Just like old times.
He snaps my hips right and left, using me like a marionette on the dance floor, then leans closer, breathing hard in my ear.
“Oh, baby,” he moans. “Let’s go somewhere. Your place, my place, I don’t care.”
Yeah, okay. That’s what I came here for, right? I want to pull back, look at this face, but he’s glued on me like a sticker. He drags me away from the dance floor although I haven’t replied or said anything in return, and I stumble along, almost tripping on my heels.
This is normal. This is okay. Done it so many times. I don’t even have to think about it twice as he grabs his jacket and then resumes dragging me away—toward the exit, I guess.
“My coat,” I say, resisting. Good thing some of my brain cells are still active.
“You don’t need a coat, baby,” he mutters, still pulling on my arm. “I’ll keep you warm.”
Gah, I hate that he calls me baby. It’s not so funny anymore.
“Need my coat,” I insist, tugging back, and he turns to scowl at me.
I blink, taken aback—not because he looks like nothing special, or because his face isn’t so pleasing to my eyes, but because…
He’s not Shane.
Suddenly I don’t want to follow him. I dig in my heels and try to free my arm from his hold.
“I changed my mind,” I say. “I’d rather stay and dance.”
“What? You can’t just change your mind like that. Come on.”
I can’t? I frown at that. “I don’t want to go with you.” My voice slurs a little. Dammit. “Let me go!”
Instead of releasing me, he backs me up against the wall. “Cock-tease, huh? You think that will fly with me?”
“Fly?” Somewhere inside my head alarms are blaring. “I said let me go.”
“You think I haven’t seen you around before?” he hisses, his breath heavy with alcohol fumes that make me dizzy. “You’re easy with everyone but not with me?”
Easy? I stare at him, my mouth hanging open. Yeah, okay, I can’t remember turning down a guy before, but still…
“I don’t feel so well,” I mumble, nausea rising in my throat.
He slams me against the wall once, his face twisting into a snarl. “Bitch,” he spits, lifting his hands, then he turns around and walks away.
Holy crap… Trembling, I push off the wall and straighten. Cold shivers wrack me. Too many horrible thoughts are crowding my mind.
Like the fact I’m easy. That I sleep with men I don’t know. Because I’m lonely. Because I don’t know how else to be around them.
When the one guy I keep thinking about is Shane, who doesn’t want me.
The guy called me names and shoved me into a wall because I refused to sleep with him. Like I’m a cheap slut, like I had no right to refuse or change my mind.
And oh crap, is this how Jesse felt when I kissed him?
Shoving my way through the thin crowd, I make it to the ladies’ toilets just in team to upchuck everything I’ve drunk tonight, and probably yesterday, too.
Not that it makes me feel any better.
Shit, I’m such a mess…
***