Page 48 of Merry Me
Easton just watched.
His gaze burned. His breathing ragged.
We stayed like that, our gasps filling the air around us, our eyes tangled in a silent war as he watched me taste him.
Then sense started to return, slowly, like creeping frost.
I froze, my finger still pressed to my tongue.
What the hell had just happened?
I had thought, stupidly, that maybe this wouldget him out of my system. That I’d finally feel closure. Like I’d scratched the itch and could walk away clean.
But no. I wanted him.
Even more.
My whole body still ached for him, my skin burning where he’d touched me, my heart pounding with the echo of everything we hadn’t said.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
I grabbed the front of his shirt, yanking him toward me, and frantically used the fabric to wipe the remaining slickness from my chest.
“Natalie,” he murmured, but I couldn’t stay to see what he wanted to talk about. I scrambled to my feet, practically sprinting up the alley to where the street beckoned me like a safe haven.
The cold air burned my lungs as I ran, my heels slipping on the wet pavement.
“Natalie, wait?—”
Nope. Not happening. Because if I waited, I might look back. And if I looked back, I mightgo back. And if I went back…
We all knew how that story ended.
I shoved through the front doors of the bar like I wasstorming a battlefield, weaving around a couple pressed against the wall in a sloppy, open-mouthed embrace. The music was louder now—too loud—the bass thumping so hard it vibrated in my chest, but none of it could drown out the noise in my head.
I beelined for a different bar across the room. New bartender. New location. New identity, maybe?
Because the last one? The one who’d let her ex kneel in front of her like a sinner in a confessional andcome undonein an alley behind a karaoke bar? That version of her needed to go into witness protection.
“Whiskey,” I barked, sliding onto the barstool like a woman on a mission. “And make it a double.”
The bartender, a guy with tattooed forearms and an eyebrow piercing, barely blinked before pouring.
I grabbed the glass and knocked it back in one go, relishing the burn. It chased down the taste of him still clinging to my lips, my tongue, my soul.
Fuck.
What was wrong with me?
I tapped the bar for another, throat tight, stomach twisted, and lifted the second drink to my lips just as the hairs on the back of my neck rose like a warning flare.
I didn’t have to turn around.
I knew he was there.
Easton’s presence rolled over me like a fog…thick, suffocating, laced with memories I didn’t want but couldn’t forget. I could feel him at my back, feel the weight of his stare burrowing into the soft, cracked places I’d spent years patching up.
I swallowed hard, then took another sip. Slower this time. Like it made me seem more in control. Like I wasn’t completely falling apart on the inside.
