Page 64 of Don't Bet On It
He burst out laughing, the sound unnatural. “I don’t want you to regret me.”
“I don’t want that either.” Even more than that, I didn’t want him to regret me. “I can’t walk away either, though. Let’s just have a fun night.”
His lips touched mine, and it was as if an explosion was going off between my ears.
“Yes,” he agreed. “Let’s have a fun night.”
And just like that, all conversation was over. All of our misgivings were shoved to the side. We were going to do this, regardless. Ramifications be damned, we were in this.
Hopefully, neither of us would regret anything in the morning.
18
EIGHTEEN
Iwoke up the next morning in Tallulah’s bed feeling hungover. Slowly, I glanced to my right so I could drink her in. She looked like an angel in sleep. Sure, I was convinced she was the devil some of the time—only some of the time—but when she was unguarded, she looked relaxed and happy.
I was careful not to move—I wasn’t ready to wake her—and instead looked her up and down. She was naked. I was too. Only her shoulder poked out from under the covers. She murmured something in her sleep but didn’t shift. Instead, she remained close to my side, her body curling into mine. We were touching, although not on top of one another, which was good. I was one of those people who couldn’t sleep if somebody was draped all over me. Tallulah hadn’t tried. We’d slept close enough that I could feel her warmth. She hadn’t crowded me, though.
Pushing the images from the previous evening out of my head was hard. There had been nothing soft about it. Everything had been hard, sweaty, and out of control. Personally, I was okay with that. Was she? Did she want more? Would she regret what she’d done when she opened her eyes?
My head was all over the place, to the point where my anxiety spiked a notch. Would she yell at me? Would she put the blame for this on me? Should I have left? Of course I should have left. That was a stupid question. Why hadn’t I left? I couldn’t wrap my head around that part. We’d been like magnets when we went at one another. Nothing—no power on earth—could’ve torn me away from her in that moment. Reasonably, I understood that. Still, I wanted to kick myself with a steel-toed boot.
What had I been thinking?
As if hearing the nonstop doubts parading through my mind, Tallulah opened her eyes. She was initially groggy—perhaps she felt as if she was wading through a hangover too. Alertness grabbed her after three seconds, and her eyebrows hiked as she regarded me.
“Oh, crap” was all she managed to say.
Even though the situation was serious—it didn’t get more serious than this—I burst out laughing. “Pretty much,” I agreed. And, weirdly, her reaction was enough to relax me. I took myself by surprise when I slipped an arm underneath her and tugged so she was closer.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, suspicion lining her features. Her hair was wild, to the point where I desperately wanted to comb my fingers through it, and her makeup from the previous day was smudged beneath her eyes. She still looked ridiculously gorgeous. How was that even possible?
“Shh,” I admonished her, resting my cheek against the top of her head. Why did it feel so right to have her in my arms when we both knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that everything about us was wrong?
“You should shush,” she muttered, although she didn’t pull away from me. Instead, she traced her fingers over my chest. Unlike so many of the other men in Las Vegas, I didn’t do thewaxing thing. I kept my chest hair neat and trimmed, but I didn’t go in for the whole hairless monkey aesthetic. It felt unnatural.
“It’s weird you have hair,” she said out of nowhere, catching me off guard. Could she read my mind? “You’re like the only guy in Vegas with a hairy chest.”
“I very much doubt I’m the only guy in Vegas with a hairy chest,” I argued.
“Under the age of sixty, that’s totally true,” she countered.
“That’s a gross exaggeration.”
“It’s true,” she insisted. “Have you even seen the guys at Hunk-O-Mania?”
Was she being serious? “Why would I be looking at the guys at Hunk-O-Mania?”
“Why not? You’re not one of those dudes who is scared of seeing other dudes naked, are you?”
“I don’t believe ‘scared’ is the right word. I simply have no interest in seeing other men naked.”
“What about women? Do you go to the female strip clubs?”
“No, that’s not really my scene.”
“Why?”
