I slowly turned my head, meeting his intoxicating eyes. The alcohol warmed my chest, already making my legs feel lighter. “Don’t you think you’re controlling me enough already? Let a girl drink.”
He studied me, gaze roaming over my face before he leaned a little closer. “The events of the past two days might suggest I’m not controlling you nearly enough.”
I turned to face him, breasts brushing his arm. More heat flowed through me at the contact.Fuck him.“You want to put a leash on me, too?”
His body mimicked mine, our chests now touching. I tilted my chin back, despite only being a few inches shorter than him. “I was thinking more like a shock collar.”
I yanked the glass from his grip before he could resist and slammed it back on the bar. “Another.”
His eyes narrowed in scrutiny; mine narrowed in defiance.
The bartender obeyed, not wanting to get in themiddle of whatever this was. I was sure he saw a lot of couples fight in here. To him, we were simply an inconvenience.
“Sounds like you have some control issues, Henley,” I surmised, plucking up the glass and sipping half the contents. I didn’t want to throw up from drinking too fast, but knew I needed something to numb the bullshit I was currently enduring. Plus, who didn’t want to live a little before the inevitable end of their life?
His eyes tracked my tongue as it ran over my bottom lip, lapping up a stray drop of whiskey. “Seems like you prefer causing chaos. All that gets is a girl needing to be controlled.” He floated closer, and with him came a faint smell of the forest after it rained.
Did he really have to remind me of my favorite scent, too?
But that wasn’t enough to cloud what he’d just said—and what it did to my heart.
I tried to keep my steely front in check but, unable to stop myself, my lashes fluttered and my eyes fell.
His neck was directly in front of my face, so close that I could see his pulse thrumming under the delicate skin there. He’d recently shaved, but a shadow remained. One that drew dark thoughts through my mind. The scratch of scruff, the heat of unwelcome hands.
My breath shook as I brought the glass to my lips, tipped my head back, and sucked down every last drop. I set it on the bar more gently than before.
“I have to use the restroom.” I didn’t give him a moment to retort before I turned and headed for the back hallway.
Chapter 14
Henley
Iwould have liked to assume it was vomit that made Grace run away like a frightened rabbit, but that sudden deflation in her mood told me it wasn’t. I’d unknowingly struck a chord, and for some goddamn reason I couldn’t place, I felt bad about it.
I leaned against the wood-paneled wall outside the women’s restroom, head tilted back as I zoned out on a stain in the ceiling. She’d been in there for ten minutes now, and for those ten minutes, utter silence had surrounded me.
Distant chatter from the bar filtered this way, but it wasn’t that noise I was listening for. It was her. A door opening, a toilet flushing, water running in the sink.Anything.Yet the little killer was quiet as a fucking mouse.
Five more minutes. Then I’d go in.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been in the restroom with her before. In fact, we’d probably spent more time in bathrooms together than any other place at this point. This time, it’d be different. I was sure of it.
Whatever I’d said, I’d ticked her off. This time, Iwouldn’t be stitching her wound or dragging an orgasm out of her. I’d be picking up the pieces I had somehow let fall.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
She was slowly sucking me into her trap, digging her claws into my heart and giving me the inability to think—tobreathe—if not in her presence.
There was no fucking way I was turning into the lovesick puppies Austin and Booker had become.
I told myself that, and yet simply knowing she was behind that door, likely upset or sick or crying, made meangry.
Angry at myself for causing it. Angry at those emotions for plaguing her. Angry at the world for being so hard on her that she’d be triggered by something someone said.
What had happened to her to cause her to flip at my mention of her needing to be controlled? Had someone hurt her? Because if they had… Well, they’d soon be wishing they’d never laid eyes on her in the first place.
That was, if she hadn’t killed them already.
