Untouchable(16)

She watches as the bartender pushes the glass of Red Bull in front of me and then pours my shot, hovering it over the glass. “We got a Jager Bomber in the house tonight!” he shouts to the patrons of the bar as he drops the shot into the glass.

I hear voices surrounding me chanting, “Drink, drink, drink!”

Laughing, I look around at everyone who’d watching me and pick up the glass. I take a deep breath and then bring it up to my mouth, chugging every last drop in record time.

Instantly, I feel the warmth sliding down my throat, warming my chest and my stomach. The thing about a Jager Bomb is it hits you hard and fast. Unlike most liquors, which make you feel depressed and wallow in self-pity when you’re drunk, this drink brings out the happiness in you. It’s as if a million endorphins invade your brain, making you feel overly happy and high on life. At least, that’s what it does to me.

I watch as Raven brings her hand to her mouth. She slowly and seductively slides her tongue across her hand, making my dick throb in my pants and my mouth ache with the need to taste every inch of her delicious body.

Grabbing the salt, she shakes it onto her hand and then slowly brings it to her mouth, sucking the salt off before taking her glass and tipping the shot back. I grab the slice of lime off of the bar and press it between my teeth as I smile against it, bouncing my eyebrows up and down at her.

She shakes her head as a ghost of a smile forms on her lips. Slamming the shot glass down, she leans forward, bringing her lips to mine as she bites into the lime, taking it from my mouth and sucking on it.

“Fuck…Spitfire,” I say under my breath as she pinches the lime, pulling it from her mouth and setting it inside her empty shot glass.

I dig my wallet out of my back pocket and pull a twenty out, slamming it onto the bar. Climbing off of my barstool, I stare into her eyes. “I’m leaving this bar. I’m giving you the option to leave with me. Or, once I leave, you can go back to your villa. What’s it going to be, Spitfire? Are you willing to live life to the fullest, even if it’s only for a few hours? Or are you going to play it safe?”

I get no response from her. Instead, she stares at me, blinking in shock as I watch the wheels in her head turning. She’s mulling over her options, like always, overanalyzing every single detail.

“It isn’t a hard decision to make. Stop thinking and just do.” I remove my hand from her side and begin to back away, heading towards the exit. Grabbing the doorknob, I turn it and burst out into the night air. The air is warm and welcoming with the smell of rain still filling it, but it’s now slowed back down to a light drizzle. It feels like tiny fingers tickling my burning hot skin. I roll my shirtsleeves up and run my fingers through my damp hair.

Giving up hope that Raven is going to come out that door and be with me, I drop my hands to my sides and stuff them into my pockets. I’m about to head back to my villa, when I hear the bar door open once again, followed by Raven’s voice calling to me.

“Linc, wait!”

I breathe out a puff of air as I drop my shoulders with a sigh of relief. We only have a few hours, but I’m going to make the most of them.

I feel her hands come to rest at my back and her cheek press against my shirt. “You may be forbidden…but hell if I don’t want to live wild and free with you, even if it’s only for one night. Let’s just hope this one night doesn’t come back to bite me in the ass,” she says with an amused tone.

Turning to face her, I take her hands in mine and flash her my heart-stopping, panty-melting grin and say, “Believe me, Spitfire, the only thing that’ll be biting you in the ass is me,” bringing her hands up to my mouth. I softly graze my teeth over her knuckles, causing her hand to shake in mine and her eyes to dilate under the streetlights illuminating the bar. “We both know we can’t be together. But I also know I can’t ignore my desire to have you. It’s all I think about. I was okay these last few months, because you were gone. But since you came back, everything I was feeling before you left multiplied by a million. If you try for even one second to lie to me and say you don’t feel the same way, I can tell you right now I know for a fact that you do.”

Her eyes grow wide as my words hit her, causing her legs to sway slightly beneath her. I release her hands and wrap my arms around her waist, steadying her. “You’re cocky on a good day, but sheesh, I’d say you just multiplied your level of arrogance by a million. How are you so sure of how I feel? Last I knew, you weren’t psychic.”

