Anger gripped me—at being so weak, at my heart’s fluttering because Jett was in close proximity, at him smelling so good, and at having to force my lips to stop smiling whenever my gaze brushed his hard body.
My blood began to boil in my veins. The attraction to him had to stop. I was so enraged that I grabbed anything I could find, and it so happened to be my high heel. With a cry of frustration, I hurled it at him, but he dodged it, and it hit the wall.
“Why did you say your name was Check?” I shouted, barely able to contain the wrath in my tone.
If he noticed it, he didn’t show it. Instead, he let out an amused laugh.
“I thought it was fun that we were playing a game,” he said, still wearing that irritating grin of his. “You’ve always been a sore loser.”
“So it was all a game to you? You’re so sick and bored of me that you need role play?” I hissed.
His grin disappeared in an instant. He opened his mouth, then closed it again, and a frown began to darken his features.
“You know that’s not true, Brooke,” he said at last. “You like playing games just as much as I do. It has nothing to do with being bored.”
“It has everything to do with it.” Inside, I felt like a dam was breaking and at any moment water would slush down and flood me. I balled my hands into fists, unable to contain my anger any longer. “I want you out of my life.” I grabbed his shirt from the floor and threw it at him. He caught it in midair. “Get out. Get the fuck out of my life.”
More confusion crossed his face, followed by dismay, as I took a menacing pace toward him, and shoved him hard.
“It was just a game, Brooke. I was only kidding about you being a sore loser. There’s no need to get upset about it.”
“It’s not about the game. I want you to get out.” I pointed to the door in case I hadn’t made my point clear enough. “Get out of my life.”
It wasn’t the elaborate speech I had prepared in my mind, and I sure as hell I didn’t mean to shout, but everything inside me was shaking—my voice, my hands, my limbs. At any moment, I was going to explode.
“Brooke...” His tone was gentle and soothing, as though he was talking to a child. “What’s going on?” Instead of putting on his damn clothes, he took a step forward.
I flinched. “Stay away from me, Jett.”
I held up a hand to prove my point. Jett stared at it with a hard, defiant expression, but he seemed to respect my need for private space.
“Calm down, baby,” he said.
Before I could stop him, he stepped toward me and touched my shoulders. I shrugged off his hands, recoiling at the physical contact, even angrier that I wanted him to draw me to him and tell me that we’d be all right.
“Don’t you tell me to calm down,” I hissed. “I have every right to be angry at you. You played me. If I had known last night that it was you, I never would have slept with you.”
He drew in a sharp breath. Shock registered on his face, then disbelief. He looked as if I had just slapped him. In a way, I felt the sharpness of my own words, and it pained me as much as it pained him.
“You thought I was someone else?” he asked in a low tone, his brows drawn in disbelief.
The way he said it, I felt almost threatened.
“Yes,” I said through clenched teeth.
“What the fuck, Brooke!”
He released me. Hurt and betrayal shimmered in his eyes. For a second, I felt stunned that I had hit him where it hurt. My heart ached at his pain...until I remembered his betrayal with all its consequences.
“What did you expect, Jett?” I whispered, my voice almost choking me. And there I had been thinking a stranger could make love to me the way Jett had, when it had been him all along, all gorgeous and out of this world. Only, I had forgotten that beauty was an illusion we built inside our heads. The sooner I grasped that and acknowledged it, the faster I’d be able to get away from him.
The silence was deafening, but his answer never came. Instead, he continued to regard me, his gaze betraying his hurt and worry. If I could peer into his soul so easily, then I figured he might at least see the turmoil inside me, and all the things that had crushed my heart, so I turned away, because the magnitude of my love for him had to remain a well-kept secret, or else he could use it against me. Manipulate me. Tell me what I wanted to hear, even if it wasn’t true.
“It’s over,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. “You can’t have me anymore. You can’t sleep with me anymore. In fact, I’d rather you just left and never contacted me again.”
He let out an annoyed sigh and pushed his fingers through his dark hair just as I had done the previous night when he had pinned me to the floor. “The last time I checked, we were still together.”