by Cara Bastone
They were barely inside before she was tugging at his midnight tie, pulling at his buttons, throwing her purse in the direction of the couch, stumbling with the force of her throw.
Stumbling...
Shit. John put hands on her shoulders and steadied her, eyeing her. He’d seen her drink four beers while he’d been sitting with her, but she’d been at the bar when he’d gotten there. He’d had five drinks tonight. And no dinner. Which was about twice as much as he usually had if he was going to hook up with someone. And this wasn’t someone. This was Mary.
“Shit,” he cursed, raising his hands up to his hair and tugging. “Shit.”
“What?”
“Mary, we’re drunk.”
She frowned, shook her head and then laughed when she tipped slightly to the side. “Maybe just a little bit.”
“A little bit is too much if we’re really gonna do this.”
She eyed him, trying to figure out if he was bluffing. She must have read the sincerity on his face because she stepped back, her hands on her hips. “Shit,” she echoed him.
Suddenly, a look of horror came over her face. She took two steps back from him and stood in front of her door. She threw the dead bolt and then the chain lock. Slamming her back against the door, she tossed her arms out in a T. “You’re going to go, aren’t you? You can’t leave! No. Don’t go.”
The idea of him leaving was obviously panicking her. Whatever lusty beast inside him that had gotten its feathers ruffled at the idea of missing out on sex was instantly soothed. Because he couldn’t make love to her while they were drunk. But staying? Well, staying was absolutely something he could give her.
“Am I invited to stay?” he asked quietly.
“Yes.”
He shrugged his shoulders and held his arms out for a hug. “Then I’m staying.”
His arms were suddenly full of Mary, and they both stumbled backward.
“You’re going to kill us both with these heels,” he laughed and went down on one knee in front of her to divest her of one heel and then the other. When he looked back up at her, her eyes were dark, and her lips were bitten red.
“Promise me you’ll do that again when I can actually show you how sexy I find it.”
“I promise.” His voice was pure gravel. There were about seven hundred places he wanted to kiss her right now, but in order to save both their sanities, he simply placed a chaste kiss right on her kneecap before he stood up.
“Water?” he asked.
“Sure.” She swayed into the kitchen, yawning and stretching her arms up over her head as she went.
John took off his shoes and followed her into the kitchen. She put a glass of ice water in his hand and leaned against the opposite counter, hoisting herself up. They held one another’s eyes as they both drank deeply, John finishing his entire glass and her getting about halfway there. They set their glasses aside, and Mary pulled her knees apart a scant inch. John caught a glimpse of hot pink and he groaned, twisting his head to one side.
“Play fair, Mary.”
When he looked up, her knees were pressed together again, but her eyes were impishly pleased with herself. She yawned again.
“Are you sure you want me to stay?” he asked. “You seem tired.”
“Aren’t you tired?” She cocked her head to one side.
“Well, actually...” Now that she mentioned it, he was tired. It was a couple hours later than he usually stayed up on a work night.
“Bedtime?” she asked, sliding down from the counter and holding out a hand to him.
“Mary...”
“I won’t try anything.” She lifted her fingers in the Boy Scout pledge. “Let’s just lie down for a little while. I’m sleepy.”
He watched her walk down the long, dim hallway that led to her bedroom. She disappeared through the door, a lamp flicking on a moment later.
John dragged a hand down his face, feeling like he was in some sort of soupy, delicious dream. He knew exactly how he’d gotten this far into the evening without realizing he was drunk. Because Mary made him feel drunk even when he was dead-ass sober. Her presence, her spirit, her demeanor, it helium-ed him. He was used to feeling loopy and spinny when he was near her.
“There in a sec,” he called down the hall before he deviated to the bathroom. He did his business and carefully tucked and zipped everything back into place. Just one more way of telling himself that his clothes needed to stay on tonight. John washed his hands and splashed his face with cold water, laughing when he saw his expression. “What a dork,” he muttered to himself good-naturedly.
But all the chuckling lightness was immediately bootheeled when he stepped into the doorway of Mary’s room and saw her curled up on the bed. She was over top of her covers, still in her pink dress, her legs bare.
She lifted her head to look at him and patted the pillow next to her. John walked around to the side of the bed she’d indicated and, painfully aware of every tiny movement, slid onto the bed next to Mary.
Instantly she closed the gap between them, one of her legs looping over his and her face nuzzling into the crook above his shoulder. One of her palms found one of his palms and soon her deep, even breathing dragged him under.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THE FIRST THING Mary saw when she opened her eyes was gray morning light filtering over her hand. Wait. No. That was much too large to be her hand. She wiggled her fingers and the large, broad-palmed, blunt-fingered hand she was looking at moved a tiny bit. Ah. There was a man’s hand resting on top of hers.
The rest came in a cascade of memory and information. John striding through the bar to get to her. The cheek kiss. His infectious joy. Sharing the barstool with him. The pressing, the tracing of circles on his wrist, his hand on her knee, holding hands as they basically sprinted home.
