Page 80 of Panty Dropper

CHAPTER 34

Reagan

Istared at the brief on the desk in front of me, but I didn’t take in the words. The blocks of text on the paper may as well have been random black scratches against the stark white background for all the sense they made to my brain in that moment.

I wasn’t distracted by the aftereffects of the moonshine I’d drunk on an empty stomach the night before. It wasn’t even the lack of sleep from my fitful night that was pulling my brain in a different direction. Nope. It was five simple words that kept playing in my brain, I love you, Billy Comfort.

This morning when I’d woken up in my bed, fully dressed, I found toast, water, and a mug of coffee. Before I could even sit up, there was a knock at my door and Mrs. B’s head popped in. She’d filled me in that Billy had brought me home after I’d consumed too much moonshine, tucked me in and asked her to check on me.

As soon as she said that, a vivid memory of me looking into Billy’s eyes and telling him I loved him flashed in my head. The scariest and most horrifying part of that recollection was that I was pretty sure I’d meant it.

Then, that memory was joined by less clear visions of other events. They weren’t so much playbacks of things that happened. More like short clips of scenarios. One was of Billy kissing my forehead, my neck, and other more southern regions. Then I was floating in the ocean, and he was with me. In another, we were in a hot air balloon making love.

It all felt so real that I wasn’t sure what had happened and what I’d dreamed. Obviously, I knew that Billy and I hadn’t gone up in a hot air balloon… but had I actually told Billy that I loved him? Or was that just a dream?

If I did tell him that, would he just write it off as the ramblings of a drunken idiot? Or worse, would I accidently say those things again? I didn’t trust myself around him.

I’d never met a man like William Comfort. A man who could set me on fire with the slightest touch, the slightest glance. It was disconcerting, and yet I craved it. I craved him.

Yeah, that was it. That was the exact thing that I just couldn’t wrap my brain around. How could I hate the way my brain lost all control and my inhibitions slipped away around Billy, but also want him so bad? How was that possible?

I knew I should stay away from him. I had zero control over myself when I was around him.

I loved my control. I thought of it as a living thing. Like a pet cat I could care for and fuss over. It was my security blanket, my comfort, my whole reason for being. I cherished it, and I had liked to think that it cherished me right back. But, no. With him, it flew right out the window, the disloyal bitch.

But that was the catch-22. I had to stop seeing him because I couldn’t control my craving when I was around him, but it was that exact craving that I was afraid would pull me straight back into his sexy orbit, like a lemming off a cliff or a moth to a flame. Pick your metaphor, it didn’t matter. It either ended with the poor hapless schmuck it was about, going splat or burning up. Whichever the method, the common denominator was: I was positioned smack dab in the middle of a rock and a hard place. A very hard place.

I shook my head to clear it and tried again to concentrate on the legal brief right there in front of my eyes.

No dice.

I dropped my head into my hands in frustration and grumbled, “Damn you, Billy Comfort,” under my breath.

“You rang, darlin’?”

My head snapped up, my eyes wide and cheeks already reddening. There he was, leaning casually against the doorframe like there was nothing at all strange about him just showing up in my office. Like he belonged there.

What in the hell? Was he like a genie… or Beetlejuice? Had I summoned him with my quiet complaint? Or was this just a particularly humiliating coincidence?

“I…I was just regretting drinking that second glass of sweet tea,” I lied with my head held high. Maintaining my dignity under these circumstances was a big ask—probably too big to be reasonable, I had to admit. However, that didn’t mean I wasn’t going to try. “You warned me about the moonshine but I didn’t listen.”

He grinned and my heart did a nosedive into my stomach.

“Thanks for taking me home. Did I…” I knew that I couldn’t come right out and ask him if I’d declared my love for him, but if I had, I wanted to address it. “Sometimes when I drink I say things that um…well, did I…”

He pushed off from his stance and sauntered across the room as if he had all the time in the world. Hell, he probably did have all the time in the world. He was a bartender. His job started at night.

When he got to the far side of my desk, he leaned forward and placed his hands on the desktop, his palms and fingers spreading out over the papers I had been unsuccessfully trying to read like he owned them. He brought his face close to mine as if he were going to kiss me, and all the air in my lungs pushed out of me in one quick, involuntary exhale.

My eyes widened, and I was paralyzed. If someone had offered me a million dollars to stand up and walk away right then, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to. I wasn’t aware of any of my surroundings except for Billy. His lips coming closer to mine, inch by inch, slowly but surely.

When he was just about a millimeter away, so close that I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck, he stopped and looked right into my eyes. “Snore? Yes.”

“I don’t snore,” I shot back, perhaps a little too defensively. “So I didn’t say or do anything?”

“I put you straight to bed,” he whispered, and I could hear the rough intensity even at that low volume. “Tucked you in and kissed you goodnight.”

That might account for some of the dreams I’d had.

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