by A. D. Ryan
“Well, I’d hate to keep Janet waiting.” Slipping my hand into his and lacing our fingers together, I pulled Jensen back toward the restaurant.
“Yes, well, it’s been a pleasure,” Kaylie said, attempting to save face, even though I could hear the venom and scorn practically dripping from her teeth.
I stopped, a wicked smile on my face as I turned so I could view her through my periphery. “No, the pleasure’s all mine.”
As soon as we were free of her and back in the restaurant, Jensen pulled me into his arms and kissed me softly, careful to keep it quick so we didn’t get inappropriately feelsy in front of a room full of people. “The pleasure’s all yours, huh?” he inquired.
With a giggle, I shrugged. “So, that was her?” Jensen nodded, his smile falling slightly. “She seems … nice?”
Jensen laughed. “Yes, well, I suspect she wasn’t expecting that you would know who she was. I think it threw her a little.” He paused for a moment, gripping my hips a little tighter. “What do you say we get out of here?”
Drunk or not, there was still something bothering me about why he kissed me the way he did. “Okay,” I said softly. “But first … I have to know if the only reason you want to leave now is because she’s suddenly shown up? You don’t feel like you’ve got something to prove to me, do you? Because you don’t. We’re not even—”
Smiling genuinely he moved a stray lock of hair from my face before tucking it behind my ear. A trail of fire licked my skin in his fingers’ wake, and I sighed at the sensation. “While it’s true I came to find you after she showed up, I assure you that she is not the reason I want to take you back to our room … To our bed.”
It felt as though my heart skipped a beat, and my cheeks hurt when my smile widened. “Okay,” I said, taking his hands in mine and walking backward, forcing him to follow me.
“There you two are!” Janet called out to my right. Collectively, Jensen and I quietly groaned before turning to her. “You’re not leaving so soon, are you? You must come have another drink with us.”
Jensen looked at me, clearly not wanting to disappoint his mother. “One more?”
“One more,” I agreed.
One more quickly turned to two, which quickly turned into Kyle, Gavin, Jensen, and me doing shots of Patron at the bar after Lilah and her buddy Kaylie retired for the night. In the course of the evening, I went from sober and nervous, to drunk and social, to full and tipsy, to shot-doing-laughing-so-hard-my-abs-hurt wasted, and Jensen had to hold me upright.
“Come on, little Madi,” Kyle pleaded, holding another shot of tequila out for me. “You know you want to …”
My vision had blurred substantially in the hours since Jensen and I had been pulled back to the party, and I had long-since abandoned my heels to keep from falling on my ass—again. “I dunno,” I said, looking back at Jensen whose cheeks were slightly red and his eyes glassy. “I think Jensen’s pree’y drunk.”
“You two are lightweights!” Kyle boomed, thrusting the shot out toward me.
“Y’know, Kyle … I don’t respon’ well to peer pressure,” I informed him, taking the shot glass and holding it up before downing it like the pro I had become in the last … um … six? My three drinking partners followed suit so that I wasn’t drinking alone. Noble, weren’t they? I loved them.
All the drinking allowed me to forget about what’s-her-name. Earlier in the evening, I’d caught her staring at us, but I would just smile and wave, and she’d roll her eyes and turn away. Drunk me gave zero fucks. I liked her.
“And I’d probably be a little more inclined to believe that, Madikins, if you hadn’t succumbed to the last three shots,” Kyle countered, holding up four fingers to the bartender. It was weird, every time he did that, there were just as many full shot glasses that follo—ooooh, it was all starting to make sense in my drunken state. Motherfucker.
“Hey, don’t you have to get married tomorrow? I’ss, like…” I looked around the room for a clock or something before grabbing Gavin’s left arm and yanking his wrist toward me. I had to lean in real close to make the three watches merge into one that I could still barely read. “Midnight-thirty. You’re gonna need your beauty sleep.” He handed me another shot glass, and I grimaced.
“One more and I’ll let Jensen carry you caveman style up to your room,” Kyle bargained, shoving another shooter in my direction.
