Working in bars didn’t trigger my cravings, though. If anything, I was a better enforcer, because I knew all the tells of someone who’d had a little too much and was about to start trouble, because I’d been that person hundreds of times.
But being around a person who had a bad relationship with alcohol—getting to know them intimately—that was more dangerous territory.
I turned back to the kitchenette and fixed myself a cup of coffee. I didn’t know what it was about Dawson that made me want him so badly. It didn’t make any sense. I’d always identified as straight, even if I hadn’t had a lot of relationships with women, and I’d only had one that mattered.
The love of my life had been a woman, and after I lost her, I hadn’t been interested in dating anyone. I’d had a few perfunctory flings, but even those I hadn’t really enjoyed—until Dawson. But until Dawson, the only person I’d ever really wanted to be with was—
“Who’s Sienna?” Dawson asked in a rough, scratchy voice behind me.
I stiffened. I hadn’t heard Dawson wake up, but now I could almost feel his gaze drilling into the tattoo of her name across my shoulder blade. I wasn’t going to lie about Sienna—I didn’t lie about anything, not anymore. It was a hard boundary I’d set for myself after I got sober. But that didn’t mean I was going to just offer up her story to Dawson. Instead, I just padded over to my dresser and tugged on a faded old t-shirt, covering the tattoo of Sienna’s name.
“How are you feeling?” I asked.
Dawson thankfully didn’t press about the tattoo. He just shifted slowly up to sitting, and then rubbed his hand roughly over his forehead. “Like shit, honestly. But it’d be worse if you hadn’t made me eat.”
“Yep, you’re right about that,” I said with a grin. I poured him a cup of coffee, too, and he accepted it gratefully.
If I’d thought he looked desirable in sleep, he looked even better now: blinking blearily into his coffee, hair mussed, his muscular back rounded as he leaned forward off the couch. He took a sip and sighed with relief, then glanced up at me.
“Sorry about last night,” he said. “And thanks for letting me crash here.”
“Sure. But I don’t think I’m the one who needs an apology, honestly. That’d be Gunnar, since he got the brunt of your bullshit.”
Dawson’s brow furrowed. “I was drunk,” he said. “I didn’t mean to piss him off.”
“Well, you did,” I said. Dawson was quick to apologize to me, especially right after the events, but the thought of tracking Gunnar down to apologize seemed to rankle him.
That didn’t surprise me—that’d mean reflecting a little more on his actions, diving a bit deeper, instead of trying to smooth things over as they happened. It was a little frustrating, but only because I remembered doing the exact same thing myself.
“This sort of thing seems to happen pretty often, doesn’t it?” I asked carefully.
“No, it doesn’t,” Dawson retorted immediately. His posture stiffened a little, then purposefully relaxed as he took another sip of coffee. “So what, I like to have a few beers here and there. I don’t get into fights often. Last night was just a weird night.”
“Weird, huh?” I asked. “Because it felt a little like déjà vu to me.”
I could tell just from the tone of his voice that these kinds of fights happened more often than he’d like to admit. If they weren’t often, there wouldn’t have been two separate times that I ended up wrangling him into my truck to take him home.
“Yeah?” Dawson’s voice suddenly lowered.
He set his coffee aside and stood up off the couch—there was something surprisingly graceful about him, almost leonine, as he stalked toward me in the kitchen. His gray eyes were sharp, despite his supposed hangover, and my feet were glued to the floor. I knew what was going to happen, and I knew it shouldn’t, and yet I couldn’t bring myself to move away.
Dawson closed the distance between us and caged me against the kitchen counter, with his hands gripping the counter edge on either side of me. He ducked his chin and nosed gently at the soft skin behind my ear, in a weird, animal claiming way that made my stomach twist with confusing desire. Objectively I should’ve been repulsed by him—he smelled like stale beer and sweat—but somehow the musky scent only made my cock throb hard in my sweatpants.
“If it were déjà vu, you’d already have me bent over the couch by now,” Dawson growled into my ear.
“Fuck,” I muttered, and my hands twitched at my sides. I was hungry to touch him—to desperately dig my fingers into his lean waist—but that wasn’t going to lead anywhere good. I could resist touching him, but I couldn’t bring myself to push him away. I swallowed and tried to ignore my hardening cock.
Dawson didn’t ignore it, though. He raised up onto his tiptoes, erasing the two inches of height difference between us, and then rolled his hips against mine in a slow, nasty grind.
Fuck, it felt good. I bit back a groan, my head lolling back as pleasure raced through my body. Dawson’s face was still tucked against my neck and he bared his teeth against the skin of my neck as he moaned, too. It wasn’t quite a kiss, but it was going to lead to one if I didn’t put a stop to this.
It took a hell of a lot of willpower, but I gripped his hips hard and pushed him away.
It wasn’t a hard push, but it was forceful enough that it rocked Dawson back onto his heels and set him a little off balance. His cheeks were flushed, eyes still bright, and he tilted his head a little with confusion. Cute and hot simultaneously. God. I’d really be in trouble if I didn’t get a grip.
I stepped aside, putting more distance between us, then took a slow, steadying breath. I was still hard as hell, but I’d deal with that later, alone, when Dawson wasn’t standing here tempting me.
“We’re not doing that again,” I said.
“Seems like you want to,” Dawson said. He leaned against the kitchen counter, and crossed his legs at the ankle, and I couldn’t help but stare at the hard line of his cock in his shorts. When I finally tore my gaze away, he was grinning at me, almost predatory.
“I don’t,” I said.
Dawson did not look convinced.
“It was a mistake,” I said. “A lapse in judgment. Just because I reacted”—Dawson raised his eyebrows with a smirk, and I ignored him—“doesn’t mean I want it to happen again. Apparently not acknowledging it didn’t work, so I’m acknowledging it now.”
“Acknowledging what?” Dawson asked. “That you want me?”
“No,” I said pointedly, even though that was true. “That it happened, and it was a mistake. I’m not interested in being your next fix.”
Even though I wanted Dawson—wanted him badly—I didn’t want to be just a fling. And I sure as hell wasn’t going to be another way for Dawson to ignore what was going on with his drinking.
Dawson’s expression darkened. “What does that mean?” he asked a little sharply. “A fix?”
And I also wasn’t going to stand here and explain his own behaviors to him, that much was for sure. With how defensive he already was, that wasn’t going to go anywhere productive. But I couldn’t let it go completely unsaid, either.