Waking Up in Vegas(74)

I heard Milo shouting something unintelligible from out in the hall. Of all the voices to penetrate my fog… I reluctantly swiveled my head and his laughing face and pointing finger were the most prominent in the slot window next to the door.

“Are we on the air?” Jensen mumbled breathlessly.

I muttered an oath and beat feet back to my side of the counter. Two mouse clicks later and something by Muse began blasting through the speakers in the corridor.



I do not want to go out tonight. I know, I know… everyone wants to say goodbye to Jensen, but I can’t help feeling that what I want should trump what they want.

And what I wanted was to sink inside her body until sun-up.

Wasn’t the gigantic cake they brought into the studio and plopped on the counter enough? Wasn’t their parading through the booth for the rest of our show, making it impossible for me and Jen to have a word alone, sufficient?

We answered the phone lines until it got to be overwhelming and put the whole shebang on automatic busy. The general consensus from listeners was positive, and the overwhelming response from station employees was along the lines of It’s about damn time.

Strangely, we heard not a peep from BK. The chunky bastard didn’t even swing by for cake. Guess I’d dodged a bullet there (a quiet inquiry to Carmen revealed that, if I did utter the f-bomb, it wasn’t picked up by the microphone).

While everyone was munching down, I slipped out into the corridor and canceled the day’s appointment with Dr. Cooper. No way was I wasting a single minute that I had left with Jen in town.

And then there was the ride back home after work.

We’d walked to my car without speaking. For me, the appropriate time to say anything had already passed and was now firmly into awkward territory. I don’t know what Jen was using as her excuse. Maybe she’d wanted to wait until we weren’t surrounded by co-workers.

The silence was heavy inside my small Toyota; rather than break it, Jensen chose to watch the outside world go by through the passenger window. I couldn’t bring myself to switch on the radio to cover up the quiet.

I must have glanced at her four hundred times, hoping to catch her eye, but that wasn’t gonna happen unless the eye in question miraculously migrated to the back of her skull. I think I did a pretty good job of keeping my sighs to myself. But seriously, what was with this woman? I tell her I love her and she’s got nothing to say? It’s not like she hadn’t had a few hours to try it on and see how it fit.

A few streets from home, just as the drone of the tires on the pavement was on the edge of driving me batshit, Jensen cleared her throat and turned to face me.

“Are you going with me to Pulse tonight? Or am I going alone?”

She finally speaks to me, and this is what she chooses to talk about? And here I’d assumed things couldn’t get any more surreal. “How ‘bout neither of us go?”

“Tack, it’s a goodbye party in my honor. I have to at least put in an appearance.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her worry at her bottom lip. “Never mind. I’ll go by myself.”

I pulled in the driveway and threw the car in park. “If you think you’re getting more than two inches away from me this weekend, you’re crazy.”

She responded by getting out of the car and heading for the front door.

I followed, eating up her steps in just a few long strides and catching up on the front porch. “Jen–”

She spun to face me, locking her eyes on mine before flicking her gaze down to my lips, and I lost it. I slammed her into the front wall, crashing my mouth onto hers. Dammit if she wasn’t there right along with me, her lips opening to let me in. As my tongue swept inside, a fluttering sigh drifted up from her throat and her arms slid around my neck.

I grabbed her ass in both hands and ground the hard-on I’d had all morning into her pelvis. It’s a wonder I didn’t crush her into dust. Every instinct screamed to somehow pull her inside myself and never let her go. But we were on my porch in clear view of the entire neighborhood. Not the most ideal place to strip her clothes off.

“Let’s go in the house,” I mumbled against her mouth and felt her shaky nod.

I reluctantly pulled back and let her go, fumbling through the keys on my ring to find the one for the front door, impatient to get inside (take that any way you like). Of course, that meant that I dropped the whole jangling mess on the concrete pad in front of the door.

Jensen blew out a loud breath and bent down to pick them up. She found the right key and put it in the lock; I noticed her hands were trembling when she pushed the door open.

I didn’t bother waiting for her to pull the key out of the deadbolt. Shoving the door shut with my foot, I had her back in my arms and under my lips while the dogs clamored around our feet for their greeting. Too bad for them. They weren’t getting one.