His teeth are gritted together, a bead of sweat dotting his forehead. “Damn it,” he groans, his tone full of grit and gravel.
He slips out and pushes right back inside me, hitting every nerve ending in my body from this angle. My hips push against him, craving the contact. He squeezes my behind, digging his fingers into my flesh before he strokes inside my body long and hard.
“Oh, God,” I mutter. The two syllables take more than two syllables to get out as my body begins to convulse. My teeth almost chatter at the intensity of the moment.
My shoulders dig into the paneling as my lower half wraps around this delicious man. The sound of our bodies sliding against one another producing an erotic layer over the rock music from the bar below. I can’t take it. I’ve needed this for far too long. I’ve needed him for far too long.
“Harder!” I shout, the words coming out through my clenched teeth. “Please. Harder.”
“Like this?” He hammers into me with no caution or concern, no tenderness like I’ve experienced with him before. There’s nothing personal about this—this is fucking.
“Ahhh …” My voice gets louder as the beat of the song below increases and as the drum hits, so does my orgasm. “Fuck!”
As I grip his shoulders, my body explodes around him. The walls of my vagina pulse with each ripple of sensation he delivers. He brings me higher and higher until I think I’m going to rip in two.
“Machlan!” I scream.
The wall bites into my skin and my nails dig into his as he grips my hips and presses me down hard. Through the aftershocks of my own orgasm, I can feel him releasing into my body, filling me with his own pleasure.
His head falls back, a low hum emanating from his throat. Sweat trickles down the side of his face, glistening over his skin.
Panting, finding it impossible to get enough air in my lungs to steady myself, I watch him come back to Earth. His eyes are almost bloodshot. His hat gone. His shoulders red from the marks of my fingernails.
“How organic was that?” he asks.
He’s trying to play it cool, referring to our earlier conversations, but something’s amiss in the way he says it. It’s not cocky or even neutral. It’s … careful. And that makes my stomach drop.
I shrug in an attempt to seem as nonchalant as I can. “That’s one way to put it.”
He sets me back on my feet. My legs shake, threatening to give out, so I lean against the wall.
“This is gonna make me an asshole,” he says, “but I gotta get back down there.”
He keeps his head down, his voice as gruff as I’ve ever heard it. He busies himself with getting put back together. It doesn’t go without notice that he keeps his distance.
My nakedness suddenly feels wrong. I scoop up my clothes, avoiding eye contact. “No. No, go ahead. I get it. Completely.”
His zipper breaks the silence before he rummages around, finding his hat behind the chair. “You’re okay, right?”
My throat tightens. I search his face for some hint as to what he’s feeling but find nothing. Just a guard in place that I’ve seen too many times to count.
I’ve never been stung in the chest by a wasp, but this is what I think that would feel like. A quick stab. A slow roll of poison. A burn you can’t shake for a while.
“Of course, I’m fine,” I say, plastering on a smile. “That was letting things be organic. I don’t expect anything from you.” And now the natural thing is for you to leave.
If I’m not mistaken, something washes over his eyes. It’s another bee sting in the center of my chest. Lucky for me, the first one stings too bad to really feel this one.
“Just make sure you lock this,” he says. He takes his hat off, watching me as he runs his hands through his hair, and then puts it back on again. Only now does he start toward the door.
And just like that, he’s gone.
Twenty-Two
Machlan
“I think that does it,” Navie says. She zips up the money bag and tosses it on the counter. “Everything is squared away.”
“You did good tonight.”
“Thanks.” She looks quite pleased with herself as she leans against the bar. “How good did you do tonight?”
That’s all it takes for my mind to be pulled right back to Hadley. One stupid little sentence that might not even be about her—that probably isn’t—and I’m lost to everything else.
I looked over my shoulder all night. I don’t know what I wanted more—have her in walk in the bar and spar with me or walk my ass back upstairs and finish what I started. Or re-start what I finished. Either way, it ends with me getting fucked. She’s probably directly above me, just feet away, yet it feels like she’s on the other side of the world.
I’d ask myself what I was thinking, but I already know. I wasn’t. Not with the head I should’ve been.
“It was that good, huh?” Navie asks.
Putting the last clean glass back on the shelf, I look at Navie through the mirror. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, okay.” She’s laughing when I turn around. “Look, I know I just started here, and we’re not friends or anything. And you totally don’t have to tell me anything …”
“But?”
“But I want to know.” She pouts. “I see the way she looks at you like you’re the best thing since yoga pants. And you look at her like you want to eat her.”
I pretend to consider this. “Fair enough.”
She laughs again. “See? You don’t even dispute it!”
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re a busybody?”
“Lots of dumb, stupid people.” She raises her brows. “I saw you chase her out of here.”
It’s like she wants me to deny it. I can’t. I don’t have the fucks to give to lie.
I chased her.
By all accounts, I fucked her.
But if it was only fucking, then why do I want to run back up there?
God help me.
I rough a hand down my face. “I pay you to keep the customers’ tabs, not keep tabs on me.”
