Are you kidding me?”
“No, I’m not. In fact, there are a lot of things that I love about you.”
“Really?” Something about her was different. She looked at him openly; there was no tension around her eyes. He put his hands on her hips and scooted her closer to him. “I’d love to hear what they are.”
Hannah was about to very honest. Seeing him defend her the night before and seeing how upset he’d gotten because of what Ashton had done flipped a switch inside her. Those insecurities that had always been at the forefront of every decision she made were now more towards the back of her mind, not right there glaring at her like they normally were. She felt more comfortable in her skin, more comfortable in the relationship. Garrett had risked a lot losing his temper like he had, but he had done it without a second thought for her.
“I love your earrings, your tattoos, the way you smile with just the corners of your mouth sometimes, then when you do smile with your whole mouth and your dimples show—it seriously makes my heart race. I love the fact that you call me, that you aren’t scared to text me in front of your friends, that you aren’t scared to wear a super small Harmony Stewart shirt in front of an arena full of people.”
He cracked up at that and put his arms around her, pulling her to him. “I would kiss you, but I need to brush my teeth.”
“That’s totally sexy too,” she told him dryly.
He dug his fingers into her sides, making her laugh before he threw her onto her back before he got up from the bed, making his way to the bathroom.
“That’s another thing. I love that you can pick me up and throw me around. If I ever get too heavy for it, I’m gonna be so sad.”
He looked over his shoulder at her. “If you ever get too heavy for me, I’ll just pump some more iron.”
“That’s a nice sacrifice that you’ll make for me.”
Garrett turned around in the doorway of the bathroom. “I’d make whatever sacrifice I had to, and I hope that you would do the same for me.”
She watched as he turned back around and went deeper into the room. After a minute she heard the shower crank on. She sat there for a few moments thinking about him, thinking about the things he had done for her, the sacrifices that he had already made. Making a snap decision, she stood up and started taking her clothes off. By the time she made it to the shower, she was naked. She pulled back the curtain, causing Garrett to jump. “Do you need some help washing your back?”
One of those smiles spread across his face, and he handed her the washrag that was in his hand. “I do, and if you need help, I would be more than willing to wash your front.”
Her laugh echoed throughout the bathroom as he pulled her inside. That laugh died as he crowded her against the wall of the shower and lowered his head to hers. There she tasted the mint of his toothpaste as his tongue swept against the inside of her mouth. Reaching down her back, he put his hands around her thighs and lifted so that she could wrap her legs around his waist. Hannah put her arms around his neck and held on so that she could pull her mouth back from his. “Now you’re just showing off,” she used her teeth to nip at his neck.
“Whatever it takes, baby. Whatever it takes.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
* * *
This time when Garrett woke up, his mouth wasn’t dry and his eyes didn’t hurt from the bright light of the sun. Instead, he was warm, sated, and completely calm as he looked at the brown hair trailing over his right bicep. Hannah moaned as she buried her head deeper into his arm, wrapping her arm securely around his waist.
“We seriously need to get up,” he told her as he looked at the clock sitting on the bedside table. It was well after two in the afternoon.
“We’re on Vegas time though,” she mumbled, running her nails along his side.
“As true as that statement is,” he moved his hand to her neck and pushed against it, causing her to raise her eyes to his, “I need to find out if I’m gonna have to go to jail.”
“What?” She was still in the warmth of their cocoon, not thinking about the series of events that had brought them to where they were right now.
He cleared his throat and moved her hair out of her face, before dropping a kiss on her forehead. “I’m willing to bet Ashton wasn’t too impressed with the fact I beat his ass. I’m prepared to have to go jail today.”
Hannah wrapped her arms tightly around his waist and buried her head in his bare chest. “If he does, I’ll put him in jail.”
The words were muffled, but he caught them and chuckled. “That’s nice of you babe, but what has he done to you?”
“I have proof.”
A cold dread settled in his stomach. With his hands, he pulled her face back. “Proof about what? What are you not telling me?”
She closed her eyes, shaking her head. Suddenly, he flashed back to when he had advanced on her in the suite the day before and how she had shrunk back. She had really been scared of him. “Christ, Hannah, did he hit you? Is that why
you were so uneasy with me yesterday when I was stalking around like a dumbass?”
