“You really are a hell of a lot beautiful. So fucking beautiful, Valencia.” He cups my cheeks and breathes out a sigh, his thumb brushing over my lower lip. “Don’t be like my mother who never got over my father. Don’t ruin yourself for a man who can’t see it like you do. Don’t let Giulio hold you back from loving somebody else again. I see so much potential in you.”
“Bryce…”
“It makes me want to kiss you and do whatever you want me to.”
“You’re not…him.”
“I can be whoever you want if you let me, babe. I’m not saying forever ‘cause I’ve never done love…but I can ease your pain, even if that’s just for one night only.”
“You want me?”
A moment passes between us. All the sound around me fades, all but my throbbing head. Bryce swallows, dead serious for the first time tonight.
“Yes. I want you,” he whispers, arousal evident in his voice. “Do you want me?”
The moment our drunken eyes meet, I keep on blinking flashes of Giulio in my mind. It’s as if he’s the one on top of me, not Bryce. He’s the one smiling down with his perfectly sculpted face and toned muscles I want to run my hands down. That lower lip I want to erotically tug before kissing him like he’ll never forget. Those alluring eyes I want to never lose sight of as I devour him.
Giulio.
That’s who I want right now in his drunken state.
“I think I’m too far gone to answer that.”
McCarson bites his lip when he catches me staring at his hand tattoo. “You like the ink?”
I shrug.
“Don’t leave me hanging. Do you like it, babe?”
I giggle. “I’m not your babe…and still deciding.”
“Fuck the decisions,” he whispers in a chuckle and drops his lips to my neck. They hover over my hot skin, silently asking for permission. “Sometimes you’ve just gotta live in the moment.” His unsolicited kisses evoke a thrilling sensation as they trail down my neck to my collarbone. It’s there where he swirls the tip of his tongue and bites down with a playful growl. “Let me help you move on.”
No.
We’ve taken this too far.
The alcohol buzzes inside me. “No, I…”
My hands shove at his chest, needing him off of me. Bryce backs up to study me for a moment. I’m not sure what he sees in me, but adrenaline kicks in when he lowers his body on mine again. It leaves me to rest to my hands above my head and that gives him gives him the upper hand.
Bad move.
My thoughts of Giulio must have provided the silence he mistook as a ‘yes.’
“Bryce, please get off me.”
“Forget all about Giulio tonight. You don’t deserve a man who doesn’t stand by you.”
“No.”
His rough beard grazes against my soft skin. That spicy bergamot has my stomach churning. I need him off. I don’t want to forget all about Giulio.
Bryce is still by my neck, roughly kissing my fragile skin. His hands remain away from my body, but this is still too much. I don’t want it and if he was sober enough, he would notice it. But he’s too far gone and so am I.
“Please, stop. Don’t ruin our progress.”
“This would improve our progress.”
Why can nobody see us?
I flutter my eyes open to tears spilling and whimper against his kisses against my skin. Thrashing my limbs does nothing. I shove his shoulders, but still, he doesn’t budge.
“Maybe you want this, babe. Deep down you want this with another man,” he says, all while I’m shaking my head. “You do. I know you do. You deserve better. Tell me the word and we’ll forget about everything else.”
This can’t be happening.
I should have never stayed. I shouldn’t have drunk this much.
I am about to protest further when Bryce is violently yanked off of me. The distant music falls off key and then stops altogether. The chatter dies down and I finally summon the strength to sit up to observe the scene.
“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Giulio has Bryce in a headlock against the wall. His roar is so distressed the entire bar turns to look. My vision blurs and it takes a second to see clearly. I can just make out the pulsing veins in his neck in my dizzy haze.
I think I’m going to be sick.
“Nothing.” Bryce has the audacity to laugh it off. “I wanted to show Valencia what she’s missing, but she’s still hung up on ya.”
It all happens so fast. Blood sprays between them and the confidence dissolves from McCarson’s face. Giulio punches Bryce again and an unpleasant groan escapes the Englishman, who attempts to retaliate, only to be slammed against the wall once again, his head crashing against the tiles.
“That’s what you get for touching my family.” Giulio grits, gripping the collar of his worker’s bloodied jean jacket to emphasize his point. “What did you do to her? HEY! I said what DID YOU DO TO THE LOVE OF MY LIFE?”
The love of his life.
“Fuck, man! I think ya broke my nose!”
“I will break every single bone in your body. What the fuck did you do?”
The middle-aged bartender rushes towards both men. Acting as a barrier, he turns to Giulio with an irritated look. “Ya better leave and I advise ya to never step foot in here again.”
“Are you seriously taking his side—”
“Giulio,” I call out, my cry a small plea. “Please can you…”
There is nothing more I want than to leave this place.
I can still smell the lingering bergamot against my skin when Giulio nears me. His entire composure breaks at the sight. When his secure hands pull me into a gentle embrace, it doesn’t feel strange or foreign, it feels like home. My salvation.
“It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe. You’re safe with me.”
“Giulio…I’m sorry.”
Our prolonged touch and vigorously beating hearts is all I need to know I’ll be okay.
I breathe in Giulio’s husky smell and it transports me to a place of comfort. A place beyond my spinning head
