by Cora Carmack
“Gin bitter lemon,” she told the bartender. Then she looked back at me. “What do you want?”
“Nothing. I’m good.”
I took a deep breath. I had to stay good.
She rolled her eyes and said, “Make that two gin bitter lemons.”
I swallowed. This was a bad idea. I should get up and leave now, make some excuse. But that swimsuit . . . Heaven help me, but I am a weak man.
I dipped two fingers under the strap at her hips and pulled her back toward me. She fit perfectly between my knees. Resting her elbows on my thighs, she leaned back into my chest, and I barely resisted planting my lips on her neck.
I could flirt with her without taking it too far. I wasn’t in high school anymore. I had some control.
Needing to ease some tension, I said, “Whatever happens tonight—”
“Yes?”
“Don’t throw up in the pool.”
She pulled away from me, half scowling, half smiling. And even though my body ached at the loss of contact, I knew it was for the best.
I laughed, trying not to betray the tension that was plaguing me.
“Just for that, funny guy . . . you’re buying.”
When the drinks came, I did as ordered and rose to pay. She stole my stool while I did, and when the bartender handed over the drinks, it all felt too familiar.
I handed her a glass, and then began the worst battle with temptation so far. It was there in my hand, only inches away from my lips. And it would be so simple to let it happen. The memory of it was still trapped in my muscles, and I could feel them straining to lift the glass to my lips.
“So, Hunt. Where are you from?”
Distraction. Yes. Perfect.
“Where am I not from would be the easier question.”
“Military brat?”
I wished. Dad just went where the money was.
Trying to keep things light, I said, “Are you calling me a brat?”
She crossed her legs, and my eyes followed.
“If I were going to call you names, brat would not be my first choice.”
My fingers brushed her ankle. I told myself it was okay because it was distracting me from the drink in my hand. The lesser of two evils.
I said, “What would you call me, then?”
“Well, I’ve already called you soft.” I tried not to groan at the memory of that night. If I’d thought leaving then was hard, tonight was going to be brutal. “But I’m not above admitting when I’m wrong.”
My fingers drifted from her ankle up the back of her calf. She pointed her toe, and her leg bumped up against my hip.
“What brings you to Budapest?” I asked.
Her foot hooked around the back of my leg, her toes tickling the skin behind my knee. She smiled, all too aware of what she was doing to me.
“Nothing in particular. It just seemed like an interesting place.” She used that foot to pull me forward, and I didn’t resist. “What about you?”
I kept my touch light, even though I wanted to grip her legs and pull them open for me to slide between. “Following a whim,” I answered.
Her tongue darted across her bottom lip, and I was a goner.
She said, “Do you ever get any less cryptic?”
“I thought women liked a mystery.”
Her eyes were hooded, and I couldn’t even bring myself to feel guilty about any of this.
“Women love a mystery. But only if we think we can figure it out. Are you going to let me figure you out, Hunt?”
She couldn’t. Not ever.
I gripped the edge of her stool and leaned down to her ear. Her skin smelled salty and sweet. “That’s a two-way street, princess.”
And God did I want to figure her out, even though I couldn’t return the favor. Not just her personality or her past. Every part of her. I wanted to know her like the back of my hand.
I was two seconds away from beginning that process, my eyes trained on her collarbone, the first place I wanted to taste. Then Jenny popped up right next to us.
“We’re going back in the bath, you two coming?”
I pulled away. Damn it, I had to keep pulling away. That was too close. I took advantage of Jenny’s distraction to place my drink on the bar, out of range.
Kelsey held up a glass that was still almost full and said, “We’re still working on these. You guys go. Have fun.”
After Jenny left, Kelsey took a sip of her drink, fixing her eyes on me.
It didn’t take Kelsey long to notice the absence of my glass. “You’ve not touched your drink. I know it looks a little girlie, but I swear you’ll like it.”
I sat on the stool next to hers. “I’m okay. Really.”
“Oh, come on.” She jumped off her stool, and leaned her flat stomach against my bare knee. “Try mine.”
I didn’t know where to look. Her face, that glass—neither was safe.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re so serious. Loosen up a little. Have some fun.”
She took another drink, and her tongue trailed her bottom lip again. The ache rose up in my chest—for her, for all of it. “Just try it. For me?”
She slid between my knees, and I settled my hands on her waist. To push her away. To pull her close. I didn’t know.
I stared at her lips, imagining the sweetness of her mouth paired with the strong edge of alcohol.
I could stay in control for her.
One drink wouldn’t kill me. And knowing I needed to watch out for her would help me keep it in check.
One drink.
One sip.
Just once.
I said, “If you’ll answer a question for me.”
She tilted her head to the side, and I reached out to trail a thumb along the slant of her neck.
“Deal.” She smiled.
She took one more drink, and then slid the glass into my hand.
