Page 146 of Trying Sophie

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Declan

I’d spent moretime in this particular pub than I had in the last six months combined, looking for an answer to my problems at the bottom of a bottle.

“You look like you could use some company,” a female voice purred next to me, interrupting the staring contest I’d been engaged in for the last five minutes with my glass of whiskey.

“Not really,” I muttered, raising it to my lips.

“Drinking whiskey alone before dark on a weekday sure as hell looks like you need a friend,” she insisted.

“I have plenty of friends.”

I turned on her, my voice angry, and was surprised to see the bird wasn’t half bad looking. Objectively speaking, she was actually quite gorgeous … if you liked that Kim Kardashian look. I’d never cared before that the women I hooked up with camouflaged their faces under several layers of paint, but compared to the fresh-faced beauty I couldn’t get out of my head, the amount of makeup this one wore bordered on obscene.

“But do you have any friends like me?” she whispered into my ear, her breath warm and moist on my skin.

Maybe getting laid will help you forget about Sophie, I thought, raking my gaze from the top of her glossy brown hair, down to the tips of her fuck-me heels.

No doubt, her body was banging. My dick twitched in agreement, ready to come out and play. When I wasn’t drinking, all I wanted was Sophie. Unfortunately, I was a long way from sober and the temptation sitting next to me was hard to resist.

When she leaned into me, her breasts rested against my bicep and I flinched from the contact. She ran her hand down the length of my arm then slowly dragged it away, the tips of her fingers a suggestive caress. I gritted my teeth and pushed down a groan of frustration. If she kept touching me like that, whispering in my ear, I didn’t know how much longer I could fight off the urge to fuck her the same way I’d done with hundreds before her.

The wayward thought reminded me why Sophie and I had been doomed from the beginning. I hadn’t done anything wrong—not this time, at least—but who was to say I wouldn’t have caved eventually? Everyone knew I wasn’t the type of man she needed; the temptation I felt right now was all the proof required. Even as I mourned the loss of Sophie in my life, my dick wanted desperately to sink into this woman and make all my pain go away.

If I was fucking, I reasoned, I wouldn’t be thinking and that sounded like a terrific idea. No, I told myself forcefully. That is the worst fucking idea you’ve ever had.

I took another mouthful of whiskey, the liquid burning a fiery path down my throat, and forced myself to lean away from the woman’s touch. “I’ve had friends like you, love. More than you could possibly imagine.”

She peered at me and drunk though I was, I could practically see the wheels turning in her pretty little head. “Oh, I’ve no doubt you have. But they’re not here and I am.”

In the cover of dark, she placed her hand on my thigh and moved it upward. Before she could reach my straining dick, I gripped her hand—hard—and pushed it away, the combination of liquor and disgust making me shove her back rougher than I meant to. I watched as, in slow motion, her gin and tonic flew forward while she toppled backward off the stool and landed on the dirty floor.

And then in the blink of an eye, everything around me sped up as the reality of what I’d done came crashing down. Scurrying off the stool, I almost lost my footing when I reached to help her up but she slapped my hand away and moved to adjust her dress.

Which was when two large guys—both taller and more heavily built than I was—rushed over and threatened me. Before I knew what was happening, the larger of the two thrust his big, meaty palms against my chest and sent me careening. And then I was falling arse over tit into a different group of guys who’d come to investigate the commotion.

“We got this O’Shaughnessy,” one of them announced proudly as six or seven others dressed in my team colors surrounded me.

Across the pub people were screaming, while others were being shoved this way and that. Meanwhile, I was being manhandled to the back of the crowd and pushed out the rear door. Once safely in the alley, the bartender shook me roughly.

“What the fuck’s your problem Declan?” Mick demanded. When the door opened behind us, he looked up to see who had followed us. “I got this,” he said, nudging his chin my direction. “Take care of the bird and get those other guys out of here.”

Whoever he was talking to said something that sounded suspiciously like, “The guards are on their way.”

Mick swore and barked, “Stay here,” his voice brooking no disagreement.

I leaned my head back against the brick wall and took a few deep breaths as I tried to make the world quit spinning. When Mick returned a few minutes later with a bottle of water and a couple of paracetamol, he shoved them my way. “Drink this and take the pills. You’re going to have a vicious hangover in the morning.”

He went to leave but then turned back to me, his face full of anger and frustration. “And get your shit together, Declan. You’ve got people counting on you.”

I blinked and when I opened my eyes he’d disappeared, leaving me standing in a garbage-strewn alley that reeked of urine and broken dreams.

* * *

You would have thoughtafter that night I might have laid off the booze. You would have been wrong. Instead of sobering up, I drank even more in hopes of dampening the emptiness I felt inside but the beer and whiskey only made things worse. And now I didn’t know which hurt more—my head or my body.

The truth was, it was neither. My heart was what hurt the most.

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