The kiss against her door.
Mamma Fracking Mia, THE KISS AGAINST HER DOOR.
Hands down, no question, the absolute best kiss of her entire freaking life. The second his mouth had touched hers, she’d been gone, every ounce of her focus on his lips. The building could have fallen down around them and she wouldn’t have noticed. He was a good kisser. John Modesto-Whitford: scowler, sayer of rude things, sweet, kindhearted, kisser of the lights out.
Seriously, if the man had sex the way he kissed, she wasn’t sure she’d make it to see the morning light.
But wait, she was already seeing the morning light. It was brightening by the second.
How cute was it that he hadn’t let them sleep together last night? Mary had wanted to. She was certain that if they had, she wouldn’t have a single regret this morning. But still, it just added to his sweetness. The man truly considered her. Even when the raging boner she’d been pressed up against had to have been weighing down the pro column, he’d still talked both of them into waiting for sobriety.
And now sobriety was here.
She stretched a little and yawned. Yikes, sobriety was here, but so was her morning breath. Maybe she could sneak out of bed and brush real quick without waking him up. But when she stretched one leg out, the hand on her hand clamped down, ran up her arm and found a home around her waist. He’d been loosely spooning her, but now he was tight against her. He grumbled, low in his throat, but Mary wasn’t sure if he was awake or not. Well, one part of him certainly was awake, and it was as hard as it had been last night. He pressed hot and insistent into her ass and thigh.
But seriously, she was going to have to do something about this breath. She slid out from under his arm and tiptoed to the bathroom. First things first, she peed, and then she moved to the sink.
Mary almost screamed.
Natural light filtered in through the window, lighting her harshly from the side. It had been a long time since she’d fallen asleep with her makeup on and, good Jesus, it was a grim state of affairs on her face right
now. She looked cracked and smudged and wrecked. And not in a good way.
She scrambled for makeup-removing pads and moisturizer, rubbing at her skin almost frantically. Now, with the makeup removed and her face lotioned up, she looked red and shiny. Her pink dress, which had seemed so pretty the night before, was wrinkled. The chic style of it made a mockery of her makeup-less face, pink as the inside of a strawberry.
God.
Mary tore her eyes from her reflection and quickly brushed her teeth, hoping that when she looked up, her color would have gone down a little. But alas, she still looked pink and puffy and...old.
Mary brought a shaking hand to her mouth. Her hair was frizzy and lank, her skin lined and swollen from too little sleep and too much beer. There was none of her usual sparkle. The harsh morning light was only getting harsher.
She looked down at herself, pulling the neckline of her dress away from her in order to peek down at her body. Her chest had those lines it sometimes got when she slept on her side and her breasts pulled, all night, to one side. Her underwear was hot pink and ridiculous. She was wearing sorority-girl underwear. Why had she thought this was cute on her? This was clearly for college students.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. There was nothing for her to change into in here. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. John was either asleep or just waking up in her bed. He thought he’d be waking up to the Mary of last night, polished and put-together and confident.
Instead he’d be waking up to this Mary. She felt as if her mother had somehow made a deal with the devil and had Mary waking up to the fate she’d always envisioned for her daughter. She looked in the mirror and didn’t see Tiff’s Mary. She didn’t see Cora’s MFT. No. She saw Naomi’s busted-ass daughter, old and silly and ridiculous.
“Oh, God.” Regardless, she had to go out there. She couldn’t hide in here all morning. It was only 5:00 a.m. Maybe she could scuttle him out the door before the light got too bright and he saw what he was really dealing with.
She took a deep breath, feeling lower than she had in years, and padded back into her bedroom. He was on his back and rubbing at his face when she came in. He cracked one eye when he heard her, a sleepy smile blooming over his face.
“Hi,” he said softly, reaching for her.
She let him take her hand, because how in the hell was she supposed to keep from reaching out to him when he reached out to her? It was like a law of the universe. He tugged her forward, and she sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from him.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked, casting about for anything to say that wasn’t Could you please leave so that you don’t find out I’m secretly a hag and run screaming from my apartment?
“Mmm,” he answered. Apparently he was too cute and dozy in the morning to string sentences together. He curled against her, and she melted when his hand traced down her spine. Maybe that was why she didn’t have it in her to protest when he gently tugged her down and folded her into him, his mouth landing on her exposed shoulder, his hand spanning her tummy as he kissed his way to her neck.
Did he have to be so cuddly and sexy in the morning? He was making this a hundred times harder than it had to be. Why couldn’t he have been awkward and aloof, anxious to get the hell out of her house the way some men were? It would have been so much easier if they could just have a good old-fashioned awkward morning after.
But he showed no signs of awkwardness as he grumbled something unintelligible into her collarbone and traced a hand down to her knee.
“John,” she whispered, her eyes closed tight.
“Mary,” he whispered back, and she could hear the happiness in his voice.
When she didn’t answer, he paused in his ministrations and sat up, balancing his head on one hand.
