Chapter 4 #2
Mira and Nessa exchange a look and smile. Nessa giggles.
My mouth fills with acid and Chambord as I eye the potent beverage in my hand. “I don’t know if I can do another.” Have I uttered those words in my life?
“Oh, come on. Don’t be a weakass.” Mira seems almost sober, but she can’t be. She’s had as much to drink as I have.
“I’ll do another if you do,” Nessa says.
How does she do it? Something’s not right here.
“Nessa, you’re so little, I could bench-press you…
if I bench-pressed… or went to the gym. Gym’s not my thing.
I’d rather run or hike—be outside, as long as there aren’t bugs…
or mountain lions… Wait—what were we talking about?
Oh yeah, another shot. K—but we have to take an Uber home. I can’t drive.”
Mira shoves a drink at me. Didn’t I just pound one? What happened to hers? Is that two in front of me? “I arranged for someone to pick us up,” she says.
Nessa and I look at each other, then Mira. “You did?” we say in unison.
“Who?” Nessa asks.
“Don’t worry about it. I called a few minutes ago when I went to the bathroom. They’ll be here soon. That is, unless you guys want to stay and party?” She eyes me.
I’m not the one whipping my hair around, flagging men. I’ve had too much to drink, and I lost track of my best friend. Speaking of… “You guys see Cali anywhere?”
Nessa shakes her head. Mira gazes away, as if she might help me look, but her focus settles instead on the entrance of the club.
No way am I leaving without Cali. I reach for my phone to call her and see a text. It’s from Cali and she says she’s getting a ride from a coworker.
I guess that’s okay. At least she knows her driver. I have no idea who Mira finagled to pick us up.
Two guys in designer jeans, black T-shirts, and shiny blazers walk toward us. I’m freaking praying they’re not our ride. They each have short hair, and paired with the club jackets, they’re like twinsies, though one is distinctly better looking than the other.
Nessa giggles. “Mira, your suitors are on their way. Guess they got tired of waiting for an invitation.”
Nessa is sloshed. She’s a giggler drunk.
Mira flashes the men a flirty smile. “How do you know they’re coming for me?”
The men look to be around forty, and even if I’m being conservative, a twenty-year age gap is a bit pervy.
“Oh, I have a hunch.” Nessa nudges me in the ribs and I catch myself before I fall out of the booth. “Besides, they’re staring at you.”
The creepers take each of us in. The one with thinning hair, a tan line on his ring finger, and white loafers that clash spectacularly with his midnight-blue blazer, slides in beside Mira. “Mind if we join you?”
I shrink in my seat, attempting to hide, but the cute creeper with blond hair, beard stubble, and laugh lines around his eyes squishes in next to me. He’s on my left, and Nessa and Mira block me on the right.
Cute Creeper’s cologne is so strong my eyes water. The scent combined with too much alcohol causes nausea to roil through my stomach. “Mira, when’s our ride coming?”
“In a minute.” She leans on her forearms, thrusting her small, pert breasts into White Loafers’s vision. His gaze homes in like a laser.
Cute Creeper chats my ear off for the next ten minutes. I get by with minimal articulation, managing to breathe out of my mouth instead of my nose, until he decides to touch me.
He runs his fingers through my hair. “How is your hair so shiny?”
Eeew. I take a slow, steady breath, the cologne assaulting my senses because I forgot to breath out of my mouth, and try to ignore the hand making another pass at my scalp—
Mira looks past our table, a smug expression crossing her face. “Our ride is here.”
I lean to the side, attempting to disentangle Cute Creeper’s fingers, and glance at the entrance. Lewis’s gaze flickers between me and Cute Creeper, his nostrils flaring.
She called him?
Lewis’s gaze shifts from the creeper’s hand in my hair and he glares accusingly at me.
This isn’t my fault. Mira’s the one sending out girl signals, luring in men. I want nothing to do with this.
For some reason, accepting a ride from Lewis is a bad idea.
I know this, yet I can’t bring myself to care.
Better a ride from him than getting pawed by forty-year-olds.
And no way will these polished club guys stick around with Lewis approaching.
He’s in agitated mountain god mode, the energy he’s giving off intense.
I’ve only seen Lewis wear collared work shirts, like earlier when he was with Mira at the other casino. Now he’s all casual ease, a fitted heather T-shirt snug on his biceps and chest, and it’s doing funny things to my internal temperature.
Maybe close proximity to Lewis isn’t such a good idea.
Cute Creeper stands abruptly. He nudges his friend and nods toward Lewis. White Loafers mumbles something about meeting up with friends and heads off toward the bar with his buddy.
I let out a breath. Sweet relief.
“Ready?” Lewis says in a clipped tone, eyes focused on Mira.
Mira slips out of the booth and reaches for his arm. He doesn’t give her a chance to latch on. He walks ahead, his long limbs eating up the distance to the exit. I wobble to my feet and Nessa does too.
Mira and Nessa do a good job keeping up with Lewis, but something is wrong with my equilibrium, and it’s slowing me down. I pick up my pace to catch up and nail my hip on the corner of a booth, bouncing like a pinball into bodies trolling the dance floor.
That’s gonna bruise.
A warm, masculine voice chuckles above my ear. “You okay?” The body attached to the voice appears to be holding me up.
I am officially trashed.
Waiting for the room to stop spinning, I answer, “Fine. Just bumped my hip.”
I no longer see Nessa or Mira. Only Lewis remains, glaring—in pretty much the same threatening manner he did with Cute Creeper—at the guy holding me.
Lewis’s focus slides to my face, worry lines creasing his brow as he takes in my angle.