“Fine. But only ’cause you’re the groomy.” The three men laughed, and we all held up our glasses in a silent toast and drank in unison. “Okay, boys,” I announced, waving my arm dramatically in the air. “I’m going to bed because I have a hot date with an incredibly energetic woman in the morning.” Both Kyle and Gavin choked on the swigs of beer they had taken while Jensen chuckled at their reaction. “What? Oh! OH! You boys, always with your heads in the gutter! I don’t know how anyone puts up with it.”
“Guess that’s why you’ve made this date, huh?” Gavin ribbed playfully.
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You are not very funny, Mr. Piers. Ha! Your last name is ‘Piers’! That rhymes with ‘beers’!”
“Okay, you,” Jensen said, still laughing behind me. “Let’s get you to bed before you get talked into a few more shots and we have to take you to the hospital.”
“Oh, pffft!” I exclaimed, bending over to retrieve my shoes. Apparently, I moved too fast because I lost my balance and almost fell over. Jensen was there to catch me before I fell—he always was. My hero.
I couldn’t stop giggling as he helped me upright and grabbed my shoes for me. He wrapped his right arm around my waist and held me steadily as he turned us from the bar. “I’ll see you boys in the morning. Kyle, have a good sleep.”
“I’d say ‘you too’, but I don’t think you two will be doing much sleeping,” he shouted across the emptying restaurant.
I turned my head quickly, causing the room to spin a little, and I opened my mouth to say something that was probably going to be highly inappropriate. Before I could utter a word, Jensen swooped me into his arms, and I giggled as he carried me from the room.
“Why’d you do that?” I asked through my laughter as he set me down in front of the elevator doors.
“Because you’ve been pretty open about a lot of things, and I don’t know that, of all the people you’ve met tonight, Kyle is the one you want knowing about what we do or don’t do in our hotel room.”
“Don’t do?” I questioned. “Are you saying you don’t want to?”
Jensen snickered. “Not at all. But in your state, I’m worried you might not be feeling up to it.”
The elevator doors opened, and I flattened my hands on Jensen’s chest and pushed him forward until I had him pinned against the mirrored wall at the back. “I’m feeling jus’ fine,” I assured him before tilting my head up and standing on the very tips of my toes so I could kiss him.
Thankfully, he met me halfway and our lips moved slowly together. “Good,” he said, breaking away from our kiss.
The doors opened and Jensen took my hand, quickly pulling me behind him down the hall to our room. I had to laugh when he dropped the key-card a couple of times. Finally, he got the door open, and we rushed into the room. He threw my shoes off to the side somewhere before gathering me in his arms and pressing his lips to mine.
Needing him naked, I slipped my arms between us and started to tug on his tie. Simultaneously, his hands moved to the zipper of my skirt and slid it down slowly, each soft tick sending a yummy tingle directly between my legs. My skirt fell, creating a fabric puddle around my ankles as I quickly pulled the undone tie from Jensen’s neck and discarded it behind me.
My fingers were a little clumsy from all the alcohol, making it a little more difficult to unbutton his shirt, so I appreciated Jensen’s assistance as he ripped it off his body while our lips remained locked. Buttons flew in various directions, and I moaned like that same porn star I channeled the first time he ever touched me intimately.
My body was on fire as
he slipped his hands beneath the hem of my shirt and started to raise it. Not that I wanted to, but I parted our lips and lifted my arms so he could finish his task. With me now in nothing but my matching black lace lingerie set, Jensen groaned and pulled me back into his arms before rushing us to the bed.
We fell into the down comforter, laughing as I struggled to find my way on top of him. Jensen overpowered me though and rolled me onto my back so he was pressed solidly between my thighs. He used his brightly tattooed arm to hold his full weight off me, his muscles straining against the inked skin. Through his dress pants, I could feel his arousal, and I pushed against him shamelessly.
“You need to lose the pants,” I told him brokenly between shallow breaths.
Clearly, he didn’t need to be told twice before he stood up and followed my orders, returning to me in his boxer briefs. “Better?” he asked, brushing his nose against mine before trailing light, teasing kisses down my jaw and neck.
