Collide (5 page)

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Shane lunged for her, but she turned away and
pressed herself up against the window, giggling a little bit and
spilling whiskey down the front of her dress. Her Vera fucking Wang
dress.

“Shit,” she murmured and then proceeded to
chug straight from the bottle, gasping and wiping the side of her
mouth before turning back to him. She offered it up to him, eyes
alive with mischief. “Want some?”

“I’m driving.”

“Oh,” a smile widened her mouth. “Sucks to be
you.”

“You already said that.”

“I just said it again.”

“No shit,” he gripped the steering wheel and
counted to five. “I’m not playing this game with you. Either you
give me that bottle so I can toss it or I’m going to haul your ass
outta here and you can take your chances with lover boy in
there.”

Her tongue darted out and licked the corner
of her mouth again and for some insane reason, his eyes followed
the movement, resting on her glossy, plump lips. A small puff of
air fell from between them as she exhaled sharply. One…then
another. And another.

“Can I finish it?” she asked sweetly.

Shane shook his head, not in the mood for her
drunken games and held out his hand. “Give me the bottle or…”

His warning hung in the air between them, and
though he knew he should just take it from her forcefully, there
was something about this game that kept him going.

“Or what?” she asked, licking her lips again
before tipping her head back and taking another quick drink.
“Jesus,” she shook her head. “Danny needs to upgrade his whiskey.
This stuff is shit.”

“Lady at this point, I’m surprised you can
taste anything.” He paused. “Give me the bottle.”

He didn’t wait for her answer because he
already knew what it was going to be. Ever since the summer he’d
turned twenty-two, since that first time he’d really noticed Bobbi,
he could probably count on one hand the number of times they agreed
on anything and usually, that only occurred when sex was involved
and they were arguing about who was going to be on top.

It was an argument Shane always lost because
he didn’t care. Sex with Bobbi, whether she was on top or he was,
was always hot. Always so fucking hot.

His pants were now so tight that even a quick
shift did nothing to alleviate the pressure between his legs.
Shane’s mood blackened—how the hell could he be pissed and horny as
hell at the same time? In one quick move he grabbed the bottle from
her and rolled down the window, ignoring the curses thrown at him
as he tossed it outside.

“I would have finished it you Neanderthal.
Want not waste not,” she muttered.

“You’ve got that backward as usual,” he
glowered at her and snapped, “buckle up.” He turned from her and
glanced into mirror as he backed his truck out and pointed it
toward the road.

She spewed forth an epic amount of curse
words—even for her—as she struggled with the belt buckle.

“Been saving those up have you?”

“What?” She blew her hair out of her eyes as
she continued to fumble with the seatbelt and just when he thought
he was going to have to pull over and do the damn thing up himself,
she snapped it into place and grinned at him. “See?” She leaned
back. “I’m not drunk.”

He didn’t answer. Instead he concentrated on
the road and decided the only way to deal with Bobbi was to stay
quiet and keep his head low. He would get her home and finish off
the bottle of single malt scotch he’d been saving for an
occasion—if this wasn’t an occasion he didn’t know what was—and he
would damn well forget all about Bobbi and her wedding day
fiasco.

She settled against the door, still
shivering, and he blasted the heat as an uneasy silence filled the
air around him. New Waterford was well over an hour away and with
the weather sucking like it was, he’d be lucky to get her home in
less than two.

In fact, the drive home took nearly four
hours. An accident on the Interstate held things up and then it was
slow going after that as the wet snow became mixed with freezing
rain. By the time he reached New Waterford, it was nearly
eleven.

Shane glanced over at his passenger—one who’d
passed out at the two hour mark. She was curled against the window,
the now ratty looking fur thing draped across her chest, and her
face was hidden by a tangled mess of hair.

He pulled up at the stop light on the other
side of the bridge and while he waited for it to turn green, he
glanced down at his cell. There were more than a dozen text
messages from Billie and only one from his buddy Logan saying,
‘
you alright
?’

