The Pact(56)

But even though I wanted to hold a grudge, to be angry, I just couldn’t. He was still Linden. He was still the man who knew me better than everyone else did. I could never say no to him and apparently I couldn’t hold a grudge.

So Nicola and Kayla left us alone and I was immediately swept up into the force of nature that he is.

He grabbed my hand and it felt like parts of me were coming back together. He breathed hot air on my neck and I felt like I was going to spontaneously combust.

He said things that I never thought I’d hear him say and things I couldn’t wait to hear again.

Then he told me this was all a secret, Kayla and Nicola came back, and he fucked off to the other side of the bar.

That’s where he is now. That’s where I want to be.

No, more than that. I want to be beneath him on this table, just like he said.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Nicola asks me for the hundredth time. “I can’t figure out what’s going on with your face?”

“What’s wrong with my face?”

“Well, it looks a bit bitchier than normal,” Kayla says thoughtfully and reaches across the table to smooth out the deep crease between my brows. “You’re too frowny. You also look a bit scared.”

“She’s scared of Linden,” Nicola whispers – loudly – to her.

“We’ll protect you sweetie,” Kayla says and displays her biceps, which are surprisingly well-defined. “I owe Linden several kicks to the nuts as it is.”

“No one is kicking anyone,” I tell them. I might need those nuts in the near future. “You’re both drunk.”

“You’re right,” Kayla says with a sigh, leaning back dramatically in her seat. “You know it only takes me two drinks before I’m on my knees. Damn Asian genes.”

I laugh. “Then maybe you oughta head home.”

Nicole fixes her eyes on me. “I have the feeling you’re trying to get rid of us.”

I open my mouth to protest but no words come out.

Nicola sighs and throws down some bills before she nudges Kayla out of the booth. “Come on chicky, you won’t find any men here to get on your knees for anyway.” Then she stifles a giggle. “Well, maybe one but I bet you’ve been on your knees for him already.”

“Not funny!” I yell and Kayla turns an even angrier shade of crimson.

Then they’re gone and I’m sitting in the booth alone, nursing a cider that’s warm, flat and tasteless and I know who is waiting on the other side of that bar.

I scoop up the bills and stick them in the tip jar closest to me, where Dan gives me the thumbs up. Kayla and Nicola never have to pay for anything because they’re with me but they always do and I always put their money in the tip jar. It at least ensures the staff is happy every time we come into the bar.

“Hey Steph,” James says to me as I round the corner to the other side. He’s pouring Linden a pint who is sitting across from him in his usual spot.

In our usual spot.

For a moment I’m thrown back in time to our twenty-fifth birthday where we both sat there at the bar and made a drunken pact that we would marry each other one day if there was no one else for us.

Linden’s stormy eyes meet mine and he gives me a slow, carnal smile as if he knows exactly what I’m thinking. All at once I’m completely terrified to keep moving but my feet don’t know any different. They walk over to him and I sit down on the stool beside him, my shoulders bumping against his.

“You like him again?” James says as he hands me an Angry Orchard without even asking.

“I get moody sometimes,” I say with a smile before I take a long swig.

“No shit,” he says and then heads down the length of the bar to attend to someone who is snapping their fingers like a madman.

And now, despite the bar and the people around us, I am alone with Linden. It feels like there isn’t another soul around for miles. The heat coming off his body is intoxicating and I am so conscious that if I adjust my seat even slightly, my bare arm will brush against his.

I already have goose bumps just thinking about it.

Linden leans in a bit closer, his hot mouth just inches from my ear. “Your place or mine?”

My eyes grow wide. This is already moving way too fast. I don’t even know what this is yet.

“Let me have a drink and think about it,” I tell him and my words come out all crumbled and hoarse, like I’ve swallowed a bucket of sawdust. I angle back slightly so I can look him in the eye. “Don’t you think this is all kind of…weird?”

He gives me a lazy smile. “Baby blue.” The slow way he says it makes me focus on his lips, the hint of tongue that peeks out. “This will be the opposite of weird.”