“Shit.” Storm reaches out and downs the rest of her wine. “That really sucks. Have you tried calling or texting her?”
“No, I’m not going to push her into anything she isn’t ready for. She knows how to get a hold of me. I just wish I knew what the hell she was thinking.”
“Are you just going to sit on your ass drinking wine all night?” Caroline asks, dropping down into the couch next to me. She leans forward and grabs the almost-empty bottle off the coffee table and tips it back, emptying what’s left into her mouth. “What is that? Bottle five in the last twenty-four hours?”
“Don’t exaggerate,” I say, taking a long drink from my, thankfully, full glass. “It’s more like four.”
She bursts out laughing and snatches the remote off my leg, pressing pause on that damn rain scene in The Notebook. “It might help if you stopped watching all these damn romantic chick-flicks and got your mind off of it. Since when are you a sappy movie girl, anyway?”
Since I met Savage Hawke.
I set my glass on the coffee table before turning my back to the arm of the couch and pulling my knees up to my chin. “I just don’t know what to do, Care.”
My brain has been a maelstrom since I left Savage’s last night. All I can think is what a total, absolute, complete fucking bitch I was to run out of there like that, especially after he gave me an incredible orgasm.
“I know, sweetie, but sitting here drinking isn’t going to give you any of the answers you are looking for.”
I beg to differ.
“What will?”
Seriously, what will?
I’ve been living the last day in a nightmare of indecision. One part of me wants nothing more than to fall into his arms and enjoy the sweet taste of his kiss again, while the other part of me wants to run as far and as fast as my legs and my will can carry me.
Savage Hawke is my greatest desires and my greatest fears all rolled into one. He is precisely the kind of man I’ve always known would capture my heart and actually be able to hold onto it—something I’ve managed to avoid my entire adult life—and now I know he might not be able to give me what my body needs.
Sometimes having a sex drive like a man really, really sucks.
Caroline smiles sympathetically and rubs my knee. “Honey, I don’t know. What do you want me to say? From what you have told me, he’s stupid hot, kind, funny, rich. It doesn’t seem like there’s much not to like. I get that you are worried about how his, uh, condition will affect things between you, and believe me, I get it, but you are the only one who can make this decision.”
Letting out something resembling a groan and sigh, I drop my head back on the couch and close my eyes. “I’m so glad Doug is sending me to D.C. tomorrow. I need an assignment to occupy my mind right now.” Although politics isn’t the most exciting area of my job, getting away for a couple days can only be good right now; anything to take my mind off my inability to make up my mind.
“What’s going on with that big story you keep teasing Doug with? You ever gonna tell me what it is?”
I reach for my wine and return my gaze to her. “No, not until I know where it’s going. This contact I have sounds promising, but he still hasn’t delivered on any of the stuff he says he can get me. I’ll let you, and Doug, know when I have something solid.”
“Well, take the time you have in D.C. to figure your shit out, girl, ‘cause you can’t leave that poor guy hanging like that.”
Downing the rest of my wine, I savor the cool liquid sliding down my throat and resign myself to the fact that Caroline is right. What I did was awful, and I can’t leave things like that, even if I decide I am too big of a chicken-shit to pursue things with Savage.
Savage, who, even now, sets my body on fire. The videos, his words, his damn hands…
I climb up from the couch, surprised when I don’t wobble after the drinks I have already consumed. “Hey, it is still early…ish. Let’s go out.”
She eyes me and points at the clock. “It’s almost 8:30, on a Sunday. Where the hell do you want to go?”
Pulling my shirt off and walking toward the bedroom, I glance over my shoulder and wink at her. “It doesn’t matter, anywhere but here.”
“I don’t have any clothes here,” she whines, looking down at her sweatpants and t-shirt.
“You can borrow something!” I call from the bedroom as I yank off my sweatpants and step into the bathroom.
Ick. I look like crap. I guess that’s what happens when you sit on your ass drinking all day and don’t bother with makeup, or a curling iron, or anything else normally used to make one presentable.
“Fine.” She appears behind me in the mirror and leans against the doorjamb and I start applying my eye makeup. “You know, I think The Garage has a band on Sunday nights.”
“Excellent!”
I need to lose myself in something, something other than Savage. Maybe music would do the trick.
Music.
Dancing.
Men.
Booze.