Filthy English (English #2) - Ilsa Madden-Mills Page 0,93
finally growled, a tinge of authority in his tone.
“No,” I managed to say, even though I wanted to fall to my knees for him.
“You want me to dance with someone else?”
“You won’t,” I said softly.
“Fuck. You’re right.”
I pretended to ignore him, pouring myself another drink and shooting it back—all while he watched with a hungry, vulnerable look in his eyes.
One that I recognized well.
He was on the edge. Teetering.
So was I—but I held on, doing what any good player would do who was involved in a bet for a quid.
Would he kiss me first? Or would I kiss him?
Yes, he’d told me all about Spider’s bet, and tonight we’d made up our own version.
“Stand up,” he said.
“Please?”
He sighed. “Please.”
I stood and we faced off at the bar. A few patrons noticed the tenseness between us, their eyes bouncing to us and then away.
I put the strand of pearls in my mouth, and moved them over my teeth, my tongue dipping out to taste them. “Too bad this isn’t your mouth.”
He groaned, his hips moving forward and pressing me into the bar. I should have felt claustrophobic with the bar behind me, him in front, and all the people watching, but I didn’t.
This was him. This was me. This is what we liked.
“You’re trying to kill me here,” he said, his voice ragged, his lips perilously close to mine.
I snaked my hand around his neck and pulled his head down until our foreheads were touching. “You kiss me first and let me win the bet, and I promise to dance with you to our song.”
He hesitated. “Can we dance like we did last time?”
I bit my lip and smiled. “Maybe.”
“You little minx,” he whispered. “You win.” He took my mouth slowly as if we had all the time in the world, as if there weren’t tons of people watching. I got lost in him, like I always did.
“I love you,” he said in my ear when we pulled apart.
I melted even more into him, my hands clinging to his shoulders. “I love you, too.”
He took a step back and pulled me out to the dance floor. Once we got there, I saw that Declan and Elizabeth had apparently found each other in the time Dax had found me. They were already dancing, their arms tight around each other. I waved at them, but they didn’t notice, too caught up in each other.
Dax pulled me to his chest and touched my face, almost reverently. “Almost a year ago—you fell in my lap. I can’t imagine one day without you.”
I smiled up at him with absolute certainty.
Romeo and Juliet may have been star-crossed lovers, but we were not.
“We have forever,” I said as he kissed me.
Really The End
Turn the page to read the first few chapters of the Wall Street Journal best-selling book DIRTY ENGLISH.
A stabbing pain in my temple.
Fat and swollen lips.
A throbbing tenderness between my thighs.
Why did I feel like I was dying?
Muddled images flashed in my head, but nothing connected or made sense, just a big black hole of nothingness. Thanks, vodka.
The ache seemed to spread across my face. I groaned. Had something hit me?
Nausea curled as I got my bearings in the dark. Bit by bit, I figured out I was sprawled cross-wise on a bed that wasn’t mine.
A small hotel room came into focus.
Careful to move my head slowly, I gazed around, taking in the battered nightstand and a rickety desk that had seen better days. In the corner of the room lay the beaded clutch purse I’d borrowed from my best friend Shelley for prom. Okay. But where was she?
My last memory was dancing in the gym. Maybe on top of a table?
My eyes went around the room.
Threadbare navy curtains.
A bed that reeked of stale cigarettes and body odor.
A bottle of Grey Goose.
My stomach lurched at the memory of that bitter taste sliding down my throat, and I swallowed to keep the bile down.
Was this a hangover?
I didn’t know. I had nothing to compare it to.
Snippets of the night came in vivid clips.
Dinner with my boyfriend, Colby, and my friends Shelley and Blake at an Italian restaurant in downtown Petal, North Carolina. Lots of giggling. Colby sneaking in his flask so we could spike our drinks. Dancing under twinkling lights at the prom in the Oakmont Prep gymnasium. Getting in Colby’s Porsche to head to the lake for an after-hours party.
No memories of the lake came to me.
Colby, though, I remembered him urging me to drink, pushing