Relish: A Vicious Feast Book 2 (18 page)

His lips met mine and soon the taste of coffee and chocolate mixed with Worcestershire sauce passed back and forth between us. I wasn’t sure what got me drunk more, the Guinness or Graham’s kisses. My fingers traced along his jaw, reveling in the day old scruff there.

Soon he grew tired of just kissing. His hand moved from my hip to grab my breast. Yes, I was drunk, but not drunk enough to have sex with a relative stranger in a dingy alley. I twisted his fingers away from my breast and guided them back to my hip. A couple of sloppy, drunken kisses later, he moved the hand to my ass, plastering me against the evident bulge in his tight pants.

I squirmed away, placing my hands on his chest. “Maybe we should get back to the guys. There’s another glass of the black stuff with my name on it.”

He responded by shoving his tongue down my throat. I squealed, which he took as a moan. He bared his weight down. I struggled to push him off me, but he used his hips to keep me pinned against the wall. I punched at his shoulders. No go. I tried to knee him in the balls. The guy knew how to stand so that wouldn’t happen. I kept getting his thigh. Out of other options, I bit down on his lower lip until I tasted blood.

That pulled Graham away. “You bitch.” He touched the cut on his lip before he slapped me hard across the face.

Unsteady because of the alcohol, I fell to the ground, knocking over a stack of crates. Pain exploded in my palms and hip when I landed on my side. My ears rang from the blow and my vision doubled. Graham straddled my waist and turned me over.

“You think you’re too good for me, is that it?” Spit from the force of his words rained down on my face. The nausea I’d managed to keep at bay reared its ugly head, twisting my stomach so violently that I tasted bile immediately. I forced myself to swallow to be able to scream. Surely someone would hear me. It wasn’t that late yet. I couldn’t remember.

Graham grabbed my shoulders and shook me. The back of my head slammed against the ground. My vision tunneled. I hovered between consciousness and passing out. In the back of my mind I knew if I fainted it would all be over. I needed to fight, but my arms were deadweights at my sides, my legs were like jelly. Graham bent down again, attempting to kiss me. I twisted away, moaning for him to stop.

Suddenly his weight lifted off me. I rolled to my side and finally all the undigested Guinness and French fries came up. I forced myself to push up on all fours to keep puke from covering my entire body. I heaved so badly my back bowed.

In the distance, I heard scuffling then a thud. Then Graham said, “You arsehole!”

Several more thuds followed. There might have been flashing lights, but I had my back to the entrance of the alley, still too busy puking to care about much of anything other than heaving my soul out of my body.       

When I had nothing left, my body shuddering one last time, rough hands turned me over. At first I thought Graham had returned to finish what he’d started. I curled into myself for protection. My world still spun for me to get a good look at who hovered over me. The hands wouldn’t let me escape. One wrapped around my shoulders while the other slung beneath my knees. In one heave, I was lifted up until I rested against a solid chest. The flashing lights continued. Where the hell were they coming from? I shielded my face on reflex, grimacing from the headache already threatening to detonate inside my two-sizes-too-big head. My gut tied into a complicated knot. I inhaled to settle it and the sweet and spice that entered my lungs made me gasp. I looked up but my vision still hadn’t cleared, blinded by the flashing lights, but I knew that smell.

“Luka?” I whispered.

“Shhh,” came his reply.

Rapid fire questions from disembodied voices flew our way, preventing me from saying anything else. Luka’s steps hurried toward somewhere. I wanted to beg him to slow down, but I was trying so hard not to puke all over him. I thought I was done. Damn the Guinness. I should have listened to Shaun. Actually, I shouldn’t have gone on the pub crawl. Regrets always came after the fact.

In seconds, Luka ducked into a warm place with a single light source above us. He sat down and positioned me over his lap. A door closed, plunging us in darkness. My head lolled against his shoulder. I closed my hand over his chest, grabbing a fistful of his sweater.

“Drive,” he said, I assumed, to Eli.

The sudden jerk of the SUV made me moan, snuggling closer into the protection of his arms. I kept my eye closed. He smoothed my hair away from my face. Then just when relief washed over me, uncontrollable tears leaked out of my eye. I buried my face in his chest.

“It’s okay now,” he said in his smooth as caramel voice. “You’re alright.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t even care how he found me, only thankful that he did. A whirring sound cut my sobs off for a moment. He must have closed the privacy divider. I didn’t bother to look.

