Night Maneuvers - By Jillian Burns Page 0,51

cheated. Alex cheated.” He looked at hallucination Alex. “Why’d you cheat on me, Alex?” He curled his hands into fists and stuck his fists on the counter. “I wanted to kill that SOB. Kissing my girl. She was mine.”

“Mitch, get your ass up.” She lifted his arm around her shoulders and hauled him off the stool. “We’re leaving.”

He stood. Maybe he could hallucinate one more night with Alex.

“That’s it. Can you walk?”

Of course he could walk. Whoa, good thing she was holding on to him. She was strong, holding him up with her shoulder tucked under his arm.

Hey, when did it get dark out? Had he been here that long? What was it he was supposed to do tomorrow?

“There we go.” He felt himself sliding down into a bucket seat. “Now let’s get your seat belt on.” Alex’s voice sounded so nice. But she was mad at him, wasn’t she? No. Wait. He was mad at her. And he’d tell her so as soon as the entire world stopped spinning.

As she got in and drove the car out of the parking lot, he leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

When he woke up the car had stopped and Hallucination Alex helped him get out of the car and walk to her door. Wait. He didn’t want to be here. “No.” He stopped. “Doan wanna be here.” He yanked his arm from her grasp and turned back toward the car.

“Wait. Mitch. Where are you going?” She caught his arm and tugged him back. Damn, she was strong. “Come on. Come to bed with me.”

How could he resist her? He thought he nodded, but he wasn’t sure if maybe that was just the ground moving. “Okay.”

Somehow he made it back to her bedroom and fell on the bed. But the room kept spinning. Then she was tugging on him, pulling off his shoes and socks and pants. Tugging his arms out of his coat and loosening his tie, and unbuttoning his shirt. Her hands caressed his chest and it felt so good. He grinned.

“Mmm, baby, come here.” He reached for her and yanked her down on top of him. Yeah, he liked sleeping with her in his arms. He remembered that. He remembered this feeling. The feeling of rightness.

He was forgetting something, but he’d think about that later. Right now, he’d snuggle with Alex…

ALEX LAY AWAKE a long time holding Mitch. She couldn’t believe she’d found him. Well, the cops had found him for her.

She must have driven around every hotel casino parking garage on the strip looking for his Jeep. She’d finally called Jackson and asked him to ask his friends on the force to be on the lookout for the Jeep.

The last time she’d seen Mitch this drunk was the night he’d come to her after he caught Luanne cheating on him. He’d only been married six months. He’d been so devastated, so hurt. But he’d called her, Alex. Needing her to listen, to comfort, and to assure him he would survive the pain.

She’d seen the softer side of Mitch that night. And she’d fallen even more in love with him.

But this time he hadn’t had her to come to. He’d had to go to a place like that.

Mitch rolled to his back and gasped in pain. He grabbed his head, then spotted her and groaned. “So you were real.”

Alex rose up onto an elbow. “You want some coffee? Or are you going to be sick?”

He sat up slowly and swung his legs off the bed. “Going home.”

“Mitch, we need to talk.”

“No, we don’t.” He stood, gingerly walked to the chest of drawers and opened the drawer she’d given him for his clothes.

“You’re not in any condition to drive. And even if you were, your Jeep is still at that bar.”

He stopped in the middle of pulling up some jeans. “Then I’ll call a cab.”

“Mitch, Neil was—”

“You really don’t want to say his name to me right now,” he snarled as he zipped his jeans. He glanced back at her. “You know what my problem is? I gotta quit coming home early.” He let out a humorless laugh. “Or maybe it’s thinking I even have a home.”

“Mitch, I was only telling him that I couldn’t be with him.”

“Yeah.” He yanked a T-shirt over his head. “I could tell from that kiss.”

“That was a ‘Goodbye, have a nice life’ kiss.”

“You know what?” He swiveled to face her. “Why should I care? We were just fuck-buddies, right?”

A sharp