Chapter 14 #2
You or whiskey?
ALWAYS ANSWER
Both if you ask nicely.
She exhaled. Fine.
* * *
He was waiting at the door when she rounded the corner and slipped into the bar. He locked the door behind her.
She felt it as she brushed by him—the shift between them. She’d let him see the most vulnerable pieces of her over the last few days, and it hadn’t scared him off. She’d cried, laughed, and sat in silence with him, and they’d all felt survivable.
In four days, she’d be back across the hall, and this would all be fodder for her vibrator.
But it was there, lingering in their chests. Something far worse than grief.
Hope.
The bar was quiet, only Frankie and a delivery guy hanging at the edge of the cherry-stained oak.
She took a moment to really examine all the photos on the walls.
There were shots of family trips to Disneyland, the beach, fishing somewhere.
He looked so much like his dad, the same dark curls and knotted bridge in his nose.
The same green eyes.
“Oh god,” Milo laughed. “All the cheesy photos.” He hovered behind her, pointing to one of him and Frankie, she assumed, in their early teens, soaked and laughing at whoever was behind the camera.
“My dad pushed us both into the lake because we couldn’t stop arguing over something.
I can’t even remember anymore, but it stopped the fight. ”
“You wouldn’t share the Gameboy,” Frankie rumbled from behind the bar.
“It wasn’t the Gameboy, it was my Gameboy. I got it with the money I saved cleaning the bar all summer.”
“So you do remember,” Hanna said, arching a brow.
“I’m Frankie, by the way,” Milo’s brother said, waving and resting a hand on his hip. Aside from the patches of silver beginning to form at his temples, he could have easily been mistaken for Milo in the dim lighting.
“Hanna,” she said, returning the wave.
“The girl from Phoenix,” Frankie said, nodding. Milo stilled behind her as she turned.
“I’m a girl from Phoenix. Not sure about the.” Milo's fingers brushed against her hip and her cheeks warmed.
“There’s a distillery down in Tempe that we like,” Frankie went on. “I try to make it out there every few years.”
“On University, yeah?”
“She knows her stuff,” Frankie said to Milo, who might have been, for the first time since she'd met him, flustered.
She didn’t get a chance to tease him before the Oakland distiller uncapped several bottles, walking them through the tasting notes as they tried four seasonal blends.
She loved the sour cherry infusion, the tart pinch of her taste buds a perfect distraction from the way Milo licked his lips after a sip.
Without even asking, he popped a bottle from the case into her purse.
When the distiller left, Frankie followed, reminding Milo to lock up before they went home. The door was barely shut before she twisted on her heels.
“Your brother knows about me?”
“Don’t let it go to your head. He saw you here, remember?” Milo ducked behind the bar, fussing with the register.
“The girl from Phoenix,” she hummed.
“You know what? I have nothing to hide,” Milo declared. “I have mentioned you a few times at family dinners, okay?”
She leaned over the bar, just inches from him. “Do they hate me for stealing you on Father’s Day?”
“No, of course not.”
She inhaled. “I don’t want whatever we’re doing to come between you and your family time.”
Milo stopped his work on the register and looked her dead in the eyes.
“Yeah, well, if they knew how good your head game was, they’d understand.”
Hanna rolled her eyes, leaning forward over the bar. She dropped her voice, softening her tone.
“Are you feeling better today?”
“I’m feeling better after seeing you bent over in that dress,” he muttered, his eyes quickly flashing to the neckline draped lower than she realized. She straightened her back, irritated. Milo stopped whatever he was doing with the register and sighed. “I’m sorry, Hanna.”
“For what?” she asked. He stepped to the side, leaning across from her. His hand dropped over hers, tapping the edge of the glass she’d been sipping.
“I know I’m okay being a distraction for you, but I tried to make you a distraction for me, and I shouldn’t have done that without talking about it first.”
Hanna nodded, processing. He was only a tiptoe away from her, making it difficult to form a coherent thought.
“It’s okay, Milo. You have your own shit too, and I know I trigger that. Plus, the work stuff.”
Milo winced. “I didn’t have work stuff.”
She tilted her head.
“I, uh, I was calling my therapist.”
Hanna sighed. “Have you ever felt something without analyzing it?” she asked.
Milo huffed a sigh, tapping her hand. “No.”
She bit the inside of her cheek, trying to ignore his throat flexing just inches from her lips.
“What if you just did what you wanted for once, and not what you thought you should?”
