Keeping Her

4

Bliss

“OKAY, NOW WE’RE really done,” Garrick said, his voice deep and hypnotic.

I didn’t want to be done. This was so much more fun than meeting his parents. I rested my chin on his shoulder and said, “Just one more.”

He glanced down at me and said, “Trust me, love. You’re going to want to stop now. Otherwise you’ll be making up songs and talking about how good I smell and getting inappropriately touchy.”

I laid my cheek down on his shoulder and slipped my fingers just below the collar of his shirt. “I thought you liked it when I was inappropriately touchy.”

Garrick stilled my hand at his neck and said, “Not when we’re about to meet my mother.”

Oh God. His mother. It shouldn’t be funny, but I found myself laughing anyway. I had to laugh . . . or I might cry. I know he said that Rowland and Graham were joking, but I was fairly certain he was just trying to keep me from running.

Rowland said, “Your mum will understand. The two of you are practically on a honeymoon already. It’s pretty nauseating.”

Graham added, “Of course she’ll understand. I mean, she’s your mom. It’s not like she hasn’t had sex before.”

Oh God. Now I was going to laugh and cry.

Graham leaned around me to look at Garrick, whose face was scrunched up in possibly the only unattractive expression I had ever seen on his face. Taunting Garrick further, he said, “I bet your parents are doing it right now. Sneaking in a quick shag while your flight is ‘delayed.’ ”

Garrick slid off his stool. “And . . . that’s our cue to call it a night.”

“And call a therapist.” Graham smiled.

“And get coffee,” I added. Definitely coffee.

Garrick stood behind me, and his warm hands gripped my shoulders. I leaned back and tilted my head until my head rested against his stomach, and I was looking at him upside down. I blinked. Or I meant to, anyway. Instead, my eyes stayed closed, and the dark swirled with color, and I had the sensation that I was tumbling down a long black hole. I peeled my lids open, and then had to squint against the light of the bar. Between being upside down and being two drinks past the point of caring, the world was horrendously disoriented. “I think . . .” I looked up at Garrick. “That I drank too much.”

Garrick nodded, and if his heavy-­lidded eyes were any indication, he wasn’t exactly sober, either. Or he was turned on. Or both . . . hopefully.

He said, “I think I’m friends with a ­couple pricks.”

Graham stood, leaving his half-­empty beer on the bar. “Take it easy on the mushy stuff, Taylor. We know how much you love us. No need to make a spectacle.”

“Let’s just get out of here,” Garrick said.

I agreed by looping my arms around his waist and laying my head against his chest.

Rowland said, “At least she’s relaxed now. I did you a favor.”

I was gloriously relaxed, in fact. And I figured . . . maybe we could stretch out this fake plane delay for a little longer, get a little time on our own in the city before I had to walk the plank. I slid my hands down to the leather belt that wrapped around his hips, and lifted up on my tiptoes. Humming, I found the warm crux where the muscles of his shoulder flowed into his neck. This was the perfect part of him. When I took a deep breath, I could almost imagine we were alone, and I was surrounded by him.

Garrick cleared his throat. “Maybe a little too relaxed.”

I opened my lips and tasted perfection, too. A small noise of satisfaction rolled from my lips, and somewhere behind me I heard, “Rowland really did do you a favor.”

Gently, Garrick pushed me down until my feet were flat on the ground, and I could no longer reach his neck.

He held up his middle finger toward his friends. Graham raised his eyebrows, and Garrick seemed to realize we weren’t in the States anymore. He blinked and shook his head, and then added a second finger. It looked like a backward peace sign, but I knew it didn’t mean that. Not here.

Graham shook his head. “Damn it. The Americans got to you.”

Garrick flipped him off with two fingers again, this time with a bit more conviction. I watched on, only vaguely aware of what was happening, until the both of them burst into laughter.

I rolled my eyes.

Men.

Garrick kept a tight hold on my hand as we left the pub, and then we headed back to the car we’d arrived in. Garrick lowered me into the backseat first, and then climbed in after me.

I neglected the seat belt in favor of wrapping myself around Garrick. I found that spot on his neck again and sighed. “You really do smell so good.”

He laughed. “You always say that, especially when you’ve been drinking.”

That’s because it was true. I’d never really gotten scent as a turn-­on. When I’d bought cologne for previous boyfriends, it kind of all smelled the same to me. I usually made someone in the store pick for me. But with Garrick . . . God, I just wanted to be surrounded by his smell all the time. If I couldn’t be near him, I wanted to wear his clothes or sleep on his side of the bed.