It seemed tiny. It was maybe half full. Nothing that would do me any harm. I looked back at her smile. Quickly, I pulled the glass up and took a short sip before holding it out to her. She gave me a look. I could have brushed it off. But really, the drink hadn’t been that strong. Like lemonade, but a bit more sour.
I brought the glass up and took a longer drink this time. When I gave it back, there was nothing but ice left.
She smiled, her lips close to mine.
“My turn,” I said. “The other night . . . what did you mean when you said you were tired of being?”
She froze. Maybe I was pushing too far, but I needed a change of subject. I needed to know something of worth because the guilt was already crawling across my skin. And a voice at the back of my mind was asking again and again, What have you done?
She said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She looked away, but I used a finger on her jaw to bring her eyes back to mine. “It’s just . . . I look at you, and I see a beautiful woman in the prime of her life, traveling to exotic places, with the world at her fingertips. But I think that’s just what you want people to see. And maybe I love a mystery too, because I can’t seem to make myself stop thinking about what’s underneath all that, what you don’t let people see.”
I brought my other hand up, cradling her face. Concentrating on her instead of the monumental mistake I’d just made, instead of everything I’d just thrown away.
It didn’t work. She pushed my hands off and pulled out of my reach.
“I told you . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was wasted. You shouldn’t take one person’s drunk ramblings as truth.”
She turned away, picked up my abandoned drink, and gulped half of it down in one pull. I was relieved. If she drank that, one less thing to tempt me.
“I don’t believe you,” I said. “I think it wa
s the most honest thing you’ve said to me. Maybe to yourself, too.”
She stayed facing away from me as she said, “Again with the knight-in-shining armor bullshit. I don’t need you to take care of me. You don’t know anything about me. So whatever you think you’re doing, whatever you’re trying to fix in me, you can fuck off.”
She took another big gulp, and I noticed her hands were shaking. All week, I’d been thinking about whether or not she was going to crash again, and now I might be the one pushing her to it.
“Hey, I’m sorry. Don’t be upset.”
I stood behind her, my hands hovering above her shoulders.
“I’m not upset.”
She threw back the rest of the drink, and then slammed it down on the bar. Immediately, she raised her hand to try to get the bartender’s attention.
I stopped hesitating and grabbed her hand. I pressed it down against the bar and leaned my lips down to her ear. Softly, I said, “Kelsey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed. But don’t drink because you’re mad at me.”
Don’t drink because I’m mad at me and took it out on you.
I’d already fucked-up enough tonight for the both of us.
She turned her head toward me, but kept her eyes on the bartender.
“Apology accepted. And I’m drinking because I want to.”
“Just talk to me for a second.”
She ignored me, raising her other hand and calling out.
I spun her around by her elbow and trapped her between my arms and the bar. My guilt fizzled as the feel of her body against mine took precedence in my head.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“I just needed to talk to you for a second.”
“So you manhandle me like a caveman? Jesus!”
This was going so completely wrong. All because I touched that damn drink. I smiled, willing her to understand that I didn’t mean any harm.
“I just wanted to apologize.”
“You already did that.”
“I know. But I really am sorry.”
So goddamn sorry.
“I don’t think you are. There’s this pattern that keeps cropping up, where you judge me when you have no right to do so. And when you’re not judging me, you’re prying into my life.”
“I’m not judging you. I promise. And the rest? That’s just the soldier in me . . . I’m too straightforward. If I want to know something, I just ask. If I want to do something, I do it.”
Even when it is really, really stupid.
“Yeah, subtlety is definitely not your strong suit.”
I smiled, because she wasn’t struggling against me anymore. “No. It definitely isn’t.”
Neither, apparently, was control. She’d been fascinating from afar, but having met her, I decided consuming was the better word.
“Well, then. If you’ll let me go, I think I’m going to go find Jenny and the others. Since I’m not allowed to order another drink and—”
I’d already indulged one desire tonight, about which I would feel immensely guilty in the morning. Why not make it two?
I lifted my hands up from the bar to grasp her jaw. Then I set out to discover exactly what her lips tasted like.
12
SHE HESITATED WHEN my lips touched hers, but not for long. I traced my tongue across her bottom lip in the same way her tongue had on more than one occasion, and she opened to me immediately. She tasted sweet, just like I thought she would. And despite what I thought, I couldn’t taste a drop of alcohol, only her.
Her fingernails dug into the back of my neck, and I was hard almost instantly. I groaned against her lips as they pressed harder, faster against my own. I reached for her waist, but her swimsuit was in the way of my fingertips finding skin. I slipped one hand around to her back, pressing it flat against her smooth skin. She arched her back, crushing her chest against mine, and I wanted to devour her.
I pulled her bottom lip between my teeth just for a second, and her hands pressed down on my shoulders. Then I set about tasting the rest of her. The corner of her lips, her jaw, the long column of her neck. I leaned her back into the bar, my hips snug against hers so that there was no way she didn’t know exactly how much I wanted her.
She pulled my face up to hers and said, “I think I like your lack of subtlety.”
