“Soft.” The word was a gravelly purr. His eyelids drooped, and Tina watched, transfixed, as he lifted his other hand to remove the cigar from his mouth before leaning in as if to kiss her.
Uh-uh!
She stepped back just before his mouth descended, and he staggered, wrong-footed by her move.
“C’mon, Tina, let me taste you again,” he crooned.
“Why? Do you have more money riding on it?”
He looked mystified by her question, and she made a rude sound in the back of her throat at his show of ignorance. She shoved him, her flattened palms against his hard chest, and he stumbled, reinforcing her belief that he must be on something. She wouldn’t have been able to budge him if he were sober. And now she tortured herself by wondering if he’d taken whatever it was after he’d made his disgusting bet. Something to help him blur out the reality of touching her and kissing her. “Don’t you ever come near me again!”
“What the fuck?” He sounded completely outraged by her command, and she swallowed back the hysterical burble of laughter that threatened to escape. It was one of the many bizarre coping mechanisms she’d come up with to make her life a little more bearable. Laughter in place of tears. But if something hurt enough, the laughter would eventually dissolve into tears, so it wasn’t a very effective stratagem. “What’s your problem? You were keen enough an hour ago.”
“That was before,” she snapped, and he blinked, looking confused. “Before I realized I was the evening’s entertainment. Did you and your buddies have a good laugh at my expense? The pathetic loser who thought she could mean something to someone like you?”
“You’re hysterical.” He dismissed her in that horribly casual way some guys had when it came to women and their opinions. It pissed her off. She was humiliated, angry, and very hurt, and hearing him disparage all that as hysteria pushed her over a precipice she hadn’t even recognized was looming right in front of her.
She balled her hand into a fist, hauled back, and completely shocked herself by punching him. He was leaning toward her, which was the only reason she managed to hit her target with such devastating accuracy. Pain shot up through her fingers and reverberated all the way up her arm. Her cry of agony mingled with his, and she couldn’t be sure if the crunch she’d felt was his nose or her knuckles. He reeled back and lost his footing entirely, landing on his butt, with his hand cupped protectively over his nose. There was blood. A lot of it. And that—along with the uncharacteristic violence of her action—made her feel sick to her stomach. Her hand throbbed, and she cradled it against her chest, lifting her left hand over her mouth to force back the nausea.
“You broke my nose!” he exclaimed furiously, blood dripping down over his mouth and jaw. Tina gagged at the sight of it and fought valiantly to keep her stomach contents down.
“If I never see you again, it’ll be too soon, Harris,” she said, her voice quiet. “What you did was despicable, and I . . . I hate you for it.”
“Tina.” Just her name. She didn’t know what to make of it. Especially when he’d said it in that quiet, regretful voice.
She shook her head, her sight blurring as she backed out of the room. He didn’t move, merely watching her, blood staining the fabric of his shirt and trousers.
Harris blurrily watched Tina leave—he was having a hard time focusing. He didn’t know what was wrong with him. All he knew was that Tina was mad at him; she had shouted at him, hit him. He frowned, the last thought distracting him as he lifted his hand from his nose and stared at the blood on his palm in fascination. He could feel the liquid warmth dripping onto his bare chest.
Why was his shirt undone? Where were his shoes? That’s when he remembered . . .
Tina . . . they had made love. He smiled at the memory . . . and then winced when the movement of his lips sent a shaft of pain stabbing through his nose and straight into his brain.
His nose was broken.
Something was wrong. He couldn’t quite figure out what. He was hurt. And he was confused, and something had happened. With Tina.
She had looked so beautiful tonight. Her dress had been shiny and pretty, like gift wrapping. He had wanted to unwrap her and keep her as his own.
He had unwrapped her. Unwrapped all that pretty perfection.
He blinked. Why was everything so blurry and out of focus? What was wrong with him?
His last thought before he passed out was that Tina was angry with him. And he needed to find her and make things right.