One kiss. One time. One night where we’d had too much booze, and I’d been at my wit’s end with my brother and his tendency to wallow in self-pity. I’d kept that night, and that kiss tucked away. Considering Rosie never brought it up after that, and everything with Fallon and Oliver got so crazy, I’d done my fucking best to tell myself that my brain had amplified it. Making it better in my head than it could have possibly been.
After all, no kiss could be that soul-shifting.
Wrong.
This kiss was meant to be a perfunctory, get her out of the bad date and send him packing kind of kiss. But the second her soft lips settled on mine, and I felt her body under my hands, feeling the way she opened up for me when she let herself go, all the work I’d done to get this woman outof my head was in vain. She came back full force, only this time, I didn’t have the haze of alcohol clouding this memory.
The jeans I wore suddenly felt stifling. Making it hard to focus on anything in the room.
God fucking dammit.I’d just come from work. Closing up shop after a long day where a lamentable amount of customers had filed through the doors ofCora’s, and every minute I spent either on the phone to the bank, searching for anybody who could help me out of the hole that was getting deeper with every passing day, or helping out on the floor. Giving Tim any job I could think of to keep him busy.
I came to this pub desperately needing a drink. My brother would be coming home in a couple of days, and as much as I missed him, I was also dreading seeing him. He could read me like a book. He’d take one look at my bad-tempered face and pry the information out of me. The mood I was in right now, I’d either tear his head off or tell him everything.
And I wanted to do neither.
Drinking away my problems, it was.
The devil sitting on my shoulder cackled maniacally when I took a seat at the bar and instantly noticed blonde hair and sapphire eyes across the room. When I saw the guy sitting opposite her, doing most of the talking, not noticing that her nods and smiles were as fake as the gold watch on his wrist, I knew I wasn’t going anywhere. I would sit here and watch—in as non-creepy a way as possible—and pray that her smile eventually turned real.
What I didn’t expect was for Rosie’s head to lift, as if she could feel my gaze, and her eyes to lock onto mine. An electrical current pierced through the air between us. I felt it fizzle through my veins, sparking to life the organ in my chest that hadn’t beaten this hard in a very long time. That spark had ignited, turning into a full-blown forest fire in mybody as her mouth pressed to mine, a soft whimper falling from her lips when my grip on her waist tightened with the need to feel her as close to me as possible.
The second that prick had stalked out of the pub, it seemed to shake her out of a daze. She stepped out of my hold, forcing me to rein in the urge to haul her back into my embrace, and tucked several mussed strands of her hair behind her ear, lips curling in that effortless way as if nothing affected her.
But I’d felt her tremble in my arms; I’d tasted her desire. She could pretend all she wanted, but that kiss had wrecked her as much as it did me. The soft flush creeping up her neck told me I was right.
She collapsed onto the vacant stool next to me, holding up her hand to the bartender. ‘An old-fashioned, please, as big as humanly possible. If you’ve got a glass the size of my head, that would work.’
The guy chuckled. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’ He walked off.
As subtly as I could, I shifted in my seat to cover the obvious arousal currently pressing against my jeans. Propping my elbows on the counter, I lifted my beer to my lips. The cold liquid slid down my throat, barely touching the scorching heat searing through my chest.
Rosie’s cool blue eyes turned to me when the bartender placed a disappointingly average-sized old-fashioned in front of her. She turned on the stool so her body was facing me, legs crossed at the knee, elbow propped on the bar. She was the definition of elegant and sexy. Perfectly content to ignore the fact that thirty seconds ago, her breasts were pressed right up against my chest, and her tongue was tangling with mine.
She took a sip, a contented sigh falling past her lips at the taste. ‘Thanks for that.’
Not knowing what the fuck else to say, I nodded. ‘Told you, anytime you needed saving. I’d be there.’
Her throat worked on another sip of whiskey; I averted my gaze.
Propping her head on her palm, she turned her scrutinising eyes on me. ‘I could say something about this being such a crazy coincidence, but seeing as Cora’s is literally around the corner, I think I’ll pass on the awkward small talk.’
I tilted my head, wearing a soft smile. ‘When have you ever wanted to do small talk?’
She sighed heavily. ‘Good point. It’s so dull, like a game of tennis, but there isn’t a winner; just two people trying to figure out if they like the other person.’
‘That’s exactly what small talk is,' I pointed out. ‘Getting to know someone.’
Her head tipped back to the ceiling as she groaned. ‘Kill me now.’
I rotated in my seat, facing her, keeping one hand wrapped tightly around my cold glass so it didn’t do something insane like reach over and rest it on her thigh. Our knees were centimetres from touching.
‘Can’t really date if you don’t want to have small talk.’
‘Which is why I’ve never wanted to partake in it.’ She took a sip. ‘It sounds like torture.’
Lifting a shoulder in a half-shrug, I commented, ‘It’s not as bad as all that.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Whatever. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m not built for dating. I don’t know how you do it.’