“For now,” I whispered, arching my back as Jensen kissed along the line of my right shoulder, pulling my bra strap down at the same time.
His lips travelled down the column of my neck, then over my sternum and toward my right breast while he palmed the left. I moaned, and Jensen groaned, pushing his hips forward again. “God, Madi. I want to fuck you.”
I bit my lower lip, twisting my fingers into his hair, and moaned again. “Make it so, Number One,” I quoted Picard with a giggle that soon escalated to a full-blown laugh.
I felt Jensen’s lips twist up into a smile against my breast and he released a chuckle. “That shouldn’t be as sexy as it is.”
His mouth descended on my body again, forcing me to swallow my laughter as more moans and sighs fill the room and I writhed against him. Pressure quickly expanded in my abdomen, my muscles tightening, the longer he continued to kiss and tease me. And then the tension released …
… in the form of a hiccup.
Both of us raised our heads, and our eyes connected. Jensen had a goofy grin on his face, and I was just annoyed because I could feel the next hiccup building. “It’s okay,” I told him. “They’ll go away.” I hiccupped again. “Seriously.”
They didn’t relent though, and it was very frustrating. There we were, finally about to round third and slide home—heh heh heh, “slide.”—and I had the worst case of hiccups! “Dammit!” I cried out before sucking in a deep breath, hoping that would work.
“I’ll go grab you a glass of water,” Jensen offered, climbing off the bed as I nodded.
He disappeared into the bathroom, and I pushed my half-naked body up toward the head of the bed, sucking in another breath as I lay back on the huge pillows. I heard the tap in the bathroom run for a moment. I assumed Jensen was waiting for it to get cold. Closing my eyes, I exhaled before hiccupping again, and sucked in another deep breath, holding it for as long as possible and questioning our luck.
Chapter 5. Text, Interrupted
“Madi?” I could tell he was whispering, yet his voice still felt like jackhammers assaulting my brain. “Baby, here drink this.”
My eyes fluttered open, and I saw Jensen sitting on the edge of the bed next to me. The room was bathed in bright light, forcing me to squint against it. Jensen held out a glass of water in his right hand, and his left was closed into a fist around something, palm down. As my brain struggled to put two-and-two together, I noticed I was under the blankets and half of the pillows were stacked on the bench at the foot of the bed.
Things were getting weird.
I pushed myself up to a sitting position, noticing I was still in my bra and panties, but stopped to hold my pounding head. “Oh, shit. My head feels like it weighs a ton … Not to mention the construction workers in there pounding the shit out of my brain. How does a hangover come on this quick?”
Jensen looked at me strangely, his right eyebrow arched with confusion—I think. “Madi, baby, it’s ten-thirty in the morning.”
“Bullshit,” I argued, taking the water and opening my other hand beneath the fist he still held out. He dropped two Advil into my palm. “No, that’s not possible. I remember …” Holding the glass of cold water and the pills in my hands, I wracked my memory for the events that led us here. “We were at dinner. Drinking, eating … Kaylie showed up, and then we went back to the party where Kyle and Gavin invited us to have a few drinks with them. Then we came back here and we …” That was when everything got a little fuzzy.
Jensen chuckled. “Intended to have the best sex of your life when you got the hiccups.”
Yup, it all came flooding back, and that was when I only half-realized the light in the room was coming from the window. “Right. And you went to get me water. And now you’re back, and I feel like I’ve been hit by a train.”
“Let the Advil kick in. You’ll be right as rain soon.” Jensen used his hand to guide the painkillers toward my mouth until I took them. “When I came back with your water, I found you had moved up on the bed. I sat next to you and told you I had your water, but you didn’t respond. You’d passed out.”
I. Was. An. Asshole.
“Oh, God!” I said, covering my mouth with my empty hand. “I’m sorry!”
Jensen dismissed my apology with a quick laugh and a headshake. “Don’t be. It was probably best we waited until neither of us was quite that drunk.”
