Seeking Her (Losing It #3.5)(23)
Author: Cora Carmack

“Hey, I’m sorry. Don’t be upset.”

I stood behind her, my hands hovering above her shoulders.

“I’m not upset.”

She threw back the rest of the drink, and then slammed it down on the bar. Immediately, she raised her hand to try to get the bartender’s attention.

I stopped hesitating and grabbed her hand. I pressed it down against the bar and leaned my lips down to her ear. Softly, I said, “Kelsey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed. But don’t drink because you’re mad at me.”

Don’t drink because I’m mad at me and took it out on you.

I’d already f**ked-­up enough tonight for the both of us.

She turned her head toward me, but kept her eyes on the bartender.

“Apology accepted. And I’m drinking because I want to.”

“Just talk to me for a second.”

She ignored me, raising her other hand and calling out.

I spun her around by her elbow and trapped her between my arms and the bar. My guilt fizzled as the feel of her body against mine took precedence in my head.

“What the hell is your problem?”

“I just needed to talk to you for a second.”

“So you manhandle me like a caveman? Jesus!”

This was going so completely wrong. All because I touched that damn drink. I smiled, willing her to understand that I didn’t mean any harm.

“I just wanted to apologize.”

“You already did that.”

“I know. But I really am sorry.”

So goddamn sorry.

“I don’t think you are. There’s this pattern that keeps cropping up, where you judge me when you have no right to do so. And when you’re not judging me, you’re prying into my life.”

“I’m not judging you. I promise. And the rest? That’s just the soldier in me . . . I’m too straightforward. If I want to know something, I just ask. If I want to do something, I do it.”

Even when it is really, really stupid.

“Yeah, subtlety is definitely not your strong suit.”

I smiled, because she wasn’t struggling against me anymore. “No. It definitely isn’t.”

Neither, apparently, was control. She’d been fascinating from afar, but having met her, I decided consuming was the better word.

“Well, then. If you’ll let me go, I think I’m going to go find Jenny and the others. Since I’m not allowed to order another drink and—­”

I’d already indulged one desire tonight, about which I would feel immensely guilty in the morning. Why not make it two?

I lifted my hands up from the bar to grasp her jaw. Then I set out to discover exactly what her lips tasted like.

12

SHE HESITATED WHEN my lips touched hers, but not for long. I traced my tongue across her bottom lip in the same way her tongue had on more than one occasion, and she opened to me immediately. She tasted sweet, just like I thought she would. And despite what I thought, I couldn’t taste a drop of alcohol, only her.

Her fingernails dug into the back of my neck, and I was hard almost instantly. I groaned against her lips as they pressed harder, faster against my own. I reached for her waist, but her swimsuit was in the way of my fingertips finding skin. I slipped one hand around to her back, pressing it flat against her smooth skin. She arched her back, crushing her chest against mine, and I wanted to devour her.

I pulled her bottom lip between my teeth just for a second, and her hands pressed down on my shoulders. Then I set about tasting the rest of her. The corner of her lips, her jaw, the long column of her neck. I leaned her back into the bar, my hips snug against hers so that there was no way she didn’t know exactly how much I wanted her.

She pulled my face up to hers and said, “I think I like your lack of subtlety.”

My only reply was to kiss her again. To have more of her. My newest addiction. I didn’t know how long we kissed except that my lips were raw, and it was still not enough. I could have spent another day, maybe two, just exploring her mouth.

She was the one to pull back, breathing heavy.

“Wow.”

I leaned my forehead against hers and said, “I should have just done that from the start.”

Her eyes fluttered closed, and she leaned harder into me, but didn’t say anything.

“Don’t tell me you’re speechless, princess.”

A tiny, tinkling laugh bubbled up from her mouth, and it was unlike any other noise I’d heard her make. She looked shocked, and let go of me to cover her mouth.

As I smiled at her, she started slumping sideways.

“Whoa!” I wrapped my arms around her waist, and her head thumped against my chest. She turned her face, pressing her cheek against my skin.

“Kelsey?” What the hell was going on?

She didn’t answer, but she was leaning almost all her weight on me now.

“My cheeks,” she mumbled.

“What about them, princess?”

She turned her head so that her forehead pressed against my chest again, her lips touching my skin. My heart raced in its cage. She made a noise, small and soft and pathetic almost. Unease curled in my gut.

I kept one arm around her waist, and used the other to pull her head up to mine. “Kelsey? What were you saying about your cheeks?”

“Can’t feel.”

“You can’t feel your cheeks?”

She didn’t reply, but when I loosened my grip on her jaw, her head began to fall immediately.

“Shit.”

Something wasn’t right.

I tilted her head back again, searching her eyes. Wide pupils, unfocused gaze. One of the neon lights overhead swept over us, and she winced, pulling away. The minute she was out of my arms, she collapsed. I narrowly managed to catch her before she hit the ground.

I tried to get her to look at me, but her eyes kept wandering.

“Kelsey, you didn’t have anything to drink earlier, did you?”

She opened her mouth but paused . . . for one, two, three seconds. When I was about to ask her again, she shook her head.

“Damn it. My drink.”

That was the only explanation. I’d set it on the bar, and it had been there unattended for . . . I didn’t know . . . a few minutes at least.

I held her tight between my body and the bar and snapped my fingers for the bartender’s attention. “This drink.” I held up the empty glass. “Did you see anyone mess with it? Anyone touch it besides me or her?”

The guy shrugged, and then went back to take someone else’s order.