“Graham,” I whispered.

Luka’s hand clenched over my head, tugging at my hair. “That bastard won’t ever lay a hand on you again. I promise you that.”

“You hit him?”

“Don’t worry about it. Just rest. We’ll be at the hotel soon.”

I moaned, the alcohol finally rushing to my head. “You saved me.”

“You shouldn’t have run off like that.”

My thoughts fragmented. I had no words coherent enough to form a proper response. Instead I buried myself deeper into his embrace, and his hand loosened against my hair. If I could meld our bodies together I would have. The warm glow of Guinness dissipated, leaving my body cold and shivering. Unable to concentrate on anything other than how Luka’s scent reminded me of Christmas blend coffee, I let the darkness take me.   

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
S
TUPIDITY

Arguing voices, though hushed and hissed, woke me from one of the deepest slumbers I’d ever experienced in my life. I wished they hadn’t though since the second I surfaced from the dreamless darkness, percussion grenades of pain exploded one after the other in my head. Add to that the pins and needles running up and down my arm dangling off the side of the bed. How I ended up on my stomach when I usually slept on my back was beyond me. In fact, I had no recollection of how I got into bed, let alone my hotel room last night.

I pulled the numb limb to my chest and rolled over, groaning the whole way.
Boom.
Another grenade. On instinct, despite the agony, I reached up with my non-numb hand for my patch. The velvet dome remained secure. One thing less to worry about. So I moved the hand from my patch to my forehead and wiped it down like a squeegee over my face. The argument continued; both speakers clearly unaware of my wakefulness.

“Do you know how much damage control I have to do?” Yana’s voice climbed an octave with each word she uttered.

“You weren’t there,” came Luka’s calmer, albeit still upset response. Without opening my eye I knew he gritted his teeth based on the muffled way he spoke. His lips must be such a thin line.

“You’re lucky his lawyers aren’t pressing charges!”

“He’s lucky he’s still alive.”

“Well, thank God for Eli then.”

Fed up, with the argument and World War III currently in full swing in my head, I peeked out from between my finger slits and said, “Do you two really need to fight this out in my room?” I groaned afterward. Words hurt too. Speaking impossibly difficult. Oh, if only I could remove my head then reattach it after a ceasefire. I buried my face in a pillow that smelled of coffee and chocolate. My stomach roiled. Stupid Guinness. Never drinking it again.

A pause in the argument, then Luka said, “Do what you have to do. But I’m not apologizing after what that asshole did to her.”

When he said “her” I imagined him pointing in my direction. I curled into a ball beneath a ton of comforters. I may never leave this bed ever again.

“You shouldn’t,” Yana answered with conviction. “The bastard’s lucky I wasn’t there. Honey, do you need anything?”

“Death?” I said into the pillow.

“How much did she have to drink?” she asked Luka.

“That’s another thing I want to beat Graham for.” He huffed. I got the feeling his fingers raked through his silken curls. I wanted to watch the whole thing, but light entering my eye felt like an icepick to the brain at the moment. 

Yana asked. “We’re wheels up in a couple of hours. Is she well enough to travel to Belfast?”

“I’ll think of something. Just get everything done on your end.”

“You better.” Then a soft shuffling followed by the equally soft clicking of a door closing, which sounded like the bells of Notre Dame to my ears. If I could, I would have buried myself deeper into the mattress.

Quiet footfalls neared the bed then the mattress dipped. My stomach didn’t appreciate the movement. I pivoted to the edge only to be met with an empty trashcan in my face. Not caring how it got there, I puked. My heaving was the most horrible sound I’d ever heard. Someone dying could not have done better. A hand rubbed up and down my back in soothing strokes.

Once I’d sufficiently deposited all my insides into the most unlucky trashcan in the world, I pushed it away and flopped onto my back, flinging an arm over my patch and eye. “I’m never drinking ever again.” I puffed then burped vile tasting air.

“Said the girl who downed at least six pints of Guinness last night,” Luka said, humor in his tone, as he rose from the bed to, I assumed, get rid of the trashcan.

“You spying on me?” With nothing left to upchuck, my senses focused on the battle waging in my head. “Can you grab me a couple Aspirin and a glass of water?”

