Eva laughed so hard she snorted and covered her mouth with her hand. “The look on your face… Oh, wait, where’s your phone? I need a record of this.”
She reached across the space between them and stuck her hand in his right front pocket, where he always kept his phone. With the alcohol in his system already warming him from the inside out, he thought he might burst into flames at the feel of her hand brushing against his thigh—and other, harder things. He started fantasizing about her closing her hand around his cock and giving it a hard stroke right there under the overhang of the bar—and that didn’t help his situation any. He really should be thinking about baseball. Or golf. That was a perfectly unexciting sport. Except her fingers were right there, and he found himself unable to focus on anything but the sensation of her lingering touch. He tried to suppress the groan gathering in his chest, but didn’t quite manage it.
Eva stared up at him, her eyes glazed and lids heavy. Her lips parted on a soft, shaky exhale, her fingers flexed, and anticipation rocketed up his shaft. Just a few more centimeters over…
After a long, uncertain moment, she withdrew her hand. He missed the contact instantly.
Hello, awkward silence. And they had been doing so well, too.
“We should get back to the wedding,” she said a bit breathlessly and wobbled to her feet.
The wedding. Right. But, damn, with the way she was looking at him, all but stripping him with her eyes…
He stood, but didn’t make any move to leave. Instead, he stepped into her personal space, his heart pounding so hard he wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone in the bar could hear it. His fingers trembled a little as he flicked the tie of her halter top off her shoulder. “Are you sure?”
She glanced toward the door and winced. “No. I really don’t want to go back there.”
“Me, either,” he admitted and leaned closer.
Eva titled her head back, her lips half parted. Maybe this was it. Maybe she’d finally give in to the sexual tension that had always been on a low simmer between them. Maybe—
She backed up a step. “I’m going to call it a night, but you should probably go back to the reception. It is your brother’s wedding, after all.”
Damn. Damn. Damn.
Nodding, Cam ruthlessly squashed the surge of disappointment and stepped back. “Let me pay our tab, then I’ll walk you up.”
“I’m a big girl, Wilde. Can take care of myself.” She rubbed her thumb across his jaw, then patted his cheek. “They even let me carry a gun and everything.”
Which reminded him that she was supposedly carrying a firearm somewhere under her dress, and his gaze dropped down her body. A surge of giddy lightheadedness combined with the muffled buzz of alcohol had him grabbing the bar to steady himself.
Eva turned to stroll away, but ruined her exit by wobbling dangerously after a few steps. He launched forward and caught her around the waist before she toppled, but his sense of balance was just as wonky, and they both nearly tumbled into a laughing heap on the floor.
“I’m good. I’m good,” she gasped once they righted themselves. She pushed him away but didn’t brace herself for when he let go and ended up flailing around like Kermit the Frog before he caught her again.
He stifled a laugh. “No, you’re not. You can’t possibly be because I’m buzzing pretty good, and I have at least seventy pounds on you.”
“Psh. Seventy pounds or not, I can drink you under the table any day and we both know it.”
Not this time. One of those shots had hit her really fucking hard. “Just let me be the gentleman my mom raised me to be, okay? She would roll over in her grave if I didn’t make sure you got back to your room after letting you get this drunk.”
“You didn’t let me…drunk. No, wait.” Realizing she’d totally slurred that sentence, she shook her head and straightened her shoulders with as much dignity as she could muster. She chose her next words more carefully. “I have a little buzz, that’s all.” Then she giggled, which told him everything he needed to know about how drunk she really was. Eva never giggled. “Those shots were horrible, weren’t they?”
“The J?ger and mayonnaise was a particularly revolting choice,” he said and gave the bartender his room number to have the tab added to his bill. He stuffed a twenty in the tip jar as he half-wobbled, half-carried Eva out the door to the elevators in the lobby.
Yeah, pretty sure the floor wasn’t supposed to ebb and flow like the ocean tide. He was really going to hate himself come morning.
“Couldn’t have been any worse than the Bailey’s and lime juice,” Eva said and jabbed the elevator’s up button. “I gotta give you kudos for that one. I’ve never had to chew a shot anymore. No, before. I meant before.”
“Yeah, I knew what you meant.”
She smiled up at him. “That’s ‘cause you’re fluent in Eva Speak.”