I was a creeper. I could accept that.

Maybe it was the alcohol or being in a foreign city or the fact that this was the first time we’d really been out drinking together since the night we met; Whatever it was, I wanted him, so bad that my skin itched to touch his. I fiddled with one of the buttons on his shirt, trying to act as innocent as possible. And then ever so slowly, I slipped his top button open. His head didn’t move, so I went for a second button.

Apparently one button was my stealth limit because he totally caught me. I smiled up at him as sweetly as I could and slid my fingers under his shirt to the bare skin of his chest. His chin dipped, and he stared at me in warning, but he didn’t stop me. I trailed my fingers across his collarbone and from his shoulder back down to his chest. He watched me with dark eyes, and the arm draped over the seat behind me came down around me. His fingertips slid under my shirt to curve over my shoulder.

Shifting, I faced him, leaning my other shoulder against the seat and draping my legs over his lap. Immediately, his other hand curved around my calf.

I might be clueless about a lot of things, but I knew my fiancé. He was definitely a leg man.

Between his touch and the alcohol, I felt light-­headed.

That might have been mostly the alcohol, considering how heavy my head felt and the way the world in my peripheral vision kept swooping and spinning. His fingertips found the back of my knee, and I giggled at his touch.

“Aw, man.” Rowland said from the front. “You two are like a bunch of randy teenagers.”

I felt like a teenager. I hadn’t been this drunk in ages. I was too busy working and working and then working some more.

Being an adult blows.

I tilted my head up to Garrick and said, “I can’t feel my lips.”

“Here, let me check.” His mouth slanted over mine, his tongue dipping between my lips, tangling with mine. He tasted like beer and himself, and I realized that he’d had almost as much to drink as me. He pulled back. “Nope, they’re still there.”

He grinned playfully, and that was when I knew he’d had plenty to drink. Laughing, I hooked my arms around his neck, and lay back against the seat cushion, pulling him with me.

“Hey, hey now!” Rowland called. “No sex while I’m driving. That’s a public hazard.”

Garrick’s lips ran down my neck, and I couldn’t seem to make myself stop giggling. I called back to Rowland, “So pull over.”

“Are you seriously going to have sex in my car? Because that’s hot. Can she be on top?”

Garrick said, “Eyes on the road, Rowland! No one is having sex.”

I frowned, and he kissed my puckered bottom lip. He muttered, “You are a public hazard.”

Graham leaned around his seat to look at us. “You two don’t need coffee. You need a fucking tranquilizer.”

Groaning, Garrick’s hands slipped off my body to brace against the seat. He pushed himself back into a sitting position, and I whined at the distance.

Whined. I would have been embarrassed if I wasn’t so turned on.

He clenched his fists and tilted his head back against the seat.

Of all the times for him to practice restraint. I was going to burn up in my skin here.

Staring up at the ceiling, he spoke, his voice strained. “Sorry about that.”

“Sorry?” I asked. “Who’s sorry?”

“I’m not!” Rowland said.

I trailed my fingers over his arm. “I’m sorry you stopped.”

Garrick glared at Rowland in the rearview mirror until his eyes focused back on the road. Then he turned to me and pointed at his friend. “That’s why I’m sorry.”

Somewhere in my body, I was fairly certain I still had a brain. And it had probably been shouting at me for a while. But my hormones must have had fucking megaphones because that’s all I could hear. I sat up, my arms and legs shaky with pent-­up need. My shirt was twisted, and you could see the blue lace of my bra and the swell of my chest peeking out from the neckline of my shirt. I adjusted it quickly, glancing to see if Rowland or Graham had seen, but luckily they were still looking ahead. My eyes skipped to Garrick’s dark gaze. Yeah, he definitely hadn’t missed it.

A bolt of electricity shot through me, and I pressed my thighs together, trying to relieve something, anything. Garrick leaned over and his lips brushed my ear. So not helping the situation. As I tried to keep from squirming, he said, “As much as I’m dying to have you right now, you’re mine. And I don’t share.”

I swallowed, and squeezed my legs tighter. This was somehow the worst and best moment of my life. In fact, most of our relationship fell into those categories. Best boyfriend. Worst embarrassing moment. Best kiss. Worst excuse ever. Best (well . . . only) sex. Worst timing. But I could take all the worsts, if the best always followed.

