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Auden lifted a brow at her drunken indignation. “I’m not going to stop you. You want to go home with the redhead? Have your first time be sloppy, drunk sex with some random frat guy who fed you cheap liquor? That’s your call. But I’d like to wait until you’re sober enough to make that actual decision.”
She pursed her lips. “I’m not…drunk.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “Spell your name backward, Shaq.”
“O no L…” Her jaw clenched, and she lost the rhythm for a minute. “Fine. I might be…lil’ drunk. But I had to dosomething.You don’t know how hard it is. To do all this stuff. For the first time. It’s scary. I hate…” Her voice caught. “I hate feeling like I don’t know what I’m doing. No one’s ever told me how all these things are s’posed to work. I just have to figure it out all by myself, no instruction manual. I feel like an alien.”
Her words cut into him, making him hurt for her. He reached out and pushed her hair behind her ear. “You’re not an alien and you don’t have to figure it out all by yourself, okay? I’m here. And Len. Whatever you need. And I’m sorry. You’re right. It’s not fair that you were kept from so much. But drinking to get past the nerves is a dangerous game. I just don’t want you to do anything you’ll regret. We can stay with you until you’re clear-headed enough to make your own decisions tonight. Even if that decision ends up being the Irishman. Okay?”
The last part tasted sour on his tongue, but he forced himself to say it.
“Okay.” She stared at him for a long moment and then blinked, her eyes going shiny. “I don’t want to go home with Connall. He’s nice and he asked me to, but… I don’t know. I just don’t know…anything,it feels like.”
Relief coursed through Auden at the declaration, but he hated seeing her upset. “Hey, shh, it’s okay. You don’t have to know everything.”
Lennox met his gaze over her shoulder, concern there, and a silent conversation seemed to pass between them.
Auden nodded, took a breath, and then gently grabbed O’Neal’s wrists and hooked them around his neck. “Here. Let’s not overthink it. We can show you what a night out can be like. You want to dance tonight? Let’s dance. You want to get shit-faced? Get shit-faced and we’ll take care of you. You want to see what a hangover’s like? We’ll have hair of the dog ready in the morning.”
“Hair of what dog?” she asked, looking thoroughly confused.
“I’ll explain later,” he said. “Just…stop worrying for a little while. I’ve got you. Will you trust me on that?”
She nodded and tightened her arms around his neck, bringing her body closer. “Okay.”
“Yeah?” he asked, the warmth of her against him sending ripples of awareness through him.
“Yes.” Then she put her head on his shoulder. “Make sure Quyen’s okay too.”
Lennox squeezed her shoulder. “On it.”
Auden sent him a silent thank you, and Lennox went back toward the table. Auden rubbed his hand along O’Neal’s back. He meant it to be a soothing motion, but the silky feel of her skin beneath his fingertips was making his blood relocate southward. She made a soft, needy sound against his neck, and he started reciting the Latin prayers he’d learned as an altar boy to try to keep himself in check.Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi: miserere nobis…
Have mercy upon us.
He needed all the help he could get right now.
They finished out the song, and when another blended into the last and changed beats, they stayed on the dance floor. The new one had a heavier, pulsing beat, letting them slow down some. A song meant for grinding languidly against each other. Something he probably shouldn’t do.
He ignored the internal warning and pulled her a little closer, inhaling the scent of her hair.
“You look great tonight, by the way,” he said, tracing the curve of her spine with his fingers. “Your grandmother would have a heart attack.”
She laughed, her breath coasting against his neck. “It’s Quyen’s dress, would kill Nana for sure. Couldn’t even wear a bra—which feels weird. And she made me wear a thong because the dress shows panty lines. Like, who even cares if lines show?”
He groaned at her loose, drunken tongue. “Things you don’t need to tell me.”
“Why?” She lifted her head, the lights flashing blue over her skin and that wrinkle between her brows appearing again. He couldn’t tell if it was the liquor blocking the obvious answer or her inexperience.
“Because I’m pressed up against you, and the last thing I need to be thinking about is that all you’re wearing underneath that dress is a little strip of dental floss.” That if he slid his palms up that hem, there’d be nothing in the way if he wanted to give her ass a nice little smack, see her skin turn pink. His cock flexed against his fly.Shit.
Her eyebrows lifted. “That…turns you on?”
“No, O’Neal,” he said, dipping his head closer, the sex music getting into his bloodstream. “Youturn me on. I can usually put that aside, but telling me about what kind of panties you’re wearing makes that harder. Makesmehard, actually, so maybe let’s talk about the weather or the stock market or nuclear physics. How ’bout that Pythagorean theorem?”
She blinked. “You’re…hard?”
The way she said the word, with such wonder, sounded absolutely obscene to his ear. Against his better judgment, he slid his hand to her hip, and pulled her fully against him, nestling her against his stiffening cock.
