Until There Was You(57)
“Oh, so now you’re a doctor? How come you didn’t know I wasn’t having a heart attack, then?”
“Shush. Here’s the pillow, Princess Precious.”
“Can you tuck it under my rib? The one you broke?”
She sighed loudly and pulled the covers down—there was that beautiful, rippling torso again, hello, gorgeous—and leaned over him, as there really was no avoiding it. Tucked the pillow against his side, trying to channel an angel of mercy and not a lustful reprobate.
“How’s that?” she asked.
Apparently it was pretty good, because his hands were in her hair, and he pulled her face down to his, and he was kissing her—Liam Murphy was kissing her!—and it was so shocking and so warm and so utterly… His lips moved against hers, deepening the kiss. It was like being filled with light and heat and a melting weakness, oh, Elvis, it was amazing. Her hands were on his chest, his bare skin warm and perfect and so… God…it was so…so…
Over. It was over. Lips no longer on hers, hands no longer in hair.
Posey pulled back a little. His eyes were closed, lashes a dark smudge on his cheeks. “Liam?” she whispered.
There was a little smile on his mouth—the mouth that had been kissing hers. Otherwise, he was incommunicado. “Liam?” she said again, more loudly this time.
Nada. He was out cold. Down for the count.
She straightened abruptly. Face was burning, joints buzzing with adrenaline, chest filled with helium.
Liam Murphy had kissed her.
And he’d fallen asleep in the middle of it. She didn’t know whether to burst into song or kick something.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“COME ON, COME ON. This way. No time to lose. We don’t want the blue-hairs to take our spot,” Steve said.
A bit unclear on what that meant, Posey followed her date. That’s right, a date. She wasn’t about to sit around and wait for Liam Murphy to remember that he’d kissed her and either apologize or ask her out. It had been five days since The Kiss. Once his unconsciousness had been verified with a poke to the uncracked set of ribs, Posey had given him maybe thirty seconds to rouse, debating on kissing him again (because, man! That had been quite a kiss!) or smothering him, because obviously it hadn’t been quite a kiss for him…just a reflex or something. Whatever. Their paths hadn’t crossed since, and that was fine. Because even if he was worried about his daughter being left alone, and even if Posey couldn’t deny that he had the thickest eyelashes she’d ever seen, and even though her girl parts still yowled like her cats during a full moon at the thought of that kiss, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t a jerk. He was. Because only jerks went around kissing women in medicated stupors and then did nothing.
“Oh, fantastic. Here we go.” Steve steered her to a row of slot machines and pretty much shoved her onto a seat. “Good luck.” With that, he spread his coat, her coat and her backpack onto three other slot machines, swiped a card and began punching buttons.
“Okay, so I just…” Posey’s voice trailed off. Steve was engrossed already, muttering, staring at the screen.
Steve was Elise’s cousin—Elise had dozens, apparently, and Steve had moved back to the area recently. “You might like him?” Elise had suggested in her sing-song voice. “Right?”
“Is he a good guy?” Posey’d asked. “He’s not a serial killer or anything, is he?” Such high standards. But that kiss had solidified her resolve to stop being distracted by Liam Murphy. And given the number of times she had relived that bleeping kiss, she needed distraction. Quickly.
“Um…no? Not a serial killer, of course not. He’s a good guy…I think. It’s been a while since we really hung out? Like…when we were twelve. But yeah. I guess?”
It wasn’t exactly the glowing recommendation Posey was hoping for…but heck. Everyone had flaws, right? One date. What harm could there be in that? Elise had found a picture of Steve, and he was very cute, and what more could Posey want, right? Not a serial killer, quite cute. Someone, call a priest.
She and Steve emailed, then talked on the phone. She’d been hoping for a walk or a meeting in the park—the weather was gorgeous, and Posey had been weeding at The Meadows for two hours that afternoon, but Steve suggested something else. So here they were at the new Indian casino—Revenge on the White Man, as Posey thought of it. They’d exchanged the briefest of pleasantries, but it was now clear Steve wanted to get to work.
The casino was filled with a strange, discordant melody as hundreds of slot machines were played at once. There was a bitter smell in the air, too, from the smoking section. No one was dancing, not like on the casino commercials, and there didn’t seem to be a lot of happy, well-dressed younger people. No. A woman with pinktinged hair sat to Posey’s left, her oxygen canister taking up another slot machine. Apparently you could play more than one at a time.
“Hi,” Posey said. The lady didn’t answer, simply adjusted her sweatshirt, sucked in a deep breath of oxygen and swiped her card, which hung around her neck like an ID badge. Clearly, she was experienced. Four or five seats down was a tiny, ancient man with a walker, and next to him, a woman wearing a thick red wig, her gnarled hands punching the buttons with surprising force.
Posey reached into her pocket for a quarter, inserted, pulled the crank and lost. Six minutes later, the twenty dollars she’d brought for gambling purposes was gone. “I guess I’m done for the night,” she said aloud. Neither her date nor the old lady replied.