His nose brushed my jaw and his breath fanned across my neck, and I swear my body shook in response. You would think with the morning he’d spent distracting me before our flight, I wouldn’t be so desperate for him now, but I was always desperate for him.

Plus, even though we lived together, I never saw him enough. Between plays and the additional jobs it took to pay our rent in Center City, it felt like we were always on the go. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d gone out for a night together, at least not when we hadn’t just finished a show and weren’t exhausted.

All those years of making up excuses not to have sex, and now I was busy trying to think of an excuse to ditch his friends and his parents and keep him all to myself.

His lips brushed against my ear again, and I dropped a hand to his thigh and squeezed. I wasn’t sure whether I was signaling him to stop or to give me more; I just knew I was dying from his proximity alone. A low rumble spilled from his throat, and I glanced up front to make sure his friends weren’t watching. They weren’t, so I took a chance and slid my hand a little higher.

I didn’t get but an inch before his hand clamped down on mine. Against my ear, he growled, “You really are a hazard to my health.” I just squeezed his leg again, and leaned my head to offer him more of my neck. He nipped my skin there and then whispered, “We’re going to meet my parents. We’ll smile and talk long enough that they feel like they’ve met you, then we’re finding a place to be alone. My bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen, I don’t care where. The only thing I care about is fucking you so hard you can’t see straight.”

Annnd . . . aneurysm.

The air fled my lungs like I’d been punched in the chest, and I blushed so hard I felt like my blood was boiling. Seriously. It had turned so hot in this backseat, I was going to have a freaking heatstroke. And I had to bite down hard on my lip to keep in the string of unintelligible noises building on my tongue.

Garrick and I had sex. Often. Good sex. But in the spectrum of intercourse (oh God, only my brain would think spectrum of intercourse at a time like this), we made love. It was intense and sweet and perfect. I don’t know if it was the alcohol or my actions that pushed him to the other side of the spectrum, but I knew I was wound tight enough that another minute of him whispering in my ear could probably send me over the edge. That was probably why my arms and legs felt like Jell-­O when we stood in front of his parents’ door, and he rang the bell. Though I’m sure the alcohol and the stress and the traveling didn’t help.

“This is going to be okay, right?” I asked. “You can’t tell I’m drunk, right?”

And would his parents be able to tell that I’d just been dying to screw their son in the backseat of a car like a high school prom date? That I was still dying to?

I could picture it now.

Hi Mom and Dad, this is my girlfriend—­

HARLOT!

Then they would make me sew a red A on all of my clothing, and I did not look good in red, what with all the blushing. Plus I’d barely passed my costuming class in college. Needles and me don’t mix.

A hand came down on my shoulder, and I jumped. Rowland smiled, “You’re good, Bliss. You’re going to be a smash. Just wait.”

Right. I was going to be fine.

Garrick rang the doorbell a second time, and when no one answered, Graham said, “Told you they were shagging.”

Throwing a glare over his shoulder, Garrick took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. I stared, and for the first time realized that he was as nervous as I was. Oh hell, if he was nervous I was doomed. My odds were looking about as good as a main character in Game of Thrones.

He turned the knob. It gave way in his hand, and the door swung open to reveal a darkened entryway. My footsteps echoed as we stepped inside.

“That’s strange,” he said, his voice echoing, too.

Did this mean we could just go straight to his bedroom? Because oh my yes, thank you.

The open door let in just enough late afternoon light to reveal a strip of empty . . . well, foyer. Never thought I would have the need to actually use that word in real life. The windows were covered by heavy curtains, draping the rest of the place in darkness. I reached for the wall beside the door, running my hands along it looking for a switch.

I wasn’t sure which of my many issues to blame when my forearm collided with something cool and smooth and vase-­shaped, knocking it sideways. When I tried to catch it and missed, I was blaming my sex-­distracted thoughts. When I heard it crash and shatter against the floor, I was blaming the alcohol. When the light flipped on revealing a seriously grand foyer, a large group of ­people streaming into the entryway holding champagne flutes, and an elegant and terrifying woman that could only be Garrick’s mother staring in horror . . . well, that’s when I knew it wasn’t any of those things.

It was just me . . . failing at life again.

Behind me, Rowland broke the silence with a tentative “Surprise?”

No . . . me being a disaster of awkward proportions was the least surprising thing ever. I’d made a smash all right. Like I was the Hulk’s cousin.

Bliss SMASH.