Page 67 of The Alternate Captain
Bettsy’s face appears in my mind’s eye, followed by an image of him snapping my legs in two.
“Don’t disappear on me, Johnny. Come back.” She laughs and shifts closer so our eyes meet.
Live in the moment, Johnny.
“I’m here,” I say.
Her face is inches away from me now, and I lean in and kiss her. Without even thinking about how it’s going to be perceived, or if she’d even kiss me back.
But she does.
Tenderly at first, then she shifts closer to deepen it. And I can’t even believe how I could forget how good this feels. Sheopens her mouth slightly and I have to hold myself back from ravishing her.
She does this thing with her teeth, the sort of nibble on my lip that’s not a nibble. But it drives me wild. And my kiss turns hungry. I want more. And I want her.
It gets me rock hard, and I’m so conscious that she’ll notice, I consider shifting away. But I can’t. It’s just like how I remembered it to be, except this time, I cup her face with one hand, and my other slips around her waist to pull her closer. If she feels it, she feels it. Whatever.
“I’m here,” I say again, breaking away. Our noses touch, and she looks at me differently.
“You didn’t have to do that, Johnny,” she says. “Charlotte and Lyla are gone. There’s nobody watching.”
“Well, damn. If I’d remembered that...” I grin at her. “I wanted to. Was that okay? I mean, I didn’t mean—”
She kisses me this time. She shifts in her seat to get closer before she breaks away with a gasp as her hand brushes the bulge in my pants.
“Oh.”
I clear my throat and shift away; my cheeks burn with embarrassment.
Someone clears their throat behind me, and I disconnect from the moment to find a different server smiling at me.
“Can I get you anything else?”
These fucking servers, honestly.
Kelly shakes her head, so I ask for the bill, pulling out my wallet from my inside pocket as the server slides the receipt onto the table. She tells us she’ll be back with the card machine.
“Let me see,” Kelly says, reaching for the bill.
“Nah, I’ve got this.”
“No, it’s fine. We’ll split it.”
“Like hell we will.” I hand the server my credit card and wait for her to process it.
“Johnny—”
“I had a nice time, Kelly.”
“Well, thank—ah shit.”
“What?” I turn around and follow her line of sight.
Shit indeed. Hutch and Jani are standing on the pavement outside, which could mean that Bettsy is close.
“Do you think Mike is here?” she says.
“Who knows? I’ll be pissed if he is, because that means it’s a gathering that I wasn’t invited to.”
