Good at Being Alive(68)

The man groans. “Pathetic,” he says, hitting Theo on the shoulder. “Surely you can do better.”

Theo’s mouth slides up on one side. “I can do a little better, yeah.”

Just like the dream I had.

I’d tell him that I might have psychic powers but there’s no time as he presses his palm to my face and drags my mouth back to his, harder. His lips open and mine do as well, and despite the cheering around us, when his tongue brushes against mine I can hear his groan, as if he’s finally digging into a meal he’s wanted for a very long time.

I’m blinking, silent, wordless when he finally lets me go.

He takes in my swollen mouth and smirks. “You look surprised.”

“I expected you to kiss more like Margaret Thatcher off camera,” I reply.

“Because she’s dead?”

I laugh. He made the joke before I could.

There is more champagne. The guy—who turns out to be the bar’s owner—asks me if Theo is a good husband. “He’s a terrible husband,” I reply.

“We will fix this,” he says, and then he pours us shots. “The cure for every bad marriage. Also, the ruin of a good one, but this is another story.”

We toast. I’m now so drunk I’m having a hard time sitting on this bar stool, and Theo is so drunk that he decides it’s a good idea to buy a bottle of champagne.

“Why have you been such a bad husband?” I demand, giggling. “We haven’t even consummated our marriage.”

He laughs low, his teeth sinking into his lip as he leans over to reply close to my ear. “Because I have a lot of baggage, because your father would hate it, and because I wouldn’t want to consummate it once. I’d want to consummate it repeatedly, which would make the next few months very messy.”

“It wouldn’t be that messy,” I reply, brushing my mouth over his. “I’d shower afterward.”

“Bex,” he groans and I laugh.

“Fine! I don’t want to sleep with you anyway. You’d probably be so bad at it. And then I’d be stuck.”

He pours me more champagne. “I’d undress you and then say I wanted to put it in your butt. I’d whisper it every single time Lars makes us kiss.”

I crack up. The next time we’re forced to kiss, one of us is going to think it and laugh and ruin the shot.

I press my lips to his cheek, to his neck, before I take a sip of the scotch he ordered alongside the champagne. I normally hate scotch, but now it reminds me of Theo and it’s my new favorite drink.

“Is this what you’re like in a relationship?” he asks.

“A drink stealer?”

He laughs. “No. Affectionate.”

“This isn’t affectionate.”

“I’ll take that as a yes, then,” he says, smiling. There’s so much warmth in his gaze that my heart is no longer fluttering. It’s full-on seizing up.

I elbow him. “You adore me, don’t you? If we were in Vegas, I’d make you marry me right now.”

He leans down and nips my earlobe. “We’re already married, little wife.”

I laugh against his shoulder.

“You’re the worst husband I’ve ever had,” I tell him. “That’s why I forgot. You haven’t made me come once.”

He shakes his head and lifts the scotch to his lovely mouth. “You’ve made me come so many times I’ve lost count.”

It takes me a minute to understand what he’s saying and…damn. As drunk as I am…damn. That was unexpectedly hot.

I look up at him from beneath my lashes. “I’d be so much better in real life than I am in your head.”

“I don’t know,” he says. “You begged for some incredibly filthy things. I was pretty shocked.”

I laugh. “But you went along with it.”

“Reluctantly, yes.”

His arm wraps around me and pulls my chair closer to his. More champagne is poured. We toast to unconsummated marriages, the best kind. And they really must be because I like him so much more than anyone I’ve dated. I like him so much more than most women seem to like their husbands.

He leans over and kisses me, sucking the champagne from my lips.

“Tell me the incredibly filthy things I begged you for,” I demand.

I expect him to ignore the question but instead, he presses his mouth to my ear. “There’s almost nothing I haven’t imagined you begging for,” he whispers. “You ask me to lick you out. You ask me to fuck your throat, to come in your ass.”

I liquefy. My insides are molten, useless to me now. “Ah, husband, you’ve given me an orgasm at last.”

He sucks in a breath and slams the entire glass of scotch. “I’m sorry it took me so long. Believe me, I wanted to do that months ago.”

I’m so drunk that the room is starting to spin, and he’s so drunk that his cheeks are flushed, and he’s admitting things he never would sober. I’m going to finish this champagne with him and then I’m going to kiss him again, harder.

And who knows what might happen after that?



* * *



? ? ?

Someone is knocking. On my skull.

No, on the door.

Jesus, I wish they’d stop. And I’ve got the hardest pillow under my head. I don’t even know why they’d make a pillow like this. It’s—