When I realize what I’ve just done, I widen my eyes and glance at Cole. He sits frozen, staring blankly at the glass in my hand. I’m sure he’s going to cuss at any moment but instead, he starts laughing all at once, which confuses me even more.
"You’re really one of a kind, darling."
As I look down in embarrassment, he takes the glass from me and places it on the counter behind him.
"I’m sorry."
"You don’t have to be." Still laughing, he puts a finger under my chin to lift my head. "Was it that bad?"
"Yes." I grimace. "How can you drink that?"
He shrugs. "You get used to the taste. And it drowns the bad thoughts."
"What bad?—"
I falter and hold my breath as he reaches out and gently strokes my lower lip with his thumb.
"You had a little Jack there," he explains with a slight grin before bringing his finger to his mouth.
Heat spreads across my cheeks. I don’t know if it’s from shame or because his touch has caused an almost unbearable tingling in my stomach. It could also be the way his lips restagainst his thumb as he licks the whiskey off it, his eyes never leaving mine.
Before I can form a clear thought, he turns around and orders a new drink. Meanwhile, I wish the ground would just swallow me, and I hope no one was watching us.
Suddenly, someone bumps into me, and I stumble between Cole’s thighs, bracing myself with my hands on his broad chest.
Before he even looks at me again, he reflexively puts his arms around me.
All at once, we’re so close that I can inhale his unique scent and feel the heat of his body while I stare at him in shock. He looks behind me, though, but either can’t make out who caused this mishap or decides that it was an accident.
I can’t move. Instead, I become aware of how incredibly hard his chest feels under my fingers and how softly curved those constantly cursing lips are.
"You okay?"
I watch his mouth form the words, but his voice barely reaches me. There is only the scent of leather, tobacco, and campfire, and the feeling of his strong arms holding me. I nod, still a little dazed, having swallowed my tongue. At least that’s how it feels because I can’t move it anymore and thus can’t make a sound.
"What’s going on?"
Jules’s voice snaps me out of my daze, and I take a step back after Cole releases me.
A weird silence falls while he takes a sip from his new drink. I still want to vanish into thin air, and Jules looks back and forth between the two of us.
"She tripped," Cole mutters after setting the glass down, and takes out his cigarettes. "Someone bumped into her."
"Tripped," Jules drags the word unnaturally as a grin spreads on her face. "Uh-huh." She looks like she knows something I don’t.
"What is it?" I ask, but she just shakes her head while her grin gets even wider.
"Nothing." Then she puts an arm around my waist and throws a glance at Cole I can’t read.
He returns it almost angrily as if he knows exactly what’s going on. "Whatever you’re thinking right now, forget it," he warns. "She tripped. That’s all."
"I didn’t think anything," she drawls innocently, guiding me back toward the dance floor.
They seem to hide something from me, but thespitting-out-Cole’s-drinkthing, his touch on my lip, and the sudden proximity as I literally stumbled into his arms have my head already spinning, so I decide that I don’t need to know or understand everything.
I have no idea what time it is or how many glasses of this awful drink Cole has had, but when we get home, he is swaying slightly.
"Is he drunk?" I ask Jules quietly as we follow him up the stairs.
