6. Haven
Chapter Six
Haven
Bar None is…sticky. But after two rye and Cokes and a shot of something vile, I don’t care as much as I did when we arrived.
The music changes, turning slow, and a protest rises from the crowd.
“Hey,” barks the bartender, pointing to a cardboard sign that says Jukebox right above an old pickle jar full of loonies and toonies. And right on top, a curled up fifty dollar bill. “If you don’t like it, feed the jukebox!”
The couple who put the fifty in the jar takes to the small dance floor.
They’re probably in their forties, or maybe well-preserved fifties, and they don’t care that they’ve turned the mood of the bar from boisterous to oddly romantic.
They’re all wrapped up in each other, literally, his hands in her back pockets, her fingers playing with the hair at the back of his neck as they gaze into each other’s eyes, turning slowly.
Another couple joins them, then two girls start swaying at the edge of the dance floor, too. One guy drifts over and offers to dance with one of them, then her friend finds a partner, too.
Suddenly, nobody is complaining about the slower music.
Mercy tosses back the rest of her drink and slaps the table. “Another?”
“Sure,” I murmur, my attention stuck on the original dancing couple.
I don’t know if they’re married, if they’ve been together for a long time or a short time, or if this is the first night they’ve connected, but they’re electric.
He can’t stop touching her, her body is melting into his.
They’re two pretty ordinary looking people, but wrapped around each other, they make an incredibly beautiful portrait.
It makes something in my chest pulse with a weird ache.
I want that.
I’m a late bloomer, for sure. Much to Jeb’s frustration, I wasn’t eager to have a relationship when I turned eighteen, or at twenty-one. And when I went to university, I was so rocked by his years-long pursuit of me, how gross it had made me feel, that I stayed inside myself for years.
But lately, I’ve been reading more romance books, finding myself fantasizing about the what ifs, and here it is playing out in front of me—and with people who are older than me, like there’s still hope for a twenty-nine year old who is just finding herself now.
Mercy returns with a small tray. Two drinks, two shots. Vile, vile, fun.
At some point after all four glasses are empty, I squint across the table, and see Mercy bopping in her seat. The music has picked up again, and people on the floor are line dancing.
“Go dance,” I mumble. “Before I turn into a pumpkin.”
“We can leave now if you want.”
“Soon.” I wave my hand. “Go. Dance.”
“You want to come with me?”
“I don’t know how to line dance when I’m sober and I am not sober anymore.” I suck in a deep breath. “I’ll watch.”
She laughs and slides out of the booth, kicking her heels as she seamlessly joins the crowd.
When she does a quarter turn and her back is to me, someone drops into her seat. A stranger, a man who I don’t know. He looks rough and drunk.
Before he even opens his mouth, a shadow falls over the table.
“Out,” Cash barks.
“I’m just—”
“Not tonight you aren’t,” he growls. Then he leans against the booth and lifts my chin. His brown eyes are clear, sober, and piercing. “You doing okay, Haven?”
“Fine,” I whisper, my heart beating faster. Better now, I want to say, but that’s… No, I can’t say that.
“Shouldn’t have let Mercy get you that second round,” he mutters.
“Have you been here the whole time?” I feel myself pout, the corners of my mouth tugging down in disappointment. “Why didn’t you sit with us?”
“Can’t do that, beautiful. I’m no good for you.”
“You’re my friend,” I say stubbornly.
He grins. “Yeah, I am. You have a plan to get home?”
“Mercy said we’ll call a taxi.” Although she also said there will be a wait, because Dragonfly Creek has one taxi cab. Sometimes two or three, if Steve The Cab Guy can convince anyone else to drive for him, but on a Thursday night, that’s not super likely.
Cash reads my mind. “There’ll be a line a mile long for that. I’ll be your taxi tonight.”
His thumb brushes along my jaw, making me shiver, then he straightens up and steps back, removing himself from my space as swiftly as he appeared.