“I really don’t want to talk about it and please respect that, but if he tries to put you in jail, I’ll have him there faster than he can snap his fingers. Just trust me. Trust that this is something I can’t talk about right now. It’s not because I want to hide something from you, it’s just because I can’t handle it.”
His green eyes searched her brown ones, and he could see the pain and hurt there. He realized looking there that it didn’t matter if she told him what had happened—if it caused her that much pain, he didn’t have to know. “Okay, whatever you want. You tell me when you want to, and I’ll do my best to keep my hair-trigger temper under control.”
She nodded. “Thank you.”
“Know this though,” he cupped her cheeks. “No matter how mad I am, I’ve never hit a woman. I’ll never raise my hand to you—ever.”
“I know that.” And she did. Yesterday had been proof of that. When she put her hands on him, he had stopped, just with her asking him to.
“I’m not going to pretend that I don’t want to know what happened to you, but I’ll respect your wishes.”
“Thank you.” She squeezed his waist tightly and rested her head on his chest again. She could hear his heart beating as he stroked her hair. This had quickly become the safest place in the world to her, and she never wanted to give it up. “Shell doesn’t even know what happened,” she whispered. “Nobody does.”
That gutted him. She kept so much to herself, and he wanted to tell her she didn’t have to. At the same time, he hadn’t grown up the way she had, in the public eye. His band didn’t get popular until he was past that stage in his life. They weren’t headlining until they were twenty-five or twenty-six. Hannah wasn’t even that old yet, and she had already been around the world. “You don’t have to handle things by yourself anymore, you have me. I love you, and I’m not gonna let anything happen to you.”
“I’ve never believed anyone when they’ve said that to me before, but I believe it when you say it.”
“Good,” he smiled. “Don’t damage my masculinity like that.”
There were so many questions on the tip of his tongue that he wanted to ask. How had her parents not known what was going on with her? She seemed to be close to at least her mom. Had they just turned a blind eye? How had someone like her kept her life so private? It wasn’t in his makeup to just leave things alone and not find out the answers that he wanted so badly to know, but he would do it for this woman.
“We need to get up,” she told him, trailing a nail down his chest. Just like that the mood in the room and the air around them changed.
“Already there,” he smirked.
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it,” she giggled.
He gripped her hips and tried to pull her over on top of him when they heard a knock at the suite door. “Let me go get it,” she told him. “Just in case.”
“I’m not scared, Hannah,” he assured her.
“I know, but I think it would be better if I did it.”
He didn’t want to hide in the bedroom like he was scared, but again he would do what she asked. “If it’s someone who wants me, I’ll be out there.”
She shushed him as she put on a pair of sweatpants and a large t-shirt. Hannah shut the door to the bedroom as she made her way into the living area. There was another knock.
“Coming,” she said as she hurried to the door. Her hands shook as she gripped the handle and pulled the door slowly open. She never, not even in a million years, would have guessed who was on the other side of that door.
“Don’t slam the door in my face.” Ashton held his hands up to the door, pushing on it slightly.
“You need to back the fuck up,” Garrett told him as he stalked out of the bedroom.
Hannah almost smiled at the imposing figure he made. He also wore a pair of sweatpants, but he wore no shirt. His tattoos were bright against his skin, his ab muscles tight, almost like he was holding himself back from launching at the other man.
“I can’t pull the two of you off each other,” Hannah warned. “You have to promise me you aren’t going to beat each other up.”
“He lays a hand on you or toward you, I can’t promise what I’m going to do, babe.”
“Ashton, its best you stay out there,” Hannah told him, putting herself in between the two of them.
“No, you don’t put yourself in between us, you come back here beside me,” Garrett told her, pulling her back with his hand.
“Please don’t fight,” she begged. “Ashton, just tell us why you’re here and then leave.”
Ashton was quiet for so long, she thought that maybe he’d forgotten why he was there. It gave her a moment to study him. His left eye was swollen shut, there were marks around his neck from where Garrett had choked him, and he was hunched over, like his ribs were hurting.
“I’m sorry,” Ashton finally said, pulling his one eye up to look at her.
“What?” she asked, disbelief in her voice. Was he serious?
He licked his cracked lips and looked past Garrett so that he could see her. “I’m sorry. I did a lot of things to you that I shouldn’t have done. I don’t expect you to accept my apology, but I have a problem that I need help with.”
“When did you come to this conclusion?” She had heard this so many times from him, and she had always believed him. This time, she wouldn’t make the same mistake. “You’ve said this before.”
