CHAPTER 5
Bella
The bathroom door was heavy, but the slam wasn’t nearly as satisfying as it should have been. Bella leaned against the cold metal, breathing so heavily that her shoulders slammed up and down against it. It felt nice against her heated skin, but the exterior cold did nothing to calm the fires of anger that blazed inside of her.
Who the hell says those things? Fucking Rhett. Accused her of faking her orgasm. Orgasms. As in two. Okay, maybe three. As if I’d fake it. If he doesn’t remember that, he has the shortest short-term memory in history.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had anything more than a self-induced orgasm, like- from her own hand, but she’d never faked it. Most guys she slept with in the past didn’t really care if she got off or not. They did their thing, it felt decent, they finished, and she didn’t, they went home. End. Of. Story.
So, how the hell had Rhett given her three? In a row. Back to back.
It wasn’t just the whiskey. She was drunk but not that drunk. Rhett pounded back the better part of the bottle. She’d probably had eight shots total and honestly, it wasn’t enough to get her good and drunk. Not that she was a drinker, but she did go out with her co-workers regularly to have something of a social life and she was used to having a glass of whiskey on the rocks here and there. Okay, a little more here than there.
Faking it. Puh-lease. I’ll show him who’s faking it.
Bella sighed. She’d pretty much already done that when she chewed him out as a new asshole out there. She was normally pretty level-headed. Not much could make her fly off the handle like that. She’d flown off it big time though. Rhett knew just what to say to get under her skin. Faking it. Using him. Give me a fucking break. He’s the one in my hotel room. I bought that whiskey. He’s in my bed.
She eyed the shower, weighing the odds of Rhett being gone when she got out.
Something sharp ripped through her chest. A stabbing pain that was so physical she actually brought her hand up to rub the spot. Why did that hurt? Thinking about him leaving? Right. Because she didn’t want him to leave with such a low opinion of her and her family. Despite it all, she was a Berns and she didn’t enjoy the way her family sullied that last name. She should apologize for her outburst and for, like, seven years of their behavior.
Bella groaned. She stepped away from the door, towards the shower. She stepped into the bathtub and pulled the curtain across. With a flick of her wrist, she had the shower running. She stepped under the hot spray, savoring the way it leached into muscles she didn’t realize were so tired.
She also didn’t realize how sensitive she’d be after…
Well, after Rhett. And his most certainly not small dick.
God, how could her sister have said that? Rhett had a huge cock. As in, it actually hurt her to walk after. He didn’t just have a nice joystick. He had a very talented set of hands and a glorious mouth. The hot spray pounding over her breasts, her oversensitive nipples, and trailing down her legs, proved that he’d done something right where her body was concerned.
She was just getting into the shower, really enjoying it, losing herself and finally relaxing after the tense battle of words she’d had with Rhett, when he startled her right out of it by pounding on the door so frantically she was sure the hotel was actually burning down around them, the bathroom the only room that remained untouched.
The door handle vibrated madly. “Bella?” His voice drifted through the door. A dull thud followed, probably his head hitting it harder than he intended since the whiskey threw off his depth perception.
She winced. She didn’t move to shut off the spray, though the shower was now pretty much ruined relaxation wise. “What?” she ground out.
“Can we talk?” the handle twisted again like he expected she’d actually open it.
Yeah right. That’s a hard no. “Go away.”
“Please- Bella, I want to apologize. I- I don’t know why I said those things.”
“Because you’re an asshole?” There was a pause and she winced at her barb.
“Maybe I am,” he admitted. His words weren’t so slurred. Maybe the whiskey was wearing off and his brain was turning back on.
“So, what if you are? Maybe you should just get your clothes back on and call a cab and get out of here. You’re probably right. My family has done nothing but use you and hurt you and I’m probably no better. You should just go.” Why were those words so hard to say?
In the back of her mind, a picture of Rhett’s haunted face remained. It was masked in shadow, but even the darkness couldn’t cloak the devastation there. He’d really loved Sarah. Or at least, he thought he did. Had. Whatever. He was truly broken, and it hurt her, knowing that her family had done that to a good man.