I watch Mercy effortlessly step her way through two more songs, then she swings her hips back to the table and flops in across from me. “Next thing we’re doing is signing you up for line dancing lessons,” she says happily. “That’s so much fun.”
“Okay,” I hear myself saying.
Who am I?
Drinking. Dancing.
“Do you want to get going? I have an early morning,” Mercy says. “We can beat the crowd for Steve’s services.”
“Actually, Cash is here,” I mumble. “He said he’ll drive us.”
Right on cue, he appears again and herds us out to a big truck.
“No motorcycle tonight?” I ask, although that’s a silly question because if he had ridden his bike, he couldn’t give us both a ride home.
In the shadow of the passenger door, his eyebrows lift and his mouth hitches up at the side. “Disappointed?”
“I don’t know.” I try to climb up, but my foot slips.
“I’ve got you.” His hands settle on my hips as he helps me into the back seat. He leans into the cab after I settle. “You got the seat belt there?”
“I think so…” But I fumble for it, so he helps me with that, too.
Mercy climbs in next, sitting in front of me.
I lean my head forward, resting it on the padded headrest between us, and pat her shoulder. “Thank you for taking me out tonight, friend.”
She squeezes my hand. “Any time.”
Cash, who’s just come around and hoisted himself into the driver’s seat, glowers at her. “But maybe something different next time?”
She laughs at him. “Like what, a knitting club?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Take me home, guard dog.” She glances back at me. “And then you can go tuck in Little Miss Rye and Coke.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Of course not,” she murmurs.
Maybe they think I can’t hear them. Or maybe they think I’m so drunk I won’t hear them. I didn’t have that much to drink, I think sourly.
But then the next thing I know, Cash is waking me up. I missed him dropping Mercy off completely.
“Did I fall asleep?”
“A little bit, yeah.” He carefully moves my seatbelt out of the way.
“I missed you undoing that,” I pout, even though I can hear him saying it’s not like that. But I can’t keep a filter on my words, apparently. “I liked it when you did it up.”
“Come on.”
He guides me out of the truck, his hands on my hips again. It reminds me of the dancing couple, and I wish I could arch into him, make my body soft against his.
Another uncensored confession rips out of me. “I like it when you touch me.”
He grunts, then says, “Good to know.”
So I touch his face. He’s got more of a beard this week than he did last week. Close-cropped, but it’s well past stubble length now. I wonder what it would feel like if I kissed him again. I liked the stubble, too.
“Haven, let’s get you inside.”
I don’t move.
He leans in, pressing his forehead against mine. “Stop petting me, woman. You’re drunk.”
“I like your face,” I whisper.
“I like your face, too.”
“You’re a good kisser.”
“Okay.”
“I wish I was a better kisser.”
“You’re a fantastic kisser, don’t you worry.”
“Really?”
“I count myself lucky to be one of the guys you’ve kissed.”
“The only one, really.”
He goes still. My skin goes all tingly, and I’m suddenly very aware that he’s really big and we’re very alone. He’s shielding me from the house, from everyone’s prying eyes. I could push up on my toes and kiss him again, now, and nobody would know.
But then he says, “Don’t tell me that.”
And that hot, needy, tingly part of me that really wants to press my mouth against his again whimpers and curls in on itself.
I duck my head.
He slides his arm around me, moving me away from the truck, closing the passenger door. Moving me to the door.
Getting rid of me, because it’s not like that.
I trip up the stairs, and he catches me. “Where are your keys?”
“My purse.”
“Can I get them for you?”
When I nod, he bands one strong arm around my waist, holding me against him, while he unzips my purse with the other hand.
“Show off,” I mutter.
No. Filter.
“It’s funny how dexterous someone can be when they’re sober,” he says, laughing.
“You have nimble mechanic fingers, too.”
“There’s that, yeah.”
“Shouldn’t tell you about what I think of those, too, huh?”
