Inevitable Detour (Inevitability Book 1)(45)

I’m not sure how to respond, until I see in his faded but sparkling blue eyes that he’s teasing. Smiling, I say, “Kind of.”

I don’t plan to get annihilated tonight, but I sort of long to cut loose. This whole day has been about pushing boundaries and feeling free. I want to keep that vibe going.

When I return to the room and start taking things out of the bag, Farren raises an eyebrow. “Tequila, Essa?” he chides playfully.

“I figured we needed to loosen you up,” I tease back.

“Be careful what you wish for,” he retorts.

A couple of hours later, we’re seated in the middle of the king-sized bed that takes up most of the space in our small motel room. I am cross-legged. I’ve showered and changed into a pair of running shorts and a racer-back tank.

Farren is facing me. He leans back against the headboard, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He’s wearing faded jeans and nothing else. I’m trying not to stare at his smooth chest, ripped abs, and the fine trail of dark hair that disappears into his unbuttoned jeans. Oh, but not staring is tough.

Sighing, I force myself to look away. I’ll get some of that later.

Raising the bottle of tequila, I declare, “Time for another shot.”

“Go for it, killer,” Farren replies.

“I meant for you,” I say.

I’m a little tipsy, but Farren appears to be barely affected by the alcohol he’s consumed. Plying him with more might make him open up. Sure, he’s been forthcoming, far more so than at the beginning of the trip, but I sense he’s holding something back, something big.

I pour him a shot, and then hand him the glass along with the saltshaker and a wedge of the lime we cut up earlier.

Eyeing me mischievously, he grasps my ankles and straightens my legs from their cross-legged position. I tumble back slightly, giggling. That doesn’t deter Farren. He sits up, leans down, and licks the inside of my right thigh. He then sprinkles a little salt on my now-wet skin and licks it off slowly.

I can barely breathe.

When he straightens up, he raises his shot glass. “Cheers,” he says, smirking before downing the contents in two seconds flat.

While he sucks on his lime wedge, he pours me a shot. He pops the lime out of his mouth and says, “Your turn.”

“Okay.” I eye him seductively. “But I get to do a body shot, too.”

Laughing and lying back, he says, “You’ll get no argument from me.”

I contemplate whether to take my shot from his wide chest or his hard abs. “Decisions, decisions,” I murmur.

The abs ultimately win. And after licking, salting, and licking again, I throw back my shot.

I then sit up straight and say to Farren, “Tell me something about you that I don’t know.”

He laughs as he hands me a lime wedge. “Where would I begin?” he says.

I suck on the lime and smack his leg. “See,” I mumble around the lime. I take the wedge from my mouth and toss it onto the nightstand. “That just proves there’s still so much you haven’t told me.”

His expression turns grim. “What do you want to know, Essa?”

This is my chance to dig for more info, to possibly uncover more secrets. But do I really want to turn our fun, cut-loose night into something serious? It will turn to exactly that if I keep pressing Farren to divulge more regarding his line of employment. I decide I’d rather keep things light. So I focus on something more benign.

“Tell me about when you were a kid,” I say.

“Hasn’t Haven filled you in on all of this?” he asks tiredly.

“Sure, she’s told me some things. But those are her stories. I want to hear yours.”

“Okay, fine.” He crosses his arms across his smooth chest and leans back against the headboard again. “Do you want to hear a happy story or a sad story? I have plenty of both.”

“Happy,” I tell him.

“Hmm…” He appears lost in thought. “How about if I tell you a story from when my mother was still alive?”

“Sounds good.” I scoot a little closer to him. “All right, I’m ready.”

“One day,” he begins, “back when Haven was about seven, and I was around fourteen, we found this tiny stray kitten in the backyard of the rented house we were living in.”

“Was this in Buffalo?” I interject. “Haven told me you moved around a lot after your father left. But I think I remember her saying you and she spent a few years there when you were kids.”

“Yes, we were living in Buffalo at the time,” he confirms. “Anyway, the kitten was probably only a few weeks old. It was still at an age where it needed to nurse. But Haven and I couldn’t find his mother anywhere. We assumed something must have happened to her.”

“Aw,” I say, “that’s sad.”

“It was, but we gave the little guy a home.”

I smile, and he chuckles. “Shit, Essa, that kitten was such a raggedly little thing. He later turned into a pretty gray tabby, with dark stripes, but at the time he was this scrappy little puff of fur.”

“He sounds super cute,” I say softly.

Farren nods. “He was. So, since he was so young, we had to feed him with a dropper until he was old enough to eat solid food.”