Page 8 of Since We're Here
I slide my hands on either side of her jaw and lower my lips to hers. They are soft and sweet, and she tastes like peppermint gum. Desire shoots through my whole body and I can’t help but gently press myself against her.
She moans softly and slides her hands around my waist, leaning into our touch. She flicks her tongue against my bottom lip. My heart’s pounding so hard in my chest, I might have a cardiac event. I must be losing my fecking mind.
Footsteps sound in the hallway but instead of pulling back, I lean in even more and press the tourist against the wall. She intakes a breath sharply through her nose but pulls me harder against her.
I should stop. This is wildly inappropriate. And yet...
I push her arms up and around my neck so I can slide my hands between the wall and the back of her dress, low enough that I can feel the curve of her, the bump of the top line of her underwear, which makes my already hard cock freak the fuck out. I lower my hands ever-so-slightly, and she makes a hot squeak.
What I would give to pull up her dress and feel her arse in my hands. Have her wrap her legs around my waist so I could press against her center.
Two women enter the hallway on the way to the restroom chatting and laughing, then go silent. I pull back when they are gone, their fresh giggles fading.
“Feck,” I say, my voice husky with need. “Did that help?”
My hands are still on the top curve of her behind, my body pressed against hers. She’s breathing hard and staring up at me with hooded eyes.
“Yeah. Yeah, it did, actually.” She sucks in her top lip and doesn’t move her gaze from mine.
I reluctantly remove my hands from her body and step back, releasing her from where she’s pinned against the wall. The tourist stands up straight and attempts to smooth her dress. She’s still close enough that I feel the heat radiating off her.
“Thanks for your, uh, hospitality.”
“Anytime.” I reach out to stroke her bottom lip just once with my thumb. “I need to get back to work.” I dash down the basement stairs to get the wine, the whole reason I was even in that dark hallway.
Anytime?I’m a dick.
Maybe I’ll see if we can meet up when my shift is over. Maybe she’d wait for me, and we can go back to her lodgings together. Or we can just hang out. Why couldn’t I have just kissed her like she asked? Why did I have to make it so fecking horny?
Maybe I should apologize to her instead.
But when I get back up with the bottles of wine, the American tourist is nowhere to be found.
3
MADDIE
Saturday, March 1
My head is pounding, and I roll over in the unfamiliar bed. Weak mid-morning light comes in from the large window, and a wooden sheep figurine that I hadn’t noticed last night casts a menacing shadow on the dresser. My exhaustion from the journey and jet lag made the few pints I had hit me so much harder than normal.
I wait for my brain to clear, and then I remember—my sisters think I’m in Saint Lucia for a month-long internship at an island resort near the man who’s supposed to be my boyfriend.
Not in Ireland doing whatever this is.
I groan and pull the heavy duvet over my head, but just for a second, as it’s hot as hell in this flat. I push it off my head.
Last night . . . oh, shit.
I asked the tall, dark, and smolderingly handsome bartender to kiss me in the hallway of the pub.
And it wasn’t just a kiss. It was an event. A party. Novellas could be written about how it felt to have that man pressed upagainst me, his hands almost on my ass and his tongue halfway down my throat.
But that was a kiss that should have been saved for a place where I’d leave forever the next day. The pub is literally downstairs from where I slept, and now, I’m going to have to avoid it for the entire month I’m in Dingle.Fuuuuck.
Or, maybe not avoid it? Look for a repeat kiss? Tough call.
I grab my phone, which has a full battery, thanks to an Irish charger left for me by Noreen, and see missed texts from my sisters—who think I’m on Saint Lucia time—from last night. I do a quick Google search before I open the text chain. During daylight savings time, Saint Lucia is the same time as New Jersey, but after the clocks change in the US in the fall, Saint Lucia is an hour ahead until spring. And right now, Ireland is five hours ahead of New Jersey, but apparently the clocks move in Ireland three weeks later than they do in New Jersey, so that’ll make Ireland four hours ahead.
