Page 29 of The Little Things
“Then I’ll take the couch.”
It was as if he was going out of his way to make this harder on me. “My couch isn’t big enough for a grumpy cowboy your size. You’ll wake up with a sore back and neck on top of the hangover you’ve already assured yourself.”
“Don’t care,” he grunted. “I don’t wanna be alone tonight.”
God, he really was breaking my heart.
Letting out a sigh, I set us on the path to my cabin. I could have kept arguing, but I knew he still would have won in the end, so I didn’t bother wasting time. “Let’s get you to bed, then.”
The muscles that I had been pushing to their limit gave out just as soon as we shoved through the cabin’s door. I held out long enough to dump Zach onto the couch before my knees buckled. I plopped down on the coffee table.
Zach let out a sigh. “Smells just like you in here,” he mumbled. “Could drown in that smell.”
I did my best not to let his words affect me as he rested against the back of the couch, snuggling in like he wanted to surround himself with my scent. Drown in it like he’d just said.
I bent forward, lifting one of his legs up to pull his boot off. Of course, he didn’t make it easy. I got one off and moved onto the next just as he leaned in so close he was all I could see.
“God, you’re pretty,” he said with a dreamy smile. “So damn pretty. Thought that the day you showed up. So goddamn pretty it hurt to look at you.”
A flush crawled up my cheeks at the same time a million butterflies took flight in my belly. “All right, smooth guy. Time to pass out. Let’s lie down.”
I tried to shift him, but his hand came up, tangling in my hair and holding me in place, our faces so close our noses almost touched. “God, I’ve wondered what you taste like every day since you got here.”
“Zach,” I said, my voice pleading, though, I wasn’t sure what I was begging for. For him to stop, or to close the last inch between us.
“Been dyin’ to kiss you. Don’t think I can wait another second.”
With one hand in my hair, he used the other to tilt my chin up and sealed his lips to mine.
Chapter Sixteen
Zach
It felt like someone was using the inside of my skull like a steel drum. The sun cut through the window, searing my corneas the moment I made the mistake of opening my eyes. It took a while for me to figure out what woke me up, the disorientation creating a fog in my head that didn’t seem to want to clear. Finally it hit me, the sound of whispered curses. And the smell of charred bacon. That was what had woken me up, and the moment realization of what I was smelling penetrated my consciousness, my stomach lurched.
“Shit,” I grunted as I pushed up to sitting, breathing in through my nose and out past my lips slowly, trying my hardest not to puke. My back screamed at the motion and my neck felt stiff as a board. The couch I’d been sleeping on was only half my size, and definitely not something I had in my own house. Then a voice spoke up that caused my lungs to seize.
“Good morning. How are you feeling?”
I made the mistake of jerking my head around toward the kitchen at the back of the cabin, causing my brain to rattle and bang around inside my skull. “Oh, fuck me,” I grunted, slamming my eyes closed and pressing my thumbs deep into their sockets to try and stop the stabbing pain.
“If you’re going to be sick, I’m going to have to ask you to do it in the bathroom. I’m kind of a sympathy barfer.”
I peeled my eyelids back open on a soothing inhale and looked to where Rae was standing in her kitchen, wielding a pair of tongs. “Is that a thing?”
She nodded seriously. “Sure is. You puke, I puke. That’s just how it is.”
Christ, why the fuck did I drink so much last night? Then I remembered, and the urge to get obliterated again reappeared.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to be sick.” At least I hoped not. With the smell of charcoaled bacon filling up the room, that was still up in the air.
“My attempt at cooking failed miserably,” she said as she moved to the small kitchen window and pushed it up to let the smoke out and fresh air in. “But I do have some coffee, if you think you can handle it.”
I needed coffee desperately, especially after the bender I’d gone on the night before—and Christ, I’d be lucky if that rot-gut bourbon had left any of my stomach lining behind—but despite being so drunk I couldn’t stand on my own two feet, I’d been cursed with a memory good enough to recall all the events that had taken place while I was... impaired. The smartest thing I could do was get the hell out of there before I did something I’d regret. Well... something else.
Fuck me, but I couldn’t believe I said all the things I said. I couldn’t believe I’d kissed her. And of course it had to be the kind of kiss that would have had the power to knock me on my ass—if the booze hadn’t managed to do it first. But it never should have happened.
The fact was, I had seriously fucked up. I was her boss; I was older. I was supposed to be the responsible one, and no matter the shape I’d been in, I had taken advantage of her.