“Is that really what you’re worried about?” she asks.
Rolling my head to the side, I see the smile she’s working to cover. Narrowing my eyes at her, I imagine as if I’m shooting daggers at her right now.
“There’s nothing funny about being sexually frustrated. Not all of us get to live with our smoking hot boyfriends, Brea. You have the freshly fucked glow about you, so don’t look at me like you find my misery funny.”
The smile falls from her face, knowing I just called her out. I throw my head back laughing.
“It wasn’t like that, you know,” she says, as my laughs stop.
I’m not sure if she’s talking about her and Mason, or Graham.
“What do you mean?”
“Graham. It wasn’t like that. Well, not entirely. There were women who noticed him, but it’s hard not to.”
Yeah, not at all what I wanted to hear.
“He wasn’t interested. I never quite understood why he was so closed off and never giving them the time of day. Not until I met you.”
Looking down at the solid oak of the bar, I clasp my hands together and twirl my thumbs in circles around each other.
“He meant everything to me. Everything. Until he wasn’t anymore. Until he was gone, and he took my heart with him.”
Tears fill my eyes, but I do my best to blink them away. Now is not the time to get all emotional. Not when he’s standing ten feet away from me.
“Sorry,” I mumble to Brea. “I just need to stop thinking about it.”
“I understand,” she says, running her arm over my shoulder, wrapping me in a side hug.
“I think this trip might actually be good for you. It’s my old stomping grounds. I’m almost positive we will be hitting up Velvet, the nightclub we worked at.”
Brea flashes the same smirk was wearing before, only this time I know she’s up to something. She has this devious look on her face, like she’s plotting something, and I want in on it.
“We will get all dressed up for the night out. It will be the perfect opportunity to remind him just what he’s been missing.”
Spinning on the barstool, I turn so I’m facing her. Glancing out onto the dance floor, my eyes wander over the crowd of people before they fall back on our group of friends. It doesn’t take long before my eyes find Graham’s.
Maybe it’s the whiskey or maybe it’s the feel of his eyes on me, but I can feel a warmth pass over me. His jaw is set, his face serious. He’s rocking the perfect amount of facial hair and I can’t help but remember how it felt against my skin.
I know he’s wondering what we’re talking about, but even more, he wants me to cool it on the drinking.
I want nothing more than to cross this bar and wrap my body around him. I don’t want to wait until Chicago. I want to remind him of what he’s been missing now.
Turning back to the bar, I wave Danny over and ask him to pour me a water.
“Geez, the tension between you two is enough to set this place on fire.”
I want to laugh at my own misery again. It was always like that between us.
The level of passion we felt when we were together was so intense, it was scorching.
My face heats as the memories come flooding back, remembering the last night we were together.
Even after all this time, I still remember the look in his eyes as he picked me up, wrapping my legs around him. I loved the way he would grab my waist and hold me to him, tossing me around however he wanted.
I always felt safe in his arms. I knew Graham would never let anything happen to me.
The scent of his cologne hits me first, just as the heat of his body radiates at my back, forcing my back straight as I glance over my shoulder.
Danny sets a glass down in front of me, tossing some ice in along with it.
“You should slow down a little bit, don’t you think?”
I knew he was watching me from across the bar, which is exactly why I wanted that second shot. It would drive him crazy, and that’s exactly what I wanted.
“It’s a good thing you don’t have to worry about me anymore. Ain’t that right, G?”
Throwing back the nickname our friends would use was like a smack in the face. I knew it, and I know he knew it too.
I never called him by his nickname in all our time together. Babe or handsome, yes. Never G.
“I’ll give you two a minute,” Brea says, as she slides off the barstool. She gives me a tense smile. I know without turning my head to face Graham that the comment did more than sting a little.
No, if I had to guess he’s ready to toss me over his shoulder and march out of the building. Or at least, that’s what the Graham I knew all those years ago would do.
I loved to push his buttons because I knew exactly how he would punish me for it.
Danny hits the button, filling the rest of the glass up with water. I know Graham is seeing this, too.
Taking a sip of water, it feels good as it slides down my throat. With the glass in hand, I turn back in my seat and focus my attention on him.
“Is it hot in here?” I ask, running the edge of the glass along the column of my neck. The sweat from the glass leaves a trail of water in its wake.
Graham’s eyes follow the line of moisture from where it drips down my neck. I can feel his eyes blaze into me, as his body moves in closer bumping into where my legs sit crossed between us.
“Or is it just me?”
He presses in closer to me, urging me to uncross my legs and I do.
I come up to just below his chin from where I sit on the barstool.
Giving him access, he takes another step closer to me, but still holds himself back from touching me.
The heat, the tension radiating off us, causes my temperature to spike.
“I think it’s just you,” Graham says, running the palm of his hand from my knee up my thigh. Just the slightest bit of contact from him leaves my body eager, seeking out more from him.
The combination of his rough skin against mine causes goose pimples to rise over my skin, causing the muscles in my leg to shake.
“Graham,” I sigh, my eyes closing as I tilt my head down, watching as his hand wraps around the side of my leg, gripping me tightly.
“Oh, I’m back to being Graham now?”
My eyes dart up to him, as his narrow at me.
I don’t know what to say, as I hold the glass up to my mouth taking another drink. My tongue darts out, running along the edge of my lip.
It’s starting to get to him, his chest heaves with every forced breath he takes.
He mutters something about me being a pain in the ass as he releases his grip on my thigh, running it over his face.
“Promise me you won’t try to drive home tonight.”
That was not at all what I expected him to say, especially given the way he was just looking at me. His reaction to our close proximity.
I’m not sure if I’m more surprised or hurt. By the look on his face staring back at me, I’m guessing he’s picking up on it too.
“Will you let me take you home?”
“Awfully forward of you, don’t you think? Just assuming after all this time, I’d let you take me home.”
The thought of him coming home with me tonight leaves my mouth dry with want. Even thinking about it now makes me feel desperate to say yes. More than him just driving me home, I want more time with him. More of having him close.