There’s a chance I’m leaning against my rescuer like the Tower of Pisa.
Out of the blue, my rescuer hightails it away. And as if someone has shoved that last inch on Pisa, I stumble.
Son of a bitch.
Through a series of spastic moves that include gripping the sleeve of the girl beside me and grabbing the shoulder of yet another random guy, I manage to remain upright.
The haste in which my rescuer departed might have something to do with the large Native American storming over, nudging bodies out of the way.
Lewis wraps his arm around my waist and hauls me to his side. Heat, the scent of him, steals the air from my lungs. A shock of tingles spirals down my stomach and thighs and I curve into him, a low moan escaping my mouth.
My eyes go wide, and I glance up, praying he didn’t catch that.
A knowing grin curls his lips, the sexiness of which amps the charge between us. He heard.
I made it a point to stay away from Lewis, which I realize might actually be impossible. Putting aside the reality that we have friends in common, Tahoe isn’t a major metropolis.
Lewis tightens his grip and carts me out the door and across the casino.
I place all my focus on not embarrassing myself with unwanted guttural sounds, which means I trip about a thousand times because I can’t do two things at once at the moment.
Mira and Nessa are halfway across the parking garage by the time we catch up.
Mira nears a truck and looks back. Her lips disappear, eyes glinting as she takes in Lewis’s arm around me. It would be safer for all of us if Lewis stopped touching me before I launch myself on him, or before Mira claws me to death.
He presses me against the side of the truck, his hands raised as if to say, Stay. The parking garage spins for a few seconds and then levels out as he opens the passenger door. Mira scrambles in next to the driver’s seat, then Nessa after her. I wiggle in last.
“Where do you live, Gen?” Lewis asks as he pulls away from the lot.
I give him directions and zone out until the familiar crackle of uneven gravel alerts me that I’m home.
Lewis puts the car in park and I open the door, hoping we can just forget about the stumbling, and the moaning, and the incidents of this night. “Thanks for the ride.”
I step outside, and the world rotates, my body lunging against the side of the car. I grip the door for balance and my finger catches at an odd angle, bending painfully.
The crunch of heavy footfalls sounds from the front of the truck. “Need a hand?” Lewis gently closes the passenger door.
I brace my hip on the side of the truck and shake out my finger. “I’m okay.”
One foot in front of the other and holding on to the truck for dear life, I make my way forward. It’s dark. I can’t actually see my feet, but they’re down there somewhere. Releasing the truck hood, I take a tentative step toward the house.
The ground tilts, and then it’s suddenly rushing toward me.
A firm grip at my waist jerks me upright. My legs are swept up next, along with my body.
He’s carrying me?
Lewis cradles my thighs and back, the light spring-scented cologne or aftershave, whatever, the soapy deliciousness that wafts from him in hot waves, pummels my senses.
I stifle the instinct to press my nose to his neck.
That would be inappropriate. Worse than pinballing into strangers and sexual moans—God, this night is going to embarrass me tomorrow, I just know it. “You smell good,” I tell him on a sigh.
His steps falter, his chest rising on a sharp inhale. A beat passes. “So do you.” His voice is a smooth rumble that sends butterflies ricocheting in my belly.
Did he just admit to liking me? Telling someone you like the way they smell is the same as telling them you like them. Which is what I did… Wait, why can’t I date him? Oh yeah, Mira. I scrunch my nose.
In his arms, my gaze reaches his chin. This close, his features are all masculine edges, his skin even—except for that scar. I’d like to feather my lips across that scar… God, he’s a distraction.
He chuckles.
Did I say that out loud? “Why are you laughing?”
“You’re different when you’re drunk.”
It’s that obvious? Of course it is, you jackass, you’re falling all over the place.
We reach the front door and Lewis adjusts his grip on me. My legs slide down his body, stirring a new series of spastic butterflies low in my belly as he sets me on my feet.
I can’t look up. His scent, touch—his voice—they steal my ability to think, and when I look in his eyes the maelstrom is ten times worse. I keep my gaze glued to his T-shirt and shift around, careful to maintain balance.
Cali and I forgot to turn on the porch light before we left for work, so the lighting issues I had in the driveway linger at the front door. It takes several attempts before I fit the key and release the deadbolt.
Groping the wall inside, I flip on lights and spot Cali’s cell sticking out between the couch cushions. Good, she’s home. One less worry.
Lewis enters behind me, dwarfing our small place and sending my girl parts into high alert. He’s in my home—a few feet from my bed.
Stop thinking of him that way!
He glances past me. “Where’s Cali?”
The bedroom door is closed and no light glimmers below. “Asleep, I think.”
“Will you be okay? I can check on you after I drop off the girls.”
He wants to check on me? To tuck me in? A smile forms on my lips at the same time a hissing exhale sounds from behind.
Mira’s small figure looms in the doorway. “Are you coming?” Her tone is pure annoyance.
Lewis’s gaze doesn’t waver from me. “I’ll be there in a minute, Mira.”
Mira steps to the side so she can intermittently glare at both of us now.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “Thanks for the ride. Hope it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience.” I mean, Jesus, it’s after two in the morning.
“No bother,” he says absently, looking around as if to ensure no monsters lurk in dark corners. “I’ll see you later, then.” His gaze sweeps my face before he follows Mira out.
After bolting the lock behind him, I throw my purse on the couch and stagger into the bedroom. I collapse across the mattress. Cali grunts angrily. It’s possible I elbowed her in the back in my effort to land on the bed and not the floor.
My last thought before I drift off, suspended between consciousness and sleep: I wish Lewis was returning to me…