Page 74 of Bourbon Bliss
To be fair, it had been fun while it lasted.
Now it was decidedly not fun. I groaned again and rubbed my eyes before taking a chance and opening them.
This wasn’t my room.
I sat up and everything started spinning. My stomach roiled, protesting the sudden movement. I clutched my belly and closed my eyes.
“You all right?”
That soft low voice nearly undid me.
I took a shaky breath, my eyes still closed. George. I was in George’s bedroom. He’d come to get me last night. I’d been… had I really been standing on a table? Embarrassment washed over me. I’d made a complete spectacle of myself. And George had brought me here.
I’d walked out on him. And he’d still taken care of me.
Pulling my legs up, I rested my forehead on my knees. “Why?”
“Because you needed me.”
“That’s all?”
The sheets rustled and I felt the mattress shift with his weight. His large hand rested against my back, warm and comforting. “That’s all.”
I sniffed and risked a peek at him. He was dressed in a rumpled t-shirt and sweats, his hair disheveled. His eyelids drooped a little, like he wasn’t fully awake, and one corner of his mouth hooked in a slight grin.
He was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Men don’t like me after we’ve had sex,” I said.
“Then you were with the wrong men.”
I sat up a little straighter. That hadn’t ever occurred to me as a possible explanation. But I was still convinced the root of the problem was me. “That’s why I left the other night. In the past, when a relationship progressed to intercourse, it ended shortly thereafter. I came to the conclusion that I’m unsuitable for that type of intimacy.”
“Ah hell, June, why didn’t you talk to me about this?” There was a touch of heat in his voice and I could tell he was angry. Or hurt. It was hard for me to tell the difference. “If you’d have told me how you felt, we could have figured it out. I wouldn’t have…”
“You seemed to find satisfaction in our activities.”
“No, I didn’t. It was terrible.”
My heart sank and the rawness in my stomach clawed at me. “That’s what I’m trying to point out. I’m ill-equipped for this.”
“June, look at me.” He spun me around so I was facing him. “It wasn’t terrible because you weren’t good at it. It was terrible because you didn’t want to be there. Because I thought we were ready to share that with each other, and it turns out that readiness was awfully one-sided. It was terrible because before I could catch my breath, you were running out the door.”
“I apologize for the way I left.”
“Apology accepted,” he said. “But June, that was not what I wanted from you. If you weren’t ready—”
“I should be ready,” I said, frustration leaking into my voice. “I care about you, and I’m attracted to you. And I don’t fully comprehend why, but you’re attracted to me, too. I want to understand how to do this right, but I just don’t. I can tell you the square root of three hundred twenty-four, but I can’t manage to be truly intimate with someone. Even someone as amazing as you.”
“What is the square root of three hundred twenty-four?”
“Eighteen.”
“Jesus.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “June Bug, I have no idea why you being a human calculator is such a turn-on, but hell if it isn’t.”
That made me crack the tiniest of smiles.
He studied my face for a long moment, narrowing his eyes, as if he were thinking deeply. “Do you remember when we danced at the Lookout?”