She winced. She really didn’t want him to get an eyeful of what she looked like right now. Things were safer when he’d had his face buried in her neck.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“Um—” She cut herself off because she had no idea what to say. He was looking at her the way he always did. With his brows in a V, his complicated eyes layered with concern and caring. Why wasn’t he recoiling from her? “I just feel a little off. Now that we’re, ah, sober.”
He went perfectly still. Mary got the strange feeling like she’d just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head, but she wasn’t exactly sure why.
He was silent for a long moment, and then he cleared his throat. “Things are looking different to you in the morning, huh?”
That was exactly right. The biggest “thing” looking different was namely her.
“Sort of?” she said. His eyes were tracking around her bedroom, catching on this and that. After a moment, his gaze landed on her face and skittered away. He sat up and rolled to the other side of the bed, dragging a hand over his face.
“Right,” he muttered. “Right.”
He stood up and went to the bathroom. Mary sat up as well. She wanted to change her clothes, but God forbid he come back midchange. It would be just her luck if he caught her pulling the underwear out of her ass right about now. No, thank you.
She sat on the edge of her bed and cupped her elbows, feeling utterly wretched.
“I just want to make sure I’m clear on this, all right?” He spoke from the doorway and she stood and turned, the bed in between them.
His eyes, for the first time ever, cast down her body and back up. She’d been waiting and waiting for him to do that to her, to be the recipient of that appraisal, but now that it was happening, she hated it. With the morning light beaming in on her, her hair in a rat’s nest and last night’s dress wrinkled and loose, she didn’t feel sexy and desired. She felt diminished and exposed.
“You’re saying,” he said slowly, as if he were painstakingly gathering each word, “that you wanted to sleep with me last night, while we were drunk. But now, in the morning light, you’re feeling differently?”
That was exactly how she was feeling. She didn’t answer aloud; apparently her face did that for her.
His eyes widened as he took in her expression. “Wow,” he whispered, taking a step back from her. “Wow. I’m such an idiot.”
He turned on his heel and disappeared from the doorway.
Mary stood there for a moment, a frown on her face. Wait. Why had he just called himself an idiot?
She strode after him, even though she wanted to pull her bedcovers over her head and not come out until the next day.
“What do you mean?” she called after him, seeing that he was already at her front door, toeing into his wingtips. “What do you mean you’re an idiot?”
“I—You—Shit.” John tried and failed to get a sentence out. “I’m an idiot for thinking that dancing at your party...sharing a chair with you...that those things were a green light. That it was all an indicator that maybe you wanted... Shit.”
He bent and tied one shoe and the next, his fingers as dexterous as his words apparently weren’t. He stood when his shoelaces were in a crisp knot, his hands jammed in his pockets.
“Mary, it is totally fine, more than fine, for you to change your mind about who you want to sleep with. I’m sorry if I’m guilting you. I’m trying not to. I’m being a dick. I’m just mad at myself for thinking... Shit. I’m gonna go.”
“Wait.” She held a hand out in a stop sign as her world tilted and his words filtered into her brain in a seemingly random order. He thought she’d changed her mind about him?! Oh, God. He thought that the “morning light” had shown poorly upon him? “Wait, John.”
“No, I’d rather go. It’s okay, Mary. I understand. Beer goggles happen to the best of us.” He gave her a grim look that was probably an understanding smile in his mind. “You don’t have to apologize. And frankly, I don’t think I can handle you being sweet to me right now. So. Yeah. I’m gonna go. I have to go.”
H
e undid her locks, pulled open the door and pounded down her stairs. She heard her bottom door close, and then all was silent in her apartment.
“Beer goggles?” she said aloud, to no one. The thought was so ridiculous she laughed, but the sound was incredulous, bitter, horrified. “He thinks I had beer goggles for him? He is an idiot. He’s an idiotic, sweet, sexy, perfect... Shit.” She replayed their conversation in her head and realized how it all would have sounded to someone who was dealing with his own insecurities. She had just figured that how she’d been feeling about herself was so loud and insistent that there was no way in hell he’d been misinterpreting her meaning.
And now John was getting on the train thinking that she regretted kissing him, being with him, cuddling him on the barstool.
She glanced at the wall clock—5:10 a.m. If she left now, she could still catch him before work.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
WELL, HE WAS back in Ruthlandia.
Not that bad a place to be, if he was being honest.
He wanted to curl in on himself, to look around his studio apartment and take it apart piece by piece in his head, comparison by comparison. Rejecting Mary’s judgment of him was difficult, like deep breathing through a charley horse. Part of him wanted nothing more than to admit that she was right. That he was a broke, shabby public defender, and she was right for changing her mind about him.
But no.
He scratched Ruth under the chin and balanced his cup of coffee on his knee.
Succumbing to that kind of self-hatred was a disservice to Estrella, to the way he’d been raised. It was admitting that his father was right. That money mattered more than anything else. John hadn’t let his self-worth be bought by his father, and he wouldn’t let it be sold by Mary.