Losing It Part 8

"Well, I've never chatted up a girl in a pub before tonight."

My jaw dropped. "Really?" How was that possible? He was gorgeous! Maybe all the girls just threw themselves at him before he even entered the bar, so he never had to bother with going inside.

He shrugged, and with the motion his thumb started brushing back and forth against the top of my foot.

"I know it goes against the English stereotype, but I've never been much for getting sloshed, um drunk, all the time."

"Me neither," I said. And I meant it, even though my head was still a bit fuzzy from all that tequila. "So what brings this non-stereotypical Brit to Texas?"

He shrugged. "I've been in the States for a while. I came here to go to school, and never went back. I actually just moved back to Texas though. Haven't been here for a few years."

"Me too. I just moved back here a few years ago."

I'd grown up in Texas when I was little, but we moved to Minnesota when I was in 8th grade. It was always my plan to come back here for college.

He re-wetted the cloth one more time, and we sat there talking. He told me about growing up in England, and how different it had been living in the states.

"The first time some bloke told me he liked my pants, I was so shocked I thought I'd left home missing a few key things."

"Pants? I don't understand."

"That's what we call underwear, love."

"Oh," I laughed. "Good to know."

"When I asked a cla.s.smate for a rubber, you call them erasers, everyone laughed so hard that I was ready to board a flight straight back to London."

I tried to hold in my laughter, and failed. But I figured he deserved it after laughing at my pants, um... jeans, ordeal earlier.

"That must have been terrible."

He reached for the gauze I'd pulled down from the cabinet earlier, and he carefully placed it over the burn, and taped down the edges as he spoke.

"You get used to it. I've been here so long now that I usually manage well enough. Occasionally when I visit London, and come back, I have some trouble adjusting, but in all, I'd say I'm fairly Americanized."

"Except for that accent."

He smiled. "Can't get rid of the accent now, can I? Then how would I ever attract the attention of pretty things like you?"

"By reading Shakespeare in a bar, obviously."

He laughed, and the sound spread through my skin, loosening some of my nerves.

"You're cute," he said.

I rolled my eyes. "Yes... ridiculously so, as we established earlier"

"Would you feel better if I called you ridiculously s.e.xy?"

Just like that, the ease I'd felt earlier disappeared, and my breaths came too shallow. I had no answer. What could I possibly say to that?

"What's that look for?" He asked.

I had no idea which of my mult.i.tude of emotions had shown on my face, so I shrugged.

"You act like no one's ever called you s.e.xy before." That would be because they hadn't. "Which I know can't be true, not when you look the way you looked tonight. I could barely keep my hands off you, and we've only just met. I'd be embarra.s.sed if I hadn't enjoyed it so much."

This was it. I may not have had s.e.x, but I knew enough to know when a guy was putting the moves on me. And remarkably, I didn't even care. All I cared about was the fact that he was sitting so close to me, and was driving me crazy. His hand was still leisurely stroking my ankle, and if he didn't kiss me again soon I was going to combust. "Look at me, I can't even keep my hands off you now."

I swallowed, but my mouth suddenly felt like I'd swallowed a sandbox.

He pulled himself up on his knees, and his hand trailed from my ankle up the outside of my uninjured calf. His hips were a few inches away from my knees as I sat there dumbfounded on the toilet.

"Tell me I'm not crazy," He said.

I couldn't do that. I was nowhere near sane enough at the moment to advise anyone else on rational behavior.

"Tell me I can kiss you."

That... that I could do.

"You can kiss-"

I didn't even finish the sentence before his lips were on mine, and my burn was forgotten completely.

Chapter Five

The kiss ended too soon.

An embarra.s.sing groan of disappointment left my mouth, but it couldn't be helped. Luckily, Garrick wasn't done. He stood, and pulled me up by my elbows. He drew me in until our bodies fit together in a way that hadn't been possible when I was seated.

"That's better," He said.

I didn't bother agreeing. I just lifted up on my tiptoes and kissed him.

Compared to our earlier kiss, this one was slow, exploratory, and like kindling on a fire. One of his hands curled around my neck, his thumb pressing gently into my collarbone. The other danced from my hair to my shoulder to my hip, and then back.

For once in my life, I concentrated simply on the feel of a guy against me, the brush of his tongue against mine, the pinp.r.i.c.ks of heat where his fingers pressed into my skin. I didn't think about anything-not about my breath, or whether my hands were in the right place, or what he was expecting. I lost myself in him.

My hands rested at his hips, and I wanted to do some exploring of my own. I pulled my hands in until they rested on his stomach between us. At my movement, his lips pressed a little bit harder against mine. His tongue pushed a little bit deeper. I slid both hands up, feeling the hard curves of his body beneath the fabric of his shirt. When my exploration reached his chest, his hand tugged my hip forward, so that my stomach was pressed against him.

I could feel the way he wanted me, and a trickle of anxiety started at my spine. Then his kiss turned harder and faster, and I raced to follow his lead, ignoring my nerves.