“Me, spying?” A pause. “More like Eli.”

A nasty
glug
,
glug
,
glug
accompanied his words. I grimaced, my stomach not ready for what he had planned.

“Under your orders,” I accused.

“I admit, it’s not beneath me to have you watched, but Eli actually volunteered to keep an eye on you before I could even suggest it. If I didn’t know any better, I think he’s taken it upon himself to keep you safe.” The mattress dipped again. “Here, drink this.”

Forcing myself into a sitting position while he plumped three pillows behind me for support, I squinted at the sickly green concoction in the glass he held. I rubbed my stomach and swallowed. “I think I’m going to be sick again.”

Luka brought the glass closer to my lips. “I know it looks disgusting, but it’s the best hangover cure I know.”

Tentatively, I took the glass from him, still eying its contents suspiciously. I gave it a test sniff and grimaced. “What’s in it? It smells like armpits and stale bread.”

“That’s actually the tamest description anyone’s ever given it.” He raised his eyebrows. “Demitri calls it rotting corpse soup.”

I gagged, shoving the glass back to him. “I can’t. I really, really can’t. I’d rather suffer the headache.”

He shook his head, pushing my hand that held the glass back toward me. “You can’t sit in the car for ten hours hung over. It’s not going to be pleasant.”

“Ten hours?”

“That’s our estimated travel time from London to Belfast, and we need to leave soon if I want to make it to tomorrow’s concert.” His lips quivered, obviously trying his hardest not to laugh at me. I’d like to see him try. I have a fist ready for his pretty face if he does. “Now, you had your fun. Pay for it by drinking the glass down.”

“The whole thing?” My face crumpled. “I think something’s moving inside.”

“Just drink the damn cure.”

The command in Luka’s voice translated into the sexiest scowl I’d even seen. It mixed concerned and pissed off well. The slight flush on his cheeks begged to be kissed. But, right now, kissing was beyond my capabilities. So, giving the cure one more grimace, I pinched my nose and brought the rim to my lips. I downed everything like a Jell-O shot. At least, that was how I wanted to think of the clumps tumbling down my throat. The last of the green stuff I held in my mouth with puffed out cheeks because my stomach twisted. I shoved the empty glass at Luka and covered my mouth with both hands. I prayed to whoever was listening that whatever went down didn’t come back up. Someone must have listened because I managed to swallow the rest of Luka’s hangover cure. It left a minty, cough-mediciney aftertaste. I stuck my tongue out and shivered wildly.

“That is so gross!” My face scrunched up as I wiggled my entire body. “Bleh-ack!”

Luka finally laughed, unable to hold it in anymore. He returned the glass to the table across from the bed, safely out of reach from my fist as if he’d known I would punch him. He sobered before I could have a chance to berate him for laughing at my obvious agony. The battle in my skull receded to a mini skirmish, giving me vast amounts of relief. Whatever Luka had given me sure did its job. I forgave him.

“What made you leave the concert with Graham anyway?”

My poor, overworked stomach plummeted. Just when I thought I was beginning to feel better, he dropped the bomb I got the feeling he’d been waiting for me to wake up just to answer. Having the argument with Yana in my room made so much sense now. Not meeting his gaze because how the hell could I answer his question without sounding like an insane person, my gaze assessed what I was wearing. How did I get into my Wexler shirt and sweats? Then I recalled Luka’s weird penchant for dressing me while I was unconscious. I sighed. I guess we were both pretty weird.

I ran my fingers through my ratty hair. Ugh! I must have looked like shit. He just stood by the table. I knew he waited for a response. I could feel his gaze on me. Oh the pressure. Might as well get it over with. “Ah, Luka, you see I panicked when you sang a song I knew only existed in my dreams of you.” Totally not going there.

“I needed to blow off some steam,” I said weakly. Half the truth was still better than a full lie. He couldn’t have seen my mini-meltdown. I’d already left the private box by then.

“But with Graham?” He said the drummer’s name like a curse.

“I’m with you there.” I shook my head, finally meeting his gaze. I couldn’t quite understand the hurt behind the clear, intense blue, so unlike Graham’s deeper stormy color. “But hindsight is 20/20. It seemed like fun at the time.” I moved my gaze to my clenched fists. “If you hadn’t been there…” I couldn’t bring myself to continue.