Page 106 of Just My Type
I laugh, linking my arm with hers and giving her a squeeze. “I would, but I think you’re about to be swept away.”
Amelia looks over and smiles as Elliot comes up and takes her hand, bringing it to his lips. “Dance with me, Mystery Girl?” he says, his eyes full of love.
“Always” She gives my arm a squeeze as Elliot pulls her away and straight to the dance floor.
With one last look at all my people, I head towards the bathrooms, feeling lighter than air.
“Ugh,” I mutter, glancing in the bathroom mirror. When I got dressed with Hallie and Jo this morning, I looked amazing. But after hours of dancing, drinking, and sundry other wedding festivities, the wheels have kind of come off the wagon.
Wetting a paper towel, I dab under my eyes to wipe away the mascara smudges and then fix the once perfect, now wild hair that has a mind of its own today. Deeming it the best I can do, I toss the paper towels in the trash. Straightening the top of my dress, I smile as I feel the wedding ring pinned to the inside, a frisson of excitement racing through me at the thought of beingalone with Noah tonight. Of finishing the conversation we started earlier.
I love him so fucking much, and I can’t wait to tell him.
With that thought in my head, I push out the bathroom door, colliding immediately with a hard wall of muscle as big hands latch onto my hips. The cloying, heavy scent of cologne makes my stomach churn at its familiarity at the same time as the voice that lived rent free in my head for months every time I tried to write so much as a word speaks directly into my ear, dripping with condescension and something unhinged enough to have a kernel of fear lodging in my stomach.
“Took you long enough, Hannah. It’s just like you to keep me waiting. You never did care about anyone but yourself.”
Brett.
Every instinct I have screams at me to turn. To run. To get away from him as fast as I can. I try to do exactly that, but when I make a move to twist away, I don’t get very far. Locking an arm tightly around my waist, he holds me against him and spins us into the dim, shadowy corner by the bathroom, pressing me against the wall with his body.
“Let go of me.” I hate how small my voice sounds. The way it shakes. The satisfaction that crosses his face when he registers my fear. His humorless smile and the way he shrugs like he doesn’t have a care in the world.
“Eventually. We’re going to have a little talk first.”
He looms above me and I try to move, panic lancing up my spine as I realize I’m trapped, his hands gripping my hips so tightly I can practically feel the bruises already forming. I try to speak again, but the words are lodged in my throat, unable to make it past the tight ball of terror.
“You thought you could just leave me and that would be that?” Brett lets out a dark chuckle, shoving one of his thick thighs between my legs, pinning me tighter against the wall.
The stale, yeasty smell of beer on his breath makes my stomach heave, and as he studies my face, rakes his gaze downover me and back up again, the feral look in his eyes has a shudder wracking my body. I will myself to say something. Anything. But the words won’t come. I’m frozen to the floor.
“No one leaves me. Not now. Not ever. And especially not you.” He curls his lip in a sneer that would be comical if it wasn’t so terrifying.
Say something.
Move, Hannah.
My brain races. My stomach churns. I can’t do anything but stand and listen as he hurls his fury at me.
“You’re a second-rate author writing smut no one cares about and no one will ever read. A radical fucking feminist harpy who was never anything more than a shitty girlfriend and an even shittier lay. You’re fucking lucky I ever even gave you the time of day, and you have the audacity to leave me? I think fucking not. I’ve bided my time, Hannah. I’ve waited for you to come back to me. But you didn’t do what I asked. All you had to do was obey me, and you couldn’t even do that. So now it’s time for me to show you what happens to bad girls who don’t fucking listen. Sluts who dance with their brother-in-law’s brother and kiss him in dark corners when you belong to me. Now you’re going to stand here while I show you what else happens in dark corners when I take what’s mine.”
The idea that he was watching me and Noah, that this asshole intruded on a moment meant for us and us alone, has fury exploding in my brain, erasing the fear—and it’s about fucking time.
“Fuck off, Brett.”
I try and jerk my leg up to knee him in the balls, but my leg is trapped too tightly between his to do that. Instead, I curl my hands into fists, preparing to hit him, but before I can, he sees the motion, and his smile spreads, wide and mean.
“Did you think you were going to hit me or something? Hannah, Hannah, Hannah. You should know better than that.”
As he finishes speaking, Brett takes a hand from my hip andlocks my wrists in his grip, yanking them up over my head and pinning them to the wall as he presses his body tighter against mine. The tightening of his hand around my wrists is the pin pulled on the grenade of my panic.
My brain fuzzes.
My heart slams against my ribs.
My tongue is glued to the top of my mouth and my limbs are heavy with fear.
My blood roars in my ears.
