Page 5 of If You Never Come Back
I groan. “Fine.” I march back to the table. “Someone order a slap?”
I’m met with soft cheers and fist pumps. This time when I stare at my intended target, something resembling my heart pounds in my chest. I shove away the fleeting giddiness. It’s probably the prospect of touching another human being that’s sending me into a tizzy. It’s been a handful of months since my last date. My last kiss? Months on top of months.
Wes looks up at me, his eyes bright with an undefinable allure I’ve never seen in anyone else. Their deep hue cuts deep. I wonder if it’s possible to freefall into someone’s eyes. I give myself a mental smack against the head. He’s an attractive man. That’s it. Must stop acting like a giddy teenager.
“I’m not going to do this standing up while you’re sitting down,” I say. “It feels weirdly domineering.”
“Fair enough.” He stands up, zero evidence of tension on his gorgeous mug. His display of pure ease is in direct opposition to the Ferris wheel of nerves swirling through me.
At full height standing in front of me, I have to tilt my head back to keep my gaze fixed on him. I’d put him a touch above six feet tall.
“Ready?” I ask.
He nods, his eyes never leaving me. One side of his mouth quirks into a half-smile. “Make it good. We’ve got an audience.”
Judging by how the background chatter has softened to whispers, the entire bar is staring at us.
I raise my hand. This handsome stranger with smoky-brown magnets for eyes, this guy named Wes who I feel inexplicably drawn to, doesn’t even flinch. Instead, he lets his half-smile widen into a proper full one. That flash of pearly white kills me. I’m about to smack this drop-dead gorgeous man in the face.
I swallow. I rest my palm on his left cheek and it’s like my entire hand catches fire. Wes’s body is a special kind of warm. The type of warm that makes me want to curl into him and nuzzle his chest, just to see if every other part of him is as deliciously hot as his face.
He leans his face closer. “Just like that. But harder.”
On the scale of epic slaps, the one I deliver to Wes’s face wouldn’t even register. It’s nothing like those dramatic ones in the movies. The only reason anyone can hear the noise is because the entire bar has fallen to a self-imposed hush. I didn’t have the nerve to pull off anything more than a half-hearted smack. But when my hand falls from his face to my side, the entire bar erupts in cheers and whistles.
The sound barely registers against my eardrums. Instead, all I can focus on is Wes’s face. For a split second when my hand made contact with his cheek, he closed his eyes. His smile dropped. But a beat later, he opens his eyes and flashes another heart-melting grin at me, as if I had kissed him instead of struck him.
Against the backdrop of applause in the bar, Wes bows to our audience. When he gestures toward me, I do the same. With everyone turning back to their own tables and conversations, I pivot toward the bar.
“Hey,” Wes says from behind me.
I turn around to see his outstretched hand in front of him, that killer smile still on display. “Hell of a way to spend Valentine’s Day, right? Thanks for the slap…”
I shake his hand. “Shay,” I say, biting back a grin of my own. “My pleasure.”
When I let go, I head back behind the bar and dump the nearest bottle of hard alcohol in a shot glass, then down it. Patrón. Not the greatest choice, but it’ll have to do. I’ve never been a big drinker, but I need something, anything to ease me. Every nerve in my body is on high alert after engaging in one of the hottest and most random acts I’ve ever attempted in my life—with a stranger, no less.
I grab a towel and begin to wipe dry all the freshly washed glasses. It’s the perfect mindless activity to keep myself in check. Otherwise, I’d sprint back over to Wes and park myself on his lap, my fingers tugging at that perfect mess of dark hair, teasing his tongue with mine. Nowthatwould be unprofessional…and way, way naughtier than that slap.
In my head, the words “hot damn” tumble like a spin-top toy gone rogue.
Holyhot damn is more like. Those moments of eye contact with Wes, the feel of his stubbled cheek under my hand have formed the single hottest moment I’ve ever experienced on Valentine’s Day.
It’s not like I haven’t had romantic gestures in the past. As a late-twenties single, I’ve celebrated with dates and boyfriends a handful of times. I’ve done dinners out, cooked meals in, a couple flower deliveries, even a carriage ride. But they all lacked one thing: heat.
Heat is exactly what’s flashed through me ever since making eye contact with Wes minutes ago. And in those minutes since, my body has been roasting, caught in a slow-burn state from the inside out. I swipe my nearly waist-length hair, which is styled in a messy braid, over one shoulder and fan myself. How in the hell can a guy I don’t even know make me feel hotter with one look than anyone I’ve dated in the past?
I touch a damp dishtowel to my face and nearly gasp. The heat from my skin must be seeping through the thick cotton cloth. I can even feel it on my fingertips.
Remy saunters over, fanning himself with a hand.
“I know,” I mutter before darting away and down the hall to the bathroom.
Cold water to the face is what I need to snap myself out of these premature hot flashes. I push open the door of the single occupancy women’s bathroom just as the person inside of it pulls it open. Losing my balance at the unexpected momentum, I fall forward. Damn it. In my tizzied-up state, I didn’t even check to see if the bathroom was occupied.
I tumble forward, but instead of landing the tile floor face-first like I think I will, strong arms brace me, then haul me to a standing position. My fingers dig into what are some very meaty and nicely hairy forearms. The up-close view of red and black flannel registers in my brain. Wes caught me.
When he steadies me back on my feet, I’m pressed against him, my forearms plastered to his chest like we’re glued together. We’re so close that if I lean my head forward an inch, I’d graze my forehead against the delicious stubble dotting his chin.