“Well played, boss. Well played.” Pulling a gray sweatshirt over her head, she then hops on a stool and gets comfortable.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?” A few moments go by before she gets it. “Oh, like I’m expecting you to talk to me?”
“Yeah.”
“Because I’m expecting you to talk to me.”
“I’m not the talking type, Navie.”
Liquor bottles are right behind me. I back up to them. A quick shot might dull some of the insanity in my brain, but it’s against my own rules. I never drink at work.
A shot glass magically appears in my hand. Whiskey jumps from the shelf and splashes into it, and I down it without a second thought.
Navie watches with an unbridled curiosity. “That’s probably why you aren’t actively screwing Hadley. You won’t talk.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Explain it to me another way then,” she challenges. “Or don’t because communication issues seem to be your thing.”
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“And I don’t really want answers unless you feel compelled to give them. In that case, I’ll totally listen. But,” she says, wagging a finger through the air, “I do want you to think about it.”
The shot slams down my throat. It burns as it rolls, splashing into the acid already pooled in my stomach. One measly shot isn’t going to do shit; I’d need the whole damn bottle to make a dent in this night.
The whiskey mutes just enough to pull my defenses down and bring her reaction front and center—the one I’ve fought since I walked out of there. It’s a look I’ll never love. It’s a look that, every time I put it there, I swear I won’t do it again.
This is why, at the end of the day, we will never work. I can’t be trusted with making her happy. Even if I try to, even though I want to, I�
�ll mess it all up.
There’s a rotten feeling in my gut, a disappointment that’s directed internally. It sprung as soon as I pulled my pants up. And when she didn’t ask me to come back, it gnawed at me.
“Does this lull mean you’re thinking?” Navie asks.
“What are you? Some kind of pseudo-therapist?” I ask as I pour another shot. “I don’t want to think about anything.”
“Clearly.”
This shot goes down much easier.
“Keep it up and you won’t be standing much longer either,” she observes.
“Two shots? I’m gonna be all right.”
“But are you?”
“For fuck’s sake, Navie. Yes. I’m gonna be fine. I’ve fucked shit up a hundred times, and I’ve come out okay. Trust me.” I reach for the whiskey again but reconsider. “Have some faith.”
My reflection stares back at me in the mirror above the bottles. Stress lines form around my mouth, the vein in my temple pulsing every time my heart beats.
A part of me wants Navie to hurry the hell up and get out of here so I can find Hadley. Make sure she’s okay. Apologize for being a dick. Another part of me points out that encouraging this shit with her makes me a dick, and I should really just stay away.
“Okay, want to know what I heard in all that?” Navie asks, resting her chin on her folded hands.
“No.”
“Too bad. What I heard is a whole lot of fear.”
My head falls back, the alcohol making it heavier than normal. It feels good to give in. To let the relief, what little of it there is, course through me.
“What are you afraid of, Machlan?”
“Being employee-less when I fire you,” I say, still facing the ceiling. “It’s gonna suck ass, but it’ll be better than dealing with this.”
She sighs with all the drama of a soap opera. “Okay. I’m gonna just talk frank.”
I lift my head. “You mean you weren’t?”
“Ha.” She drops her hands. “Look, you’re a nice guy and good looking, but don’t let that go to your head. You have a helluva business here. Everyone, and I mean everyone, loves you. You have a super-hot cousin who you could totally hook me up with as a signing bonus type of thing.” She grins, waggling her eyebrows. “And you also have a girl who’s so in love with you it makes me in love with your love.”
I scoff, turning away.
Hadley can’t love me. She might think she does, but she can’t. How could someone like her love someone like me, a shitshow of a guy? A guy who knocked her up when I couldn’t take care of her. A man who could never offer her the things in life that she needs.
What she wants out of life isn’t a mystery. I’ve known that since I met her: she wants the life she never had. A husband who comes home after a nine-to-five. Kids she can dote on. A stable, predictable life she can relax in for the first time ever.
I own a bar. I know what the inside of a jail cell looks like. I’m never going to be the guy the Chamber of Commerce adores or be the responsible one in any lineup you can put together.
I’ve ruined her life once. I’ll do it again. I have no faith in me.
“Have you talked to her about your feelings?” Navie presses.
“For the love of God.” I slam the shot glass down, but it’s accompanied with a chuckle. “I don’t have feelings. Okay? Let’s get that straight.”
“Oh, so you’re a liar too. Good to know.”
I want to be pissed she’s calling me out. It’s way out of line and probably setting a bad precedent. But I hired her because she has that indistinguishable charm that makes people want to talk to her—me included. Even if I don’t actually want to talk.
“Will you stop it?”
“No,” she says as though she’s insulted. “I won’t stop it.”
I slide my hands down my face again.
“Fine, fine.” Navie slides off the stool. “I’ll forget about it.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll forget all about how she watched you mix drinks and how you went straight for the table when you saw her sitting with those hotties in the dress shirts.”
My hands fall to my sides, but my fists clench. A surge of jealousy strikes again even though I now know Camilla’s brothers weren’t here for Hadley.
But I’m the one who left her upstairs.
