Tipsy by Cambria Hebert Page A

afraid I might snap.
    I dug my fingers into the blankets,
twisting the soft fabric around my hands and gripping it tightly,
hoping it would keep me grounded.
    But nothing could keep me from getting
lost in Blue.
    It was as if I were Alice in Wonderland
and he was the hole I fell through.
    His lips didn’t lift one time. The kiss
was continuous; it went on forever. It wasn’t demanding. It wasn’t
the kind that made my hips gyrate beneath him. It was something
that went beyond the search for an epic orgasm. It was the kind of
kiss that went further than my desire. It went deeper than my
vagina. Something about the way his lips lingered on mine, softly
caressing me with his tongue, made the beating of my heart slow to
a lazy, lethargic thump.
    Thump.
    Thump.
    Thump.
    When our lips finally stopped touching,
he looked at me once more. My vision was slightly skewed. I
blinked, bringing him and his amazing azure eyes back into
focus.
    “ Come on,” he said, his
voice whisper soft. “I want you to lock the door behind
me.”
    Even after he moved off the bed, I lay
there and stared up at the ceiling. I wasn’t sure my heart rate
would ever be the same again. How in the hell was I supposed to not
want him, to not be angry at his jerk-face ways when he freaking
kissed me like that?
    Blue did not play fair.
    Even still, when he offered his hand as
I pushed up off the bed, I accepted.
    After putting the knit cap back onto
his head, I followed him out of the bedroom and down the stairs
into my darkened living room. The soft glow of the nightlight in
the stairwell was the only illumination by the front
door.
    Blue turned to me, nothing but a shape
in the dark. “Promise me you’ll stay out of that bar.”
    “ I already told you I
would,” I said, exasperated.
    “ Lay low for a while,” he
said. I could feel his stare. “Unfortunately you’ve been connected
with my new identity.”
    “ Should I call you
Gray?”
    “ You don’t have to call me
anything because you won’t see me again.”
    My stomach sank. My heart rate sped up.
Disappointment was an ugly kind of feeling. “If you planned to
never see me again, why did you come here at all?” I said,
irritation seeping into my tone. When was he going to stop doing
this to me? When was he going to stop getting under my skin,
working his way into my chest… only to deny me what I truly
wanted.
    Damn. It was too late to take that
thought back. I couldn’t even convince myself of that lie. I wanted
Blue; nothing was going to change that. It was very apparent that
he was like my own personal brand of drug.
    He heaved a great sigh and stepped
forward. I stepped back. His hands dropped to his waist. “I told
you. I can’t stand the thought of you… hating me.”
    Oh, I didn’t hate him. But I wanted
to.
    “ So you thought making out
with me and then taking off into the night would make me less
mad?”
    “ This isn’t forever,” he
whispered, stepping forward. “Eventually this case will be
over.”
    “ So?”
    “ So then maybe you and
I…”
    “ Are you asking me to wait
for you?”
    He was silent a long moment. He sighed
heavily. “Yeah, I guess I am.”
    “ So you expect me to sit
around here for God knows how long and wonder if you’re making out
with some random chick in a seedy bar across town? You expect me to
wonder day after day if you’re hurt or if your cover was blown and
someone wants to kill you?”
    To his credit, he didn’t try to talk
his way out of that one. He didn’t try to deny what he did was
dangerous and if he had to make out with some girl, he would. If
he’d tried to deny it, I would have lost some respect for him
because he would have been lying.
    “ I get it,” he said
eventually, not making another move toward me. I ached for him. I
ached for that minimal distance between us to be gone. I ached for
those moments spent up in my bedroom when I was in his arms. He
turned and grabbed the door handle. But he didn’t pull