“Hmm, so does that mean tonight’s a no-go too?” I asked teasingly. “I mean, it’s a wedding. More free drinks … And I don’t know Kyle all that well, but I guarantee you he’s going to convince you to drink with him. You’re easily swayed.”
“Me?” he cried in disbelief, laughing. “Little Miss ‘I don’t succumb to peer pressure’? You outdrank me!”
“Lightweight,” I ribbed, setting the glass of water on the nightstand. “Okay, I should shower before I go see Willow. What time do you have to go get ready with Kyle? Do you have some time to join me? I could make up for last night.”
Looking quite pained, Jensen shook his head. “As much as I would love to take you up on that offer, I’m already a little late getting over there.” He reached into his pants pocket and held out his keys. “Take your dad’s truck to the spa. I’ve already let Willow know you’d be a little late. I’ll be back here at two to pick you up.”
“Thanks. I guess you should go then? Leave me all alone… Naked and wet …?” I could see his resolve beginning to break as I toyed with him a little.
“Madison …” His voice was low and gravelly; I loved when he sounded like that. He leaned in, his eyes dark and stormy as he tried for a kiss.
In an instant, my fingers were on his lips. “Sorry! I haven’t brushed my teeth yet! Don’t leave until I have?” Finding a burst of energy, I leapt off the bed and rushed to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face.
Jensen was just outside the bathroom when I flung the door open, startling me slightly. “I figured I’d meet you by the door so you don’t try to entice me beneath the covers with you, making us both later than we already are.”
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pressed my near-naked body against his. “And you don’t think I could entice you anywhere? That sounds like a challenge, Mr. Davis.”
Jensen leaned forward and touched his lips to mine before pulling right back. It was clear I wasn’t going to win this one. “I’ll be here at two. Call if you get bored or just want to talk. I’ll see you in a bit.”
Once Jensen was gone, I had a quick shower before I had to go see Willow. I was excited to spend a little bit of time with her today. After pulling on a button-up plaid shirt and jeans, I slipped my shoes on and grabbed my wallet and the car keys before leaving the room.
It took me just over fifteen minutes to get to Willow’s spa, and when I walked in I was greeted by a familiar face I hadn’t seen in months. “Well, there she is!” Brandon said, smiling wide as he pulled me into his arms. “How the hell have you been, darlin’?”
“Good. How are things with you?” I asked when he released me. His
blond hair had been cut short recently, hiding the fact it was naturally curly, and his deep blue eyes held mine.
“Can’t complain.” He took a minute to look at me carefully. “Gee, Madi, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen you this happy before. It looks good on you! When do I get to meet him? Y’know, give my opinion and all.” Having known Brandon almost as long as Willow, I knew that he just wanted to get a feel for Jensen.
Brandon had always been an excellent judge of character. It was probably one of the reasons he made such a great therapist; being able to sniff out the truth usually meant he was able to help his patients much more effectively. He had concerns about Dane early on, and I was ashamed to admit I brushed him off, stating he was being ridiculous.
Hindsight really is twenty-twenty.
“Um, I don’t know. Maybe we could meet somewhere for dinner before we have to head home tomorrow night?” I suggested, really hoping that worked for them; I really wanted Brandon to like Jensen. He was the closest thing I had to a big brother, and he was always looking out for me like one.
“Madi!” Willow cried ecstatically, walking out of the back room with two champagne flutes in her hand. Mimosas, most likely.
“Hey, Will,” I said, wrapping her in my arms when she reached me and set down our drinks. “How’ve you been?”
“We’re good! Business has been picking up this last week, and we’re very excited about it.” Willow grabbed our drinks, handing me one before looping her arm through mine and leading me back toward the stylists’ chairs. “Madison, this is Georgia. She’s from Italy and does amazing work.”
Georgia stood next to her station and smiled at me. Her long chestnut hair was straight and pulled behind her shoulders and off her face. “I’m actually from New York, but I was living in Italy for the last couple years,” she said, correcting Willow.
“Still from Italy, Georgia” Willow countered playfully, pushing me down into the chair.
“So, what are we doing today? What are you wearing?” Georgia asked, running her fingers through my hair.