She’d hardly gotten the thought out before the thread snapped and Milo closed the distance between them.
Whiskey still lingered on their tongues as they swept across one another.
It wasn’t enough pressure, enough heat from where she stood.
Hanna climbed onto the bar, pushing him back as she sat on the edge and parted her legs around him, begging him to fall into her.
He didn’t miss a beat, sliding his hand along her thighs and gliding the hem of her dress higher.
It was a completely different kiss than the night before. Deep and thorough, not starved and scattered.
She yelped into his mouth when his fingers slipped the buttons over her chest away, giving him access to her soft skin. The sound drove him to squeeze harder, grab more of her.
“Milo,” she groaned, her head falling back as he moved to her neck. He lifted her, setting her feet on the ground behind the bar and pushing at the lace of her underwear, rolling it down to give him access.
“Fuck,” he whispered, finding her more than ready for him—as if she hadn’t been his to mold however he wanted all damn week. He kissed her again before pushing her forward, draping her over the bar. His belt hit the wood and a foil wrapper hissed in two.
“How old is that wallet condom?” she asked, laughing.
“Got a fresh box the night you flew in,” he rasped as he leaned over her back, gripping her neck and pushing into her slowly.
The pressure as he took his time filling her sent a shockwave over her hips, manifesting in his name slipping from her mouth as he moved within her.
They’d gotten so close so many times, she’d been brought over the edge by him so many times she thought she knew what it might feel like.
She’d woefully underestimated how good Milo would feel inside her, and that was one of the less fortunate truths of her life. One she’d have to contend with later—god, the time she’d wasted.
She pushed her hips back, searching for more of him.
“Easy now,” he spat out between moaning her name.
“Good time, not a long time,” Hanna panted.
Milo’s grip tightened on her hips. “You,” he gasped. “I need you so much closer.” He pulled her up and she whimpered at the loss of him. “How opposed are you to fucking on the floor of a bar that I swear was cleaned this morning?”
His hands dug into her ass and wrapped her legs around him, pushing against her as she fought for breath. In that moment, Hanna didn't give two shits if the floor had ever been cleaned. She only wanted to feel him inside her again.
Milo attempted to sink them gracefully behind the bar, but as soon as his knees hit the floor, he fell back.
She caught herself between the wall and the backstock lined beneath the bar top, giggling as he repositioned himself to sit against the wall.
He leaned at an angle, yanking her down to him and guiding her hips gently over his lap.
She rolled her hips forward and he grabbed both sides of her face, kissing her slowly, reverently. It wasn’t a distraction or to get a rise out of her. It wasn’t teasing or playing a game.
It was genuinely enjoying being with her, being claimed by her.
His hands glided over her sides, setting a rhythm that had her lost for words and well on her way to only being able to rasp sounds.
She wound her hips in circles, her mind so full of him she couldn’t think of anything else as she inched closer to oblivion.
One hand crawled up her thighs, pushing her dress up.
She leaned back, shoving the fabric over her head so he could get to more of her, sink his teeth into her flesh.
He picked up the pace, fingers digging into her hips as they both stopped forming words. Hanna pulled away from his lips to breathe, but he was having none of it, hauling her back to him and biting at her lip, moaning into her mouth.
When the low thunder became her name, she damn near lost her mind.
“Don’t stop,” he whispered, his jaw clenched. “Keep going, baby.”
The silence that followed was short-lived, but said so very much.
She tried not to let the word mean anything. Tried not to let it soak into her skin or tickle her ribs. Tried not to blush as she broke apart around him, her climax definitely not attached to the thrill of being his baby, if only for a second.
Milo was right behind her, his face buried in her hair. If they both stayed completely still, they could pretend it didn’t happen. If neither of them looked at the other, they’d never have to admit how right it all felt.
Hanna leaned her head into his shoulder, her eyes fixed on the shelves beside them as she caught her breath.
“What’s that?” she asked, pulling at a piece of paper sticking out from between the wood of the bar and the drywall. An old Polaroid broke loose and she flipped it over as he brushed her hair over her shoulder with his eyes still closed.
“Is this your mom?” she said, a faded old image of a young woman standing in front of the bar, her hair falling in long dark waves, teased to hell and back. Milo snagged the photo from her hands.
“It is,” he laughed. “Dad must have stashed it back here.”
Neither of them pointed out the bright yellow sunflower emblazoned across her cropped shirt as they sat in the silence for another moment.