Shane blew out a hot breath and pressed his
foot onto the gas pedal. Was he alright? Hell the fuck no. His plan
for the last few months had been working—avoid Bobbi at all costs.
Do not engage, and definitely don’t let her get inside your head.
So how had he managed to find himself embroiled in the middle of
Bobbi’s wedding day shit?

“Fuck,” he muttered, glancing at the still
slumbering woman.

He thought of Gerald Dooley—and he couldn’t
lie—a sense of something other than pity rolled over him. The guy
had always been a tool. A boring, lame ass tool. What had Bobbi
expected?

He crossed the bridge, hung a left and
followed the river until he turned down Bobbi’s street. It had been
ages since he’d been this way and though it seemed that everything
in his life had changed, he realized there was still a hell of a
lot that hadn’t.

There was still one woman who managed to
screw it up even more than it already was.

Shane stopped the truck near the edge of the
driveway and put it in park, letting the engine idle as he gazed at
the house. It was dark, no stars in the sky tonight, but the porch
lights were on and a warm glow fell from the windows on the main
level. He spied Logan’s truck as well as Dooley’s black SUV parked
behind Herschel’s old Ford. Billie’s small compact was nowhere to
be seen, but then he supposed it was what she had used to get to
The Hard Rock.

He gripped the steering wheel a little
tighter and his eyes lingered on the decorations that waved gently
in the wind. A large sign on the back of Dooley’s vehicle said,
‘Just Married’ though it had come loose and it too, dangled in the
breeze.

Just like his fiancé.

A harsh smile lifted his lips and he turned
to Bobbi again. Her hand was curled underneath her chin, her
breaths deep and even. That mad mess of hair was all over the place
so her features were hidden, though her plump lips were visible.
She moaned slightly and turned toward the window and it was then
that his reality rolled away. He felt it peel back and the
sensation was sharp.

Something hard—something he couldn’t
name—punched him in the gut and Shane undid his seatbelt. He slid
over and before he could stop himself, gently moved the hair behind
her ear. He wasn’t sure how long he stared down at the simple
Gaelic symbol that was there, the same one he had tattooed onto his
left bicep. It meant ‘forever.’

It
had
meant that she was his
forever.

His forefinger brushed along the lines and in
that moment everything he’d ever felt for Bobbi crashed into him.
It left him burning. Shaking. It left him full and then empty. He
remembered the day they’d gotten the tattoos. He remembered how
she’d wanted hers put in that spot—the spot he loved to lick and
kiss. The spot that had her trembling in his arms.

It was his spot. And he couldn’t believe it
was still there.

She moved beneath his touch and he removed
his hand as she slowly murmured something. Her eyes flickered open
and she glanced out the window, wincing as her head fell back
against the cold glass.

“Please take me somewhere else,” she
whispered, her shaking hand tugging at her hair as she exhaled and
closed her eyes.

Shane eyed that tattoo again and before he
could stop himself, he put the truck in gear and drove off into the
night.

He knew he was crazy. Hell, he was full blown
mental to even consider getting involved in her shit, but for
whatever reason he didn’t want to analyze his reaction. Didn’t want
to think about the consequence. All he knew was, in that moment, he
didn’t want Bobbi anywhere near Gerald Dooley.

He wanted her back at his place. In his bed.
He wanted her trembling in his arms while he nuzzled that spot.
His spot
.

After everything he’d been through, what the
hell was that all about?

Bobbi woke up swimming in a haze of sunlight
and pain. With a groan she rolled over and winced, burying her head
in the pillow in an attempt to block out the light.

Oh God, what the hell had she done last
night? It felt as if she had drank an entire bottle of…

Oh, wait. Something stirred in her mind and
she groaned again. She
had
downed an entire bottle of
whiskey, or damn near all of it. And maybe some tequila thrown in
as well. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. She hadn’t touched a drop of
alcohol other than the occasional glass of wine in years.

Intoxication and control didn’t go hand in
hand, and lord knows she was all about control these days. What the
hell had she been thinking?

Right. She hadn’t been thinking. Because
thinking and control went hand in hand and the alcohol had totally
trumped them both.