My only reply was to kiss her again. To have more of her. My newest addiction. I didn’t know how long we kissed except that my lips were raw, and it was still not enough. I could have spent another day, maybe two, just exploring her mouth.
She was the one to pull back, breathing heavy.
“Wow.”
I leaned my forehead against hers and said, “I should have just done that from the start.”
Her eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned harder into me, but didn’t say anything.
“Don’t tell me you’re speechless, princess.”
A tiny, tinkling laugh bubbled up from her mouth, and it was unlike any other noise I’d heard her make. She looked shocked, and let go of me to cover her mouth.
As I smiled at her, she started slumping sideways.
“Whoa!” I wrapped my arms around her waist, and her head thumped against my chest. She turned her face, pressing her cheek against my skin.
“Kelsey?” What the hell was going on?
She didn’t answer, but she was leaning almost all her weight on me now.
“My cheeks,” she mumbled.
“What about them, princess?”
She turned her head so that her forehead pressed against my chest again, her lips touching my skin. My heart raced in its cage. She made a noise, small and soft and pathetic almost. Unease curled in my gut.
I kept one arm around her waist, and used the other to pull her head up to mine. “Kelsey? What were you saying about your cheeks?”
“Can’t feel.”
“You can’t feel your cheeks?”
She didn’t reply, but when I loosened my grip on her jaw, her head began to fall immediately.
“Shit.”
Something wasn’t right.
I tilted her head back again, searching her eyes. Wide pupils, unfocused gaze. One of the neon lights overhead swept over us, and she winced, pulling away. The minute she was out of my arms, she collapsed. I narrowly managed to catch her before she hit the ground.
I tried to get her to look at me, but her eyes kept wandering.
“Kelsey, you didn’t have anything to drink earlier, did you?”
She opened her mouth but paused . . . for one, two, three seconds. When I was about to ask her again, she shook her head.
“Damn it. My drink.”
That was the only explanation. I’d set it on the bar, and it had been there unattended for . . . I didn’t know . . . a few minutes at least.
I held her tight between my body and the bar and snapped my fingers for the bartender’s attention. “This drink.” I held up the empty glass. “Did you see anyone mess with it? Anyone touch it besides me or her?”
The guy shrugged, and then went back to take someone else’s order.
Goddamn it.
I let go of Kelsey’s waist to scrape my fingers across my scalp. She started slipping, and I rushed to hold her tight against me again. I pressed my forehead against hers, trying to get her to meet my gaze.
“Everything is going to be okay, Kelsey. I’ll take care of everything. I’m taking you home.”
She sighed, almost sleepily, and then planted another kiss on the center of my chest before sagging against me.
She laid a hand over my heart, and if I thought I felt guilty over that drink, I was choking on it now.
“I’m sorry,” I told her. “This is my fault. I should have been watching.”
She lifted her head, but her eyelids were heavy, and each
time she blinked, they stayed closed a little longer. She wrapped her arms around my neck, and I swept an arm underneath her legs.
With her cradled against my chest, I headed for the exit.
“I’ve got you, princess. You’re safe. If you can hear me, no one’s going to take advantage of you. I promise.”
She mumbled, “Bummer.”
I tried to laugh, but there was a crushing weigh on my chest, so it came out as nothing more than a breath. “You’re something else.”
People looked at us strangely as I waited in line to get Kelsey’s things from the coat check, but no one said anything. I kept asking her questions, trying to keep her awake.
I was completely naïve of what to do in this kind of situation.
But eventually, she stopped replying, and by the time I hailed a cab outside, she was asleep.
I told the driver the address of my hotel, and once I had Kelsey lying on the backseat with her head in my lap, I rummaged through our things for the dress she’d worn a dress over her swimsuit earlier in the evening, but I didn’t want to wake her to try to put it on. I laid it over the top of her so that, maybe, the taxi driver would stop staring at her through his rearview mirror. Because if he didn’t, his face was going to get to know that mirror really well.
I tried to swallow down the guilt cloying at the back of my throat, but it didn’t budge. I brushed Kelsey’s hair out of her face, letting my knuckles graze the curve of her cheek.
She was so beautiful. And it tore me to pieces to see her this vulnerable.
Because if she was anything like me, and I believed she was, it must kill her to be weak. It had taken me so long to deal with losing Rodriguez and Johnny and Teague and Ingram. For a time, it had been easier to cut them out completely, to burn out those memories with bitterness and distractions, so that no one had to see how completely dismantled I was.
I felt that same way now . . . dismantled. Like all I wanted to do was to hold Kelsey and piece her together, but I too was just a mess of parts, incapable of helping her in the way I wanted.
Maybe I couldn’t save her. People can only save themselves.
But I could be there for her like Rodriguez had been for me. I could take the bottle or her pain or her past or whatever it was that made her tired and use it for target practice just like Rodriguez had done for me. And maybe if we were lucky, our demons would be the dismantled ones.