her lips. Part of me wants to, so desperately wants to get just a lick of my old friend. My mistress, alcohol, the woman who led me to such highs and such lows.
Fumbling in my pocket, I grab at the chip. Five years sober. Not a drop of that poison in one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five days. Or a little bit more than that. It takes every ounce of strength and willpower in me to push a horny, sexy-as-hell Ryan from my lap.
Her frown is exaggerated in her drunken state. “What’s wrong, baby?”
“Not tonight, babe. Why don’t we just go to sleep?” I smile at her, trying to shrug her off as she begins pulling at my pajama bottoms.
“You don’t want me?” Her smile is naughty, and while she probably thinks she’s being coy, she’s too inebriated to be subtle.
Gently, I push her hands away. “Ry … not tonight. You’re drunk.”
“And? It means you can take advantage of me.” She starts to take her top off, and I groan as her perky little nipples poke out from the see-through lace bra she’s wearing. “I was thinking about you all night. About how I wanted to come home and get on top of you. How I wanted your tongue in my pussy.”
Jesus Christ, this woman is going to kill me. Because if there is anything that has a stronger pull over me than alcohol, it’s Ryan.
But I can smell the scent of her drinks everywhere, and I know that if I don’t get out of this room, something bad will happen.
“I can’t … kiss you right now. You’ve been drinking. I can’t even smell it. It’s hard for me to even stand here with you. I’m sorry, babe … I just can’t.”
Her cheekbones, which were slanted upward in a sly grin, immediately lower. Her eyes lose a little bit of their playful light, and this is exactly what I didn’t want to happen. Because of my shit, my past, I’m ruining her good time.
“I’m so sorry, Fletch, I forgot. I didn’t even think, of course, you don’t want to taste that. Shit, I’ll go brush my teeth …”
She flees into the bathroom, but I move quickly to her, catch her arm. “It’s okay. I’m just going to sleep on the couch. You take the bed.”
“You’re not going to even sleep with me?” Her voice takes on a note of hurt, and it guts me that I put it there.
This was bound to happen, I knew it from the start. My issues would make her feel unwanted or put pain in her eyes. Because I was weak, I would have to shut myself off from her. Because I wasn’t strong enough of a person, of a man, I’d have to put my own needs ahead of hers.
“I can’t, the smell …” I try to explain with a wave of my arm through the air.
Ryan retreats even further into herself, those amber eyes going midnight black, her arms crossing over her naked torso. “Got it. I can just leave.”
“No, please stay. I want to know that you’re safe. And this is your home too. I want you in our bed.” I still linger by the door instead of hugging her in my arms, because I don’t trust myself.
“Just not enough to want to get in it with me,” she spits, and I know she wouldn’t say it if she wasn’t drunk.
But it’s half-true what they say; alcohol loosens your tongue to say the things you wouldn’t if you were sober. And Ryan’s accusation only proves to me that she doesn’t fully understand how fragile and important my sobriety is.
“I’ll be out there if you need anything.” I hang my head, turning to go.
She harrumphs, and I can sense that all too irrational anger that liquor brings out in a person. “And I guess I’ll jump in the shower since you can’t stand me right now.”
The alcohol is blurring her rationale, but it still doesn’t keep the sting of betrayal from entering my veins. I thought that Ryan understood my battle to keep my life clean, but with a few harsh lashes of her tongue, she’s undone some level of trust there had been between us.
I sleep on the couch, the cold leather seeping into my bones, listening to Ryan breath softly in our bed.
Alone.
34
Ryan
I wake up in a dismal fog of tequila scent and nausea.
The two make a disastrous combination, and I’m running for the bathroom the minute my eyes blink open