Game (Gentry Boys, #3)(15)

I wiped the toothpaste from the sink and turned off the bathroom light. Just before I headed back to bed I paused at the door. I wondered where I would be now if I’d accepted Chase’s offer to take Vegas by storm tonight.

“Anything you want, baby.”

That was the problem. I didn’t want a wild time under the harsh lights of the city. What I wanted was more of what we’d done earlier. I wanted it as many times as he could manage to give it to me and in more ways than I had ever known. And then, if he’d decided to hold me in his strong arms afterwards, I wouldn’t have minded. I wouldn’t have minded at all.

I cranked the air a few degrees colder and flopped back into bed, covering myself completely. I didn’t want to think about Chase anymore, or about sex or orgasms or losing control. In order to drive it all away I thought of Xavier, my former boss. I thought about the things he’d said to me and the things he’d forced me to do as the other men in the room called out filthy things. Xavier was cruel and he was shrewd. He knew he didn’t need to lay a damn hand on me in order to f*ck me up big time.

And it’s not over. It’s not.

In the days after it happened I was in a complete tailspin. I’d never been so screwed up, not even during that dreadful year in which I’d suffered the bleakest chain of events imaginable; my mother’s death, Robbie’s murder, my father’s imprisonment, Michael’s abandonment.

Given everything I’d been through I should have been able to shake it off. Other women suffered through worse every day and still held their heads up. They didn’t find themselves straddling the kind of paranoid terror that left me scarcely able to function. Were it not for Truly I wasn’t sure how I would have snapped out of it. Truly had been my friend when I had none but even she didn’t know the whole terrible story.

“You’re gonna give us all something to look at until we’ve had enough. And you better f*cking make a show of enjoying it, girl.”

Stop. Stop. STOP!

All the incredible things I’d felt with Chase earlier were gone, replaced by a sick panic as I remembered other things I didn’t want to remember. It had been the coldest feeling in the world; standing up there alone, exposed, forced to perform for a roomful of bastards who delighted in my disgrace.

I held my hands over my ears. It was a childish thing to do, unnecessary. I was alone. I was safe. No one could get to me if I didn’t let them. And even though somewhere out there was the proof that I feared the most, it hadn’t surfaced yet. Sometimes I allowed myself to hope that it wouldn’t.

As I turned my face to the cool pillow I felt a tear trickle out of the corner of my eye. I swiped it away angrily. The hell with that. What good did it do to sink into self pity? Whatever was around the corner would simply have to be dealt with. I could do it. I could be stone when I needed to be. I could even be steel.

But I couldn’t keep my mind under complete control; just before I dozed off to dream unhappy dreams, I flashed back to the brief moments I’d been in Chase’s arms. Even though I would rather have yanked out my own two front teeth than admit it out loud, I had wanted to stay there. But as soon as we were done I remembered who Chase Gentry was. Chase liked to have a good time and he wasn’t above trying to game it out of a girl.

Bullshit, Steph. You wanted it as much as he did.

It was true. I’d been thinking about it. Even as I pretended to him it was the last thing I wanted, Chase hadn’t been fooled.

I slept fitfully and when I awoke I was even more irritable than I had been the night before. I checked my phone, half expecting there to be a few messages from Truly. Surely she must have heard about what happened last night. Chase was definitely the bragging type.

A glance at the clock told me I had less than a half hour before I needed to run out in order to make my flight. I changed my clothes and gathered my crap together, trying and failing to keep my mind carefully blank.

Maybe I should have been up front with Chase. I’d seen him enough with his brothers to understand he wasn’t all bad. The three of them had a loving, sincere bond that was genuine. If I’d issued a heartfelt plea to keep our Vegas transgressions to himself he might have cooperated. Now it was too late. He would have already blabbed it to everyone. I would have to suffer the agony of seeing him around campus with his patent knowing smirk as he basked in his triumph. Worse, I would have to watch him fawn all over other girls as he moved on to his next conquest. I was surprised and embarrassed by how much the idea hurt me.

The hotel was relatively quiet this early. As I walked down the long corridor and passed all the closed doors I found myself curious about what was going on behind them. Somewhere in here was at least one ecstatic newlywed couple, as well as various lovers and likely a lot of lonely souls hoping the next day might prove to be better than the last.

I checked out quickly and boarded the shuttle for the airport with a bleary-eyed elderly couple who informed me they were returning to Fresno. I tried to smile politely but really I had nothing to say to them or about Fresno so I quietly looked out the window as the colorful landscape of the Las Vegas strip passed. Even though I should have been, right then I wasn’t sorry I’d made the trip. The hour I’d spent with Chase was the first time I’d felt normal in a long while, like I was part of the world. It wasn’t a bad feeling.

Luckily I was able to snag a window seat on the plane. The flight was short but even in a better frame of mind I wasn’t much for small talk, especially with strangers. The woman beside me was wearing clothes that might have been suitable for her several decades earlier. After a few minutes of trying to interest me in the particulars of her recent ugly divorce, she gave up and left me alone. I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t good at being phony, at keeping a ridiculous smile plastered to my face as some lady I couldn’t pick out of a lineup told me a bunch of shit I wouldn’t remember in an hour. I didn’t understand what people gained from letting their private pain out in words. There were too many words I couldn’t imagine saying out loud.