Garrett stood, his hand gripping the door tightly, to keep him from closing his hand around the bastard’s neck in front of him. He really didn’t want to hear the words they spoke to one another. He wanted to shove Ashton’s face off his neck.
“I know I have, but this morning I woke up bloody, bruised, and sore. Nobody should have to wake up this way.”
“I’m not fuckin’ sorry I did it,” Garrett interjected. “If it had been up to me, I would have given you even more than I did. You deserve every ache and pain I gave you. The only thing I’m sorry about is she had to see it.”
“I do,” he agreed. “I deserve what you wanted to give to me.”
Hannah mulled over in her head what she should say to this. What did Ashton expect her to say? What did Garrett expect her to say? She was so tired.
“I wish you the best Ashton, and that’s all I can tell you.”
“Can you forgive me?” his voice was so weak and pleading that she wanted to tell him to man up.
“No, I can’t,” she told him. “Honestly, I don’t know that I ever can forgive you, but I can thank you. You showed me what I don’t want from a man, and you made it possible for me to appreciate the one I have standing in between the two of us.”
“I need your forgiveness,” he told her, his voice becoming harder.
“I’m not giving it to you.”
He opened his mouth again, and Garrett held up his hand. “She told you that she’s not giving you her forgiveness. Let it go.”
“I want to hear her say it,” he said again.
“You’re not going to. This is over. You turn your ass around, tuck your tail between your legs, and run on home to mommy. Got it?”
It was obvious that Ashton wasn’t happy, but he didn’t want to scrap with Garrett again. “Fine, but I just wanted to let you know I’m sorry, and I’m not pressing charges against him.”
“Thanks,” Garrett bit out. “Really appreciate it, but if you don’t leave right now, I’m gonna beat the shit out of you again.” He slammed the door in Ashton’s face and turned around, leaning against it. “You okay?”
Hannah nodded. “I just never realized how manipulative he is before that.”
“Well then, thank God for that.”
He walked over and enveloped her in his arms. She clung to him, needing to feel the closeness they had earlier. “He’s never going to hurt me again.”
“Damn right.”
“Now, how about we get out of this hotel
room and go have some fun? I only have a couple days left,” she grinned up at him.
“Sounds good to me.” He wanted to ask her to come home with him, but knew that she probably wanted to go to her own house and check on things there, see her parents and friends in Nashville. But what he wouldn’t give to have her on the plane with him when they all left. It was just another reminder of the lives they led.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
* * *
“Did you see this?”
The two of them were relaxing in their own cabana on their last afternoon in Vegas. In a few hours it would be time for them to go, but they wanted to get as much time as they could away from all the obligations. She would have to go back to Nashville, and he would have to go to Huntington Beach.
Garrett glanced at the cell phone that Hannah held in front of his face and had to laugh. It looked as if Ashton was retracting his statement and issuing a public apology to not only Hannah, but him as well.
“Harmony is very happy with Reaper and it was wrong for me to try and mess that up. I met him, we talked. He’s a really cool guy,” Ashton said as he spoke with Country Daily.
“Yeah, we talked alright,” he snorted.
“Well at least he realized that he did wrong,” Hannah shrugged. “That’s the first time he’s ever admitted to being wrong about anything. Ten bucks says his management saw his face, asked him what happened, he told them what an idiot he is, and then they had to do something to stop the true story from coming out. That’s just how they work in our neck of the woods.” She shook her head, disgusted with the whole thing.
For a moment, Garrett was quiet, and he struggled with what he wanted to say to her. While honesty was working with the two of them, he wasn’t sure that she was ready to discuss what he wanted to ask her about. “You know that if you ever wanted to talk to me about what he did to you, I would listen with no judgment, right?”
“I know,” she smiled softly over at him. “I’ve never told anybody about what he did to me. The hospital took the pictures, and I left with them before they could ask his name to press charges. That was probably the stupidest thing I could have done, but I was so embarrassed and still scared. He truly made me believe that it was all my fault, that it was something that I asked for. By that time, I was so interested in trying to be perfect for him, that I didn’t want anyone to know what had been happening behind closed doors for months. Not the physical abuse, but the emotional abuse. I didn’t want Shell to find out, or my parents, or my fans. I felt like it was my fault, and I didn’t know how to deal with it. To be honest, I still don’t.”
Only The Beginning (Rockin' Country) Page 24