Guilt slips in place, shoving the jealousy out of the way. The whiskey sloshes. My brain tortures me with screenshots of Hadley’s face when I told her I had to leave. I hear the sound of her voice, pretending to be strong, telling me she doesn’t expect anything from me.
But she should.
I want her to. When she does, I feel like I’m ten-fucking-feet tall even if her expectations are impossible.
Damn it.
I drag the keys out of my pocket. “You ready to go?”
“Yup.”
We head toward the door. Navie takes her time, fishing her keys out of her purse. I try to walk faster in hopes it speeds her up, but it doesn’t.
“You have big plans for the rest of the night?” she asks.
“It’s two in the morning. I’m pretty sure tonight is over.”
“True enough.”
We step into the darkness and find the air a good ten degrees cooler than it was earlier in the day. Navie shivers in her sweatshirt as I lock the door. Once it’s secure, I walk her to the little blue car next to the train tracks.
As soon as I can see the back door, my attention is there. The light is off. Hadley’s car is parked by the dumpster. Everything looks normal, only I know it’s not.
She’s up there. And I’m not.
Climbing in the driver’s side, Navie starts the engine and flips on the heater. “Hadley’s in the apartment, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“You should check on her,” she says softly. “I get it—the stuff between you two isn’t easy. But it never is.”
Still looking at the apartment, I sigh. “I think it’s a little harder for us than most.”
“Then you should work extra hard to make it a thing.”
“Huh?” I ask, turning around.
“If it’s that hard and you’re still in it, then it might be worth the extra fight.” She closes the door but rolls down the window. The fog on the windshield clears slowly, the sound of the air blowing on it comforting. “If a guy ever looks at me the way you do her, I hope someone is smart enough to tell him to find me.”
This I can work with.
Gripping the door frame, I choose my words carefully. “But what if he was a clusterfuck of a guy? Wouldn’t he be better off staying the hell away from you?”
“No.” Her laugh is simple, as if this should be obvious. “I’m a giant clusterfuck myself. Sure, it looks like I have it all together, right? I mean, I’m working two jobs. I’m well-adjusted, have great parents, and take my birth control regularly. I don’t smoke, have perfectly straight teeth, and I can balance a spoon on my nose.”
“What?”
“Anyway,” she says, “the point is those are my statistics. The ‘good column’, if you will. People don’t see my ‘bad column’ as easy, but we all have one.”
“I’m still stuck on the spoon thing.”
She looks at the ceiling and sighs. “Look, Machlan, Hadley is a smart girl. She really likes you. And I don’t know what happened between you when you—wait, yes I do.” She shakes her head. “You have a stain on your shirt that I’ve seen before after a quickie ...”
I look down at the tail of my black T-shirt as Navie makes a face. Sure enough, she’s right.
“I don’t think anyone else noticed. I just notice things. Anyway, after that,” she says, pointing at my shirt, “she’s probably lying up there right now wondering what’s up. Like, did you just one-and-done her? Are you going to call? Do you care? What did that mean?”
What did that mean?
My throat squeezes, and I fight the urge to look at the apartment again. Every cell in my body draws backwa
rd to Hadley, and I grip the doorframe harder so I don’t turn around and run to her like a pussy.
My fingertips strum the roof of the car. “I should stay away. Let her think.”
“Yeah, if you wanna be a dick.”
“Navie …”
“Sorry. The truth hurts.” She shrugs. “If you wanna tell yourself you’re letting her think, fine by me. It doesn’t affect me. But if you do give a shit about her, and I know you do, then do the right thing, Machlan. Treat her with the same decency you treat everyone else.”
The whiskey must wear off because my entire body cools. I shiver as a rash of goose bumps break out across my skin.
“Now, I gotta go,” she says. “I’m tired and emotionally spent from this love affair you have going on. Plus, I have to rationalize Peck’s love of Molly before I can go to sleep, and I’m not sure how long that’s going to take.”
“None of us have figured that out, so good luck.”
“He’s so cute. And she’s so … mean,” she groans. Shoving the car in gear, she waves. “Have a good night, Mach.”
“You too.”
She drives off, her taillights disappearing around the corner before I even pivot. When I do, I almost wish I hadn’t.
A light is on in the apartment. It’s faint, barely visible, and looks to come from the back of the room. My feet start walking that way before my head even tells them to.
At least I don’t run like a pussy.
* * *
Hadley
Knock, knock.
I sit straight up in bed with my eyes glued to the door. The clock shows it’s possible—it could be Machlan. I stifle a nervous chuckle because if it’s not, it’s probably a serial killer, and I’m dead, and I don’t even care.
My back aches from the springs of the mattress. If I could’ve forced myself up more than once to pee since Machlan left, it probably would’ve helped. But I couldn’t.
I shouldn’t be surprised by any of this, and I’m not, really. Rationalizing it took some time, but in the end, this one is on me. I knew what I was getting in to. I pushed. I accepted his pushbacks, and I don’t regret it. I only need to temper any expectations that this will go anywhere. It won’t.
Gibson Boys Box Set Page 84