Page 28 of Tattoos and Heartbreak
So you can imagine how I felt when I stumbled onto the floor that held my hotel room, looked up, and found her standing in the hallway in something that looked like a t-shirt several sizes too big for her. Her hair was mussed and tangled and she didn’t have a speck of makeup on her face.
She was wearing slippers.
Banging on a hotel room door.
What in the hell was going on here?
I started forward without thinking about it, my only thought that I needed to figure out what was wrong and fix it for her, and she turned to me, her eyes large and her mouth caught in an ‘o’ of surprise.
“Lila,” I breathed. “What are you doing in the hallway? In...” I gestured toward her outfit, realizing now that it might very well be what she’d been sleeping in.
Her mouth snapped shut and she stared at me like she’d just been caught doing something she definitely shouldn’t be doing. Then she followed my own gaze down her body. When she looked up again, a bright flush was making its way over her cheekbones.
“Um,” she started. “I couldn’t sleep.”
“So you decided to wander around the hallway in your...” I glanced down again, still not sure what to call whatever she was wearing.
Her blush deepened. “I didn’t want to wake Anna up. So yeah, I came out into the hallway. It’s so late that I didn’t think anyone would mind, and then...” She turned a hopeless look back at the door. “I didn’t bring my key,” she said ruefully. “I didn’t think it would lock behind me.”
When she glanced at me again, she looked both miserable and sort of hopeful. Like I somehow had a key that would let her back into the room she was sharing with Anna.
Newsflash: I didn’t.
Additional newsflash: All that shit I said about forgetting her and not wanting to get close to her? All that drinking I’d done at the bar, trying to get my heart to forget she existed? Every single thought I’d had that I couldn’t have her all to myself because I was no good for anyone?
Yeah, that was all bullshit.
I moved forward and put my hands on the wall on either side of her, pinning her in. “You’re trapped out here in nothing but a big t-shirt and slippers, hoping Anna will wake up and let you back into the room?” I asked, my voice tinged with something that walked a fine line between amusement and lust.
“Um, yeah,” she whispered.
God, this girl. She was too sweet for this world. Too good for the likes of anyone in this life.
And I was utterly, hopelessly in love with her.
I moved toward her at the same moment she moved toward me, her arms coming around my neck and my lips claiming hers like it was meant to be. I pushed her against the wall and held her there with my body, our tongues clashing as we went right back to the place we’d found together in that meadow this afternoon. Only this wasn’t sweet and smooth like that had been. This was a fight to get closer, all teeth and nails and grinding hips. Her legs came up around my waist and I slipped my hands under her ass, then shoved her harder against the wall. I was so hard already I could barely stand up and she was right here, open and ready for me.
And God, she wanted me. Her skin was on fire and her kisses were like molten lava, her body telling me in every way it could how ready it was. I pushed against her, rocking my hips mindlessly and on the verge of letting my instincts take us away.
When I realized I was more than half-drunk and in a very public place.
The hallway of our hotel, to be exact. Right outside her room and across the hall from mine.
Oh my God, what was I doing? Lila wasn’t the kind of girl you did this with in a hotel hallway where anyone might see you. She wasn’t the sort of girl you just took without thinking about the consequences.
Fuck.
I put her down and moved backward, my mouth dry and my mind reeling. I turned and stumbled into my room, my phone out and the reception desk already picking up. I gave them Lila’s room number and told them she’d been locked out and to please send someone up.
And then I closed the door behind me, knowing that someone far more responsible than me was on their way to take care of her.
I needed to get sober and get my head in order. I felt way too much for the girl, and I needed to get a handle on that before I could face her again—and before I did anything else with her.
LILA
Istared into the mirror, wondering whether I had enough makeup in my bag to fix the problem. I hadn’t slept all night, and I definitely looked like it. Dark circles ringed my eyes and I was even more pale than usual, my freckles standing out against my skin as the only source of color. I dabbed on some concealer, patting it into the hollows beneath my eyes and then sighed.
Mascara and some lip gloss, I decided. That would be the best I could do.
