Page 60 of Intense
Round three.
We drink. No words this time.
She exhales, slower now. The kick is catching up to her.
“Feeling it yet?” I ask.
She rolls her neck like she’s about to swing at me. “I could do this all night.”
“Is that an offer?”
“Only if you’re ready to lose.”
Her leg presses fully against mine now. The heat is setting something off inside of me I’ve never felt before.
I should pull away.
Instead, I press back. Everything between us is a play of power. Even down to a touch.
The tequila’s rising in my blood. But that’s not what’s making me reckless. It’s her. Her laugh. Her mouth. The fire in her eyes every time she talks back.
She looks around, then leans in.
“I’m serious. If I win, I want that plaque. On my office door. In gold letters.”
“And if I win?” I ask, voice dropping.
Her breath catches.
Then she recovers.
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
Bad idea, sweetheart.
“I want a page from your journal,” I say quietly. “The one I know you keep. You’re too tightly wound not to have one.”
She blinks. Hard. Like I hit a nerve. I knew she’d have one.
“No one reads my journal.”
“Then don’t lose.”
She drinks.
Round four.
I can see the buzz crawling under her skin now. Her lips are redder. Her cheeks flushed. She’s blinking slower, trying to focus.
But she won’t back down.
Neither will I.
She knocks back round five and sways just slightly, hands gripping the edge of the booth. I reach out instinctively, fingers brushing her wrist.
She yanks away like my touch burned her.
“You don’t get to touch me, remember,” she says. But her voice cracks slightly.
