Susan Mallery - Completely Smitten

Just perfect. “And after your college experience?”

“I went back home, where I got my master’s in music and finished up the courses I needed for my teaching credentials. I graduated with honors.”

She reached for her glass. Her hand missed the stem by about three inches. She stretched out her fingers, then curled them into her palm.

“My skin feels funny,” she said. “My cheeks tingle.”

Kevin swore silently. He glanced at the nearly finished second drink, then turned his attention to the bartender drying glasses with a dirty towel.

“Doubles?” he asked.

The old man grinned. “Thought you might want to get lucky.”

Perfect. Just perfect. In less than forty minutes the nondrinking preacher’s daughter had just consumed the equivalent of four shots of tequila. The full effect of the alcohol wasn’t going to hit for about twenty more minutes. He would bet a week’s salary that she would be on her butt about thirty seconds after that.

He slapped some money onto the bar and stood. “Come on, Haley. I’m going to get you out of here while you can still walk. Have you got a hotel room?”

She blinked at him. “I can walk.”

“Sure you can. Why don’t you try?”

She wore the ugliest beige shoes he’d ever seen, but at least the heel wasn’t too high. When she slid off the stool, she stood straight just long enough to give him hope. Maybe he’d overreacted. Maybe—

She swayed so far to the left, she nearly toppled over.

“Am I drunk?” she asked, sounding delighted as she managed to stand straight. “The room is spinning. Wow. This is so cool.”

Yeah, everything was cool to her. “Do you have a motel room?” he repeated, speaking slowly and deliberately.

“Yeah. The pink one. I liked the color. It’s over there. Outside.”

She pointed to the exit and nearly fell on her face. Kevin gritted his teeth.

“Put your arm around my shoulders,” he instructed as he wrapped an arm around her waist.

His first impression was of heat; his second, of slender curves that got his body’s attention in a big way.

Instead of following orders, Haley simply sagged against him. “You smell good,” she said as he half carried her toward the door.

“Thanks.”

He would get her to her motel and leave, he told himself. She would probably pass out in a matter of seconds and wake up with a hangover big enough to cure her of ever wanting another margarita. She’d made it this far without him, she would get to wherever she was going without his assistance.

Kevin knew he was trying to convince himself that he wasn’t responsible for Haley. Unfortunately he wasn’t doing a very good job.

They stepped into the sultry evening air. Haley sucked in a deep breath, then turned to look at him. As she was leaning against him, her face rested on his shoulder. Her mouth was inches from his. One of her wisps of blond hair brushed against his cheek.

“So,” Haley said, licking her lips. “Is this where you take advantage of me?”

“What?”

She blinked slowly, then smiled. “I don’t think I’d mind.”

She wouldn’t mind?

Kevin did his best to ignore the sexual desire that slammed into him the second she spoke the words. His unexpected attraction to Haley couldn’t begin to matter. Not with circumstances being what they were. She was drunk, alone, out of her element and, with his luck, a virgin. Thanks, but not tonight.

Lightning cut across the sky, as if warning him the Almighty was keeping tabs on the evening’s events. With that in mind, Kevin ignored the curves pressing against his body and the way those curves made him feel. She might be a little slimmer than he’d first realized, but she seemed to have everything in the right place under her ugly dress. Not that he was going to be checking her out.

“Did you say a pink motel?” he asked, looking around at the motor inns on both sides of the highway.

“Uh-huh. There’s flamingos.” She blinked at him. “I like birds.”

“Good to know.”

He spotted a low, two-story structure that matched her description. He mentally cringed at the plastic flamingos stuck into the cement. If the place looked this bad at night, what did it look like in the light of day? Of course, there was no accounting for taste.

At least they didn’t have to cross the highway to get there. The motel was only a couple hundred yards up the frontage road.

“Let’s start walking,” he said, still supporting most of her weight.

A second bolt of lightning illuminated the sky.

“Look!” Haley said, pointing at the heavens. “Don’t you love lightning? Don’t you wish it would rain?”

“Sure.”

Because a douse of cold water might cool him off. Drunk women begging to be taken advantage of were nothing but trouble. He had to keep reminding himself of that as Haley’s soft blond hair brushed against his cheek.

He got them moving in the direction of the motel. Haley was still upright and remotely mobile, but he had a feeling that was going to be changing in the next few minutes. At least she was still managing full sentences.

“Do you know your room number?”

Rather than answer, she sighed. He felt the soft puff of air on his cheek.

“You never answered my question,” she said instead.

“What question?”

He made the mistake of looking at her face—at her blue-hazel eyes and the curves at the corners of her mouth. At the knowing expression that heated his blood and made him consider possibilities.

“No way,” he muttered more to himself than to her. He was not going there with her.

She pushed away from him and tried to stand on her own. She was nearly successful. With her feet firmly planted, she swayed back and forth, stumbled a step, then regained her balance by holding her arms out a little on each side.

“What is it about me?” she demanded. “Why don’t men want to take advantage of me? Am I ugly? Is my body hideous?”

Did they really need to be having this conversation now? He eyed the night sky—thick with clouds and the promise of rain. More lightning flashed in the distance.

“We’re going to get soaked in about thirty seconds,” he said.

She glared at him. “I mean it. What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing’s wrong with you.”

“So why don’t you want to have—”

For a second he thought she was actually going to say “sex” but at the last minute she pressed her lips together and stared meaningfully. At least he assumed that’s what she was doing. That and tipping over.

He grabbed her around the waist and hauled her against him.

“Walk,” he commanded.

She started moving.

“Tell me,” she demanded. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Like I said—nothing. It’s not you.” Hell, why not just tell her the truth? “It’s the whole preacher’s daughter thing. No one wants to spit in the eye of God.”

She considered that while they crossed the rest of the bar’s parking lot and stepped onto the motel parking lot.

“What about forbidden flute?”

The flute thing threw him for a second. “Do you mean ‘fruit’?”

She nodded vigorously and nearly collapsed. “My head is spinning,” she said, sounding as thrilled as a kid at a carnival. “The sky’s spinning, too.”

“Great.”

“I can be fruit,” she insisted.

“If that’s what you want.”

“Don’t you think of me that way? Aren’t I a temptation?”

He was impressed she could manage a three-syllable word. Unfortunately, while her verbal skills remained intact, her motor skills were fading fast. He had to support more and more of her weight to keep them moving toward the motel.