I could hear her heavy breaths as she attempted to keep her emotions at bay. I tried to keep my gaze off the vein throbbing in her neck as her gaze skated over my body as if she was memorizing me or discovering me all over again. I didn’t know which. Maybe she just wanted to use me as a punching bag. I pushed away the thought of what angry sex with Rachel would feel like. Her on top, riding me with wild abandon in her eyes. Fuck.
I bolted out of the elevator as soon as the doors parted, and then turned the key in the lock. She pushed open the door and stormed past me, heading straight for the bar. She rummaged around before finally pulling out a shot glass and a bottle of Patrón.
She sat down hard on a barstool and poured herself a generous shot. Swirling the tequila in her cup she looked lost in deep thought. I made my way behind the bar and pulled out a glass of my own. I began prepping the lime slices and salt but she didn’t wait for me. She threw back her head and gulped the strong drink, wincing as it went down.
Then she started pouring herself another one.
Her eyes slid up to meet mine in quiet determination. She looked woozy yet still defiant.
“Well, damn,” I said, finally breaking the silence that had been building up between us.
A bark of amusement shot out of her mouth before she covered it with her hand. It was like being back in middle school all over again. My lips twitched as I tried to hold back my own grin. I downed my shot and heard her break into the same kind of hysterical fit that, when we were kids, would become contagious.
She stopped laughing long enough to knock back one more shot, and then choked and coughed after it went down. She rested her head on the edge of the bar, her shoulders shaking with laughter, and I couldn’t hold back any longer. I laughed long and hard right along with her.
After a couple of minutes her chuckling slowed into sputtering gasps. She lifted her head and heaved out a gloomy sigh. Her eyes welled with tears that had nothing to do with the laughter from moments before as she tried keeping her trembling lips in a neat straight line. But she failed miserably after two seconds more as the floodgates opened and she began bawling.
Fat trails of tears rolled down her cheeks, and she tried swiping at them unsuccessfully.
Her emotions were all over the map tonight.
“Hey,” I said, my own voice rough with compassion. “Come here.”
I pulled her into my arms, and she cried even harder against my shoulder. My cotton T-shirt was soon soaked from her tears, but I didn’t give two shits. This was the kind of weeping she’d done in the hospital over that same piece of garbage, and I fucking hated hearing it again.
“It’s gonna be okay,” I said, rubbing circles on her back. I wasn’t sure what to say at this point that wouldn’t hurt her worse.
Her arms, which had been hanging limply at her sides, came up to grasp my shoulders, as if I were her anchor. She was breathing heavily into my neck, and I felt her tears slide onto the skin at the base of my throat.
My fingers trailed down her back to grasp her waist, and I could feel how lean she was. Not as lean as she’d been in the hospital. This was shapely, sexy, all-woman lean. My fingers rested on the sliver of bare skin that had become exposed when she’d raised her arms to embrace me, and I relished the softness there.
Her head moved to the crook of my neck, and I felt her shudder, so I drew her even closer, my fingers sliding up her bare back in an attempt to comfort her. The next moment I felt a tentative brush of her lips against my skin. Right above the neckline of my shirt. I became perfectly still, wondering if I’d only imagined it.
But then she trailed her soft lips across my neck to my throat as I swallowed roughly. It felt so damn good that I couldn’t help the groan that escaped my lips shortly thereafter.
I grabbed hold of her shoulders and pushed back to look into her eyes. There was alarm there at what she’d done, certainly. Like her body had been on auto-pilot and she couldn’t stop herself. Yet there was something underneath as well. Need. Passion. Desperation.
At that realization my brain lost all logical function. I gathered her face in my hands and whispered, “What are you doing, Rach?”
She shook her head, maybe trying to clear the doubt, the shock. “I . . . I don’t know.”
My thumbs slid over her cheeks and I asked the more direct question. The one that maybe she’d been waiting for, given how she’d dealt with her emotions the past three years. “What do you need?”
In response, she closed her eyes and let out a whimper. Her hips thrust forward against mine and my dick immediately responded.
Then I felt her fingernail trail up the back of my neck, and she fisted my hair tightly in her grasp, which only lit a fire inside my chest. I realized just how fucking much I wanted her in that moment.