I wasn’t sure if they’d planned it so that they could each get time to spend with their long lost sister or if it had been a coincidence, but I’d done my best to make myself scarce while they were visiting. I also made sure to be back at the table when she was left on her own. There’d been a steady stream of people welcoming Cheyenne back to town and she’d seemed a tad overwhelmed.
While Jimmy and Hank had been there, I’d played a game of pool in the back and Skittles the parrot had squawked, “You suck!” every time I missed a shot. I’d danced with several gentleman, and my favorite partner had been Ray. He had to be pushing eighty, was barely an inch taller than my five foot two, and was a hundred pounds soaking wet. But he had moves like Fred Astaire and more stories to tell than LeVar Burton from Reading Rainbow. He’d been born and raised in Firefly and had resided above the bar for over fifty years. He filled me in on some of the juicier town history that Stew hadn’t covered during the trolley ride.
My biggest takeaway of the night, though, had to be that the spell I’d fallen under had amplified a million times over. Billy and I hadn’t had much in the way of interaction. He’d kept an eye on his sister and stopped by to check on her all night. It was sweet to see how protective he was over her. But no sooner would he appear than he’d be called away.
All night he’d kept an eye on Cheyenne, and I’d kept both of mine on him. I’d been trying to work out what it was about him that had me acting like a schoolgirl with a crush. It had taken me a few hours and the third Jack and Coke had helped. The answer was: it was physiological. I was drawn to him on a cellular level. It was an animal, primal attraction that I really wanted to act on.
Witnessing Billy Comfort in his element had been its own, more potent, form of intoxication. And it had also confirmed that my initial diagnosis this morning, that there was something more to him than just his drop dead gorgeous good looks.
My hypothesis that his sex appeal ran much deeper than that had been right on the money. Call it mojo, essence, charm, or charisma; whatever you labeled it, he had it, and I was responding to it.
It was in the effortless way he moved when he made up to five drinks at a time while never letting his smile or the conversation drop. It was in the way he spoke to each person as if there was no one else in the bar, making every person he interacted with feel how firmly he was in total control of a room filled with inebriated idiots. He oozed authority and confidence in the most seductive and arousing way.
And it was something I feared my current tipsy self was not going to be able to resist. Sober Reagan had a difficult time controlling her impulses around Billy Comfort, three-Jack-and-Coke Reagan didn’t have a freaking prayer. I needed to go home before I embarrassed myself. That was the responsible and professional thing to do.
But if I were being honest, I knew that if I’d really wanted to be responsible and not let the line between Billy and me blur—if I truly wanted things to stay strictly professional—then I wouldn’t have put on my best pair of “holy shit” jeans before heading out the door (so called because they tended to make guys say “holy shit” when they saw my ass).
And I wouldn’t have taken the extra step of letting my hair down and giving myself a smoky eye. And I wouldn’t have kept looking at him after the first few times he’d caught me staring at him over the course of the night.
But I did, and I did, and I did. So, even before I downed that first Jack and Coke, and especially after, I’d known exactly what I wanted. And it was Billy. I was tipsy but not drunk, so I couldn’t use that as an excuse for wanting to take him back to my room, throw him on the bed, and have my way with him.
As for Cheyenne, though, I’d say that it was safe to say she was firmly in drunk territory. She must’ve needed the liquid courage to