I set my hands on my hips and loomed over her. “I’m trying to find out what the fuck you think you’re doing.”
She attempted to stand erect, tightening up her shoulders, but ended up stumbling a step to the left. “I...” She paused to hiccup. Damn, why did I have to think drunk chicks hiccupping was so adorable? “I’m going home. The bar closed. My...my date stood me up.”
A wrinkle between her eyebrows formed when she confessed that. She looked confused and hurt.
I sighed. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “You weren’t seriously going to drive home, though, were you? By yourself?”
She turned to look at her car as if considering her answer. Then she weaved sloppily back around. “Well, it certainly won’t fly me home.”
“Dear God.” I rubbed my forehead. “How can you have a PhD at twenty-three and be this naive?”
With a gasp, she pressed the flat of her palm against her chest. “How am I being naive?”
“How do you think? You can’t just drive home drunk. What if you got into an accident? What if you were pulled over? You’d go to jail and lose your job. Then you’d never be able to give some poor, dumb schmuck like me another D in your life.”
“You have a point,” she admitted. Then she turned her green eyes my way and looked so lost I wanted to sweep her up and soothe all her troubles away. “But how’m I supposed to get home?” Her shoulders drooped. “I jus’ wanna go home.”
I sighed. Damn it. If only there hadn’t been a catch in her miserable, despondent voice.
“I’ll call you a
cab,” I offered, already digging into my pocket. After working at the bar for as many months as I had, I had my favorite cab service listed on speed dial.
“But I can’t leave my car here.” She sounded aghast.
I paused, my thumb hovering over the dial button. “It’s okay. People do it all the time. This is a fairly safe parking lot. You can come back and pick it up in the morning, no problem.”
Chewing on her bottom lip, she eyed her dark sedan with worry.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath and pocketed the phone. “Okay, fine.” Jesus, I couldn’t believe I was actually going to offer this. “Give me your keys, and I’ll drive you home.”
She whirled to me with hope on her face, even as she said, “But what about your car? How will you get home?”
Shaking my head, I tried not to be charmed over the fact she was still cognizant enough to think about me. “I’ll just stay the night with you.”
“What?” She stumbled sideways as her mouth fell open.
I snickered. “Kidding. I’ll call a cab from your place and have them bring me back here for my ride.”
Okay, so I was too embarrassed to tell her I didn’t have a set of wheels. Since I only lived eight blocks away, I’d planned on walking home. But I could always call a cab from her place if I had to.
She blinked, and the move made her look like an owl. Cutest damn owl I’d ever seen. Glancing away because she still held me under her homing spell with her prettied-up face and sexy clothes, I blew out a breath, half-hoping she’d decline and let me call her a cab, and half-hoping I could spend another few minutes in her company while she was like this.
“You would do that for me?” The way she slurred her words sounded foreign coming from her perfect mouth because her speech was always so succinct in class. It was as if she was a completely different person. A person I was allowed to desire.
“Why would you do that for me?” She stared at me, all lost and confused again. “You hate me.”
“I don’t—” When I shook my head, I had to shove my hair out of my eyes. “I don’t hate you,” I said, softer this time. Far, far from it.
Her lips parted and I wanted to bite them—especially the fuller, lower one—then suck it into my mouth and lick the sting away.
Silently, she held out her keys to me. A surge of awareness sparked through my system.
I shouldn’t do this. It was dangerous. Tempting. She still had one side of her hair pulled up, though after the past few hours in the heat of the bar and in between the press of so many people, it had started to sag in places. Still...it looked tempting, as if someone had had his hands in it.
If only they could be my hands.
Giving in to her draw, I took the keys and sucked in a breath when her fingers brushed mine. God, this was going to be bad. I could already tell.