Bobbi waited a few seconds for her head to
settle and then a few more while her stomach stopped rolling, and
then she opened one eye, swearing as the sunlight streaming in from
the window hit her dead center. Slowly, her vision focused, and she
let out a yelp—which only made her head pound worse—and rolled off
the bed in a hurry.

Clutching her cranium she turned back and
stared into the dark eyes of a dog with a longish coat the color of
caramel. No, not so much a dog but a mutt really, one who was on
the bed as if it had every right to be—which for all Bobbi knew, it
did.

The dog rose and hopped off the bed. It ran
over to Bobbi’s side as if waiting for her to do something. Its
ears were overly long, with tufts of white hair gracing the ends
and its eyes were as big as a deer’s. Its short stubby tail wagged
madly, so hard in fact that Bobbi was afraid it would fall
over.

“Who are you?” she murmured, glancing down at
herself and noticing for the first time she was dressed in nothing
but a T-shirt—a large men’s T-shirt that hung nearly to her knees.
She flipped up the edge and felt a wave of relief when she saw her
black panties were still on. Though, as her hands crept up to her
chest she realized she was braless.

That feeling in her gut—the one that told her
shit was about to hit—shot up a few notches as she pushed her
tangled hair from her face and glanced around what was, without a
doubt, a bedroom. There was a bed. And it was in a room.

She was in someone’s bedroom. Shit.

She spied her wedding dress draped over a
comfy looking chair and crossed over to it quickly, her hand at her
temples as she reached for the expensive raw silk gown. Memories
were slowly starting to filter through the haze inside her head as
she gazed at the stains that marred the otherwise perfect dress.
Then the dread in her stomach ramped up to an extreme level of
alarm.

Where was she?

Her fingers trailed over the bodice and then
her gaze moved to the jeans slung over the arm rest. Faded
jeans.

Guy jeans.

Faded guy jeans.

For one second her world tipped a little to
the left and if she hadn’t immediately reached for the chair she
probably would have fallen on her ass.
Hold on
, she thought,
breathing through her nose and exhaling slowly as she fought to
keep her world balanced.

The Hard Rock.

Danny the bartender.

Whiskey.

She shuddered. Tequila.

Damn, the tequila.

Shane
.

Her head whipped up, which was the wrong
thing to do because pain took over again and she stumbled to her
right, stubbing her toe on the edge of the chair and cursing like a
sailor as she struggled to keep herself from falling on her
ass.

What the hell had she done?

Carefully Bobbi turned in a circle. She saw
the massive king size bed, the plain navy blue bed sheets—bed
sheets that were a tangled mess—and she swallowed hard as she
dragged her eyes away. There wasn’t much furniture in the room. A
large armoire stood between two floor to ceiling windows, its
elegant design simple, and other than the chair and a desk on the
opposite wall, the room was empty.

The floors were dark wood, from the looks of
them refurbished. And they were cold. Cripes, were they cold. She
curled her toes and ran her hands along her arms, her eyes falling
back to the dog. A dog that had a pink collar with silver studs and
diamonds that twinkled. The fear inside her tripled. Shane had a
dog. She was sure she’d heard Billie talking about the animal. It
had a weird name.

Bobbi glanced toward the closed door and then
bent toward the animal, “Come here doggie.”

The animal cocked its head to the side and
for a brief moment, Bobbi felt as if she were staring into the eyes
of a human—one who knew way too much.

The dog’s tail wagged even harder, its entire
back end rocking, and then it ran to her side, tongue lolling to
the side as it barked.

“Shush,” she whispered, glancing at the door
once more as she bent over and grabbed the tag. It was as pink as
the collar, with a phone number engraved on the back and when she
turned it over, she saw the animal’s name.

Pia.

“That’s it,” she said hoarsely, reeling away
from the animal. “You’re Shane’s.”

The dog looked at her as if she was an
idiot—which apparently she was considering the day after her
wedding-that-never-happened, she was dressed in next to nothing…in
Shane’s bedroom.