There’s a long pause, interrupted only by the slow clink of my keys as he turns them over in his hand. “You think about my fingers?”
“Maybe you don’t want to know.”
“I want to know.”
“Just because I’m a virgin doesn’t mean I don’t have needs. I’m a woman like any other.”
“You’re not like any other woman, I promise you that.” He drags in a breath so deep I feel it against my back, then he propels me forward again. “Inside you go.”
When I stumble over the threshold, he catches me by the waist, closing the door behind us before he props me against it and kneels down.
He takes my foot in his hand and unties my sandal. His thumb presses against the hollow behind my ankle, then sweeps down my instep and circles around my toes, sending a full body shiver racing through me.
I moan. Just a little, but that’s definitely the sound I made. Not a gasp, not a whimper, although that would be bad enough. But a full-throated reaction slides out of me, and Cash’s attention jerks up from my foot to my face.
“I can do the other one,” I stammer.
His gaze flickers, dark and unreadable. “Let me. Please.”
“I’ve never had a man take my shoes off, either.” Shut up, shut up, shut up Haven.
He huffs an audible exhale as he works on my other sandal. This time, his trailing fingers slide up my calf instead of down onto my foot, and he squeezes me right below the knee before he pushes himself to stand and kisses my forehead. “My pleasure. Now go to bed.”
I reach for his shirt, curling my fist into the fabric. “Wait…”
He braces his hand against the door, right beside my head. “Was this your first time getting drunk?”
“I’m not drunk.”
“You’re not sober.” With his free hand, he detaches my fingers from his shirt, but he holds on to them, his touch warm. Nice. Strong.
“I’ve had alcohol before!”
“This much?”
I squint at him. “No?”
He pushes off the door and slides me smoothly under his arm, like a dance move, like he’s spinning a partner. And it’s me, I’m his dance partner. Which would be nice, I think, as the room twirls around me.
“Whoa there,” he murmurs as I slide sideways.
I stare up at him. “Do you line dance?”
He laughs, low and deep in his chest. “Sure.”
“You wouldn’t dance with me, though.”
“You don’t want that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m all wrong for you.”
We’re in the kitchen now.
He fills a glass with water, then holds it up in front of me. “Drink this.”
I reach for it, bumping my fingers against his. Making it spill a bit. “Oops.”
“You’re getting drunker by the second.”
“You’re getting more sober by the second.”
“One of us has to be responsible here.”
“One of us has to be responsible here,” I parrot back. “But sure, you’re all wrong for me.”
“You’re lippy when you’re drunk, eh?” He grins at me and presses the glass into my hands, wrapping both of them around it. “Drink.”
I drink.
When I finish, he takes the empty glass and sets it in the sink, then he lightly runs his thumb along the edge of my mouth.
Reflexively, I lick my lips, catching the water droplets let there—and grazing his skin.
He exhales roughly, his gaze going dark.
I do it again.
I lick Cash’s thumb.
“Jesus, woman,” he whispers. Then he turns me toward the hallway so fast the room spins again.
He puts me in the bathroom first, then closes the door to let me wash up in privacy. I stare at myself in the mirror, then quickly pee. Or maybe not quickly, who knows. Time has no meaning now.
I licked Cash’s thumb.
Drinking. Thinking about dancing. Being forward with my friend. None of this is like me.
My nightgown is on the back of the door. It’s long and frumpy, and—
“I’m going to have a shower,” I say, lifting my voice.
And then I crank on the water before he can reply.
I need to wash off the night. Maybe sober up a little, or a lot.
I scrub the stickiness of Bar None off my skin and out of my hair. I try to ignore the kaleidoscope of images from the last hour spiralling through my mind. Cash buckling me into his truck. Helping me out. Telling him far too much.
I wish I were drunk enough that I won’t remember this in the morning, but every single second is going to be on a furious, confused replay for the rest of my life.
For the second time in a week, Cash Kincaid has swept into my apartment and made himself at home, taking up far too much space.