Page 193 of Charming Deception

We dance right by our table, pressed together, eyes closed. At least, her eyes are closed. I’m cheating and watching her the whole time.

When a faster song comes on, Megan pulls back and hands me my bottle of Grasshopper off the table. “Drink,” she says, a soft smile on her lips. “Locke will watch your back.”

Another hour later, I’ve had too much to drink and I’m passionately pep talking her on why she can never move back to this place, having lost all chill and every filter I’ve got. I may use the phrase “worst mistake you could ever make” at least three times.

Megan seems amused as she listens patiently, sipping from her bottle of Moosehead.

* * *

“What if Frodo never left the Shire? What if Luke never left the farm?”

The situation is getting dire.

I’ve trapped Megan in the booth with my body, both of us on the same seat. I can’t be sure how much time has passed except that they don’t clear your table throughout the night in this place, just keep bringing more beer, and there’s an army of bottles on the table. A few old friends of hers joined us for a while, but have long since wandered off when I turned out to be a complete buzz kill and Megan hog. “Can you imagine that?”

Megan rolls her eyes at me, but laughs. “I had no idea you were such a closet nerd. You’ve been holding back, Jameson.”

“Okay, okay.” I gesture wide with my beer, slopping it. “Maybe in those two examples the answer is that the known world might’ve literally ended, but still. What if Megan Hudson never left Crooks Creek? What kind of travesty would that be?”

She seems to be considering the answer to that, or just watching me try very hard to sip my beer like I’m not having trouble finding my mouth. I am. I’m drunk, and we both know it.

“It would be a fairly major travesty,” she admits. “For me.”

“Right?! And I don’t mean because you never would’ve met me.”

She blinks at me innocently. “But meeting you was the best thing that happened to me when I left the Shire.”

“Really? Thank you.”

She puts her drink down. “Are you really likening me to a hobbit? Am I that short?”

I ponder her tits, then her succulent lips. “You’re a luscious woodland fairy.”

“Nerd,” she teases.

“Why aren’t you as drunk as me?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because that.” She sweeps her hand over the empty Big Rock bottles. Which is when I notice there are only three green Moosehead bottles in the crowd of them.

I squint at her.

She smiles wide.

I lean, or maybe fall, into her so suddenly, my lips hit her teeth. She laughs, and I take advantage of her open mouth to invade her personal space, delving my tongue into her warmth.

I moan involuntarily and her fingers curl into my shirt, her mouth meeting the demands of mine as well as she can, as I eat her mouth, deep and sloppy.

When I finally break the wet suction, she turns her head a fraction so I can’t do it again. “Everyone’s looking at us.”

“I don’t care.”

I grab her head and kiss her again. I’m mad for her. Ravenous for any scrap of her I can get.

And I’m pissed at myself for not being the man she deserves.

I know I’m hurting her by keeping this fucking secret, not telling her the full truth. I can never tell her about the damn game I had to play.

But I can’t let it kill us. Even if the light in her eyes dies just a little bit more every time we circle around it.

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