Damn that sassy mouth. A small smile cracks across my face and a low husky chuckle leaves my lips. “I know, because you told me. You don’t remember it, but the night you fell asleep on the couch, I carried you to bed, and when I laid you down and covered you up, I leaned down to kiss you goodnight—only on the forehead, of course, because I’d never kiss you on the lips unless you were awake. I’d want to feel these perfect lips kissing me back,” I say as I bring my hand to her chin and slowly slide my thumb along her bottom lip, tracing it from corner to corner. “And when I went to walk away from you, you reached out and grabbed my hand. When you did, you said, ‘Why does loving you hurt so much?’”

A small gasp escapes her lips and her eyes quickly dart to the ground to stare at our feet. “I cannot believe I said that. Linc…I don’t know what to say,” she admits, shaking her head slowly as she cautiously brings her gorgeous emerald eyes back up to mine.

“You don’t need to say anything. I’m only telling you this, because I want you to know I think I’m falling in love with you too. It’s the worst timing, and I know we can’t go any further than tonight…but I want to enjoy one more night with you before we have to go back to our everyday lives. One more night to be reckless and really, truly live, Spitfire…because once I let you go tomorrow, a piece of me is going to leave with you. You own my heart, Raven. Every single piece of it.”

Her eyes glaze over as tears well up in her eyes. The last thing I want is for her to cry. This is our one and only time we can be together. I want to enjoy every moment and not allow even a moment for us to dwell on the inevitable.

It is what it is. All we can do is grab on to this moment and hold onto it with both hands, cherishing these few hours we have together.

The need to have her lips on mine and her body beneath me is almost unbearable. But we can’t here. It’s too public. I don’t want to go back to my room just yet. I told her we’d spend tonight living life to the fullest, and that’s what we’re going to do.

“You own me too, Linc. I have no idea how it happened. No matter how hard I tried to fight it, somehow you still stole my heart that night, and all the hoping and praying can’t undo what’s been done. Life really does suck.” Her chin drops to her chest as she lets out a shaky breath. “I keep thinking, What if we had found our way to each other before our parents’ had a chance to meet? but life is too short to be wasted on ‘what ifs’, so like you said, we only have tonight.”

Lifting her eyes back up to mine, I see a twinkle of excitement in them. I’m going to give her a night she’ll carry with her forever.

“Follow me,” I tell her as I grab her hand and lead her towards the small gift shop we stopped in yesterday.

“Where are we going?” she asks as the sexiest laugh graces my ears.

I keep pulling her along beside me. “We’re going to live under the moon and stars and drink wine, baby. We’re in wine country, so we might as well take advantage of it.”

The gift shop has an entire display of their best wines to purchase. I’m going to buy her a bottle of wine and we’re going to drink it off of one another while lying in the vineyard surrounded by the grapes that made it.





With my drunk, unstable hands, I’m useless when it comes to opening wine bottles. I learned this a few minutes ago, as I sat beside Raven in between rows of grapes, trying to open this bottle we’re both now sipping straight out of. Thankfully for us, Raven is not too drunk, so she was able to hold the corkscrew steady long enough to drill into the cork and pop open our bottle of the vineyard’s finest.

“I’ve never had this much wine in my life.” She laughs as she takes another sip from the bottle. “We did a wine-tasting yesterday. I never thought all that sipping would catch up with me, but before I knew it, I was giggling like a schoolgirl and feeling as if I was floating with every step. My mother dragged me back to my villa, along with Tessa, where she forced us both to drink two cups of coffee each and then nap. She was terrified we’d be drunk for the rehearsal dinner. To say she was relieved to see me sober when we arrived last night to dinner would be an understatement. Even if I was still slightly buzzed then. Just not off of wine, but off your lips.”

I let out a deep chuckle as I take the wine bottle from her hands and set it down beside her. She brings her elbows down to rest on my jacket that I laid out for her to relax on. I run my hand slowly up her thigh, which is now fully exposed to me thanks to the thin fabric of her maid of honor dress sliding down her bent legs.