Free What The Heart Knows by Jessica Gadziala

over when she had gone to pick up the salon quality
sample shampoo and conditioner they provided in the inn bathrooms. He
had been bumbling and overeager, but he was a fresh face and she had
decided to agree to going out with him. He had picked her up in his
beat-up car with a pizza light on top. Then took her out to get
sushi. But only after he finished his last two deliveries of the
night. He had made her split the check and tried to talk her into
coming back to his house (AKA his mother's basement) after.
    But
he wanted to dance with her. And she was blissfully tingly. So she
had agreed. But as the songs changed, he got more and more handsy.
She kept swatting at him playfully, trying to ignore his childish
fumbling and enjoy the music.
    “Mind
if I cut in?” a voice asked, sounding far away to her ears as
she swirled in slow, sensual circles, arms up, hips moving
suggestively.
    She
finally made her way back to where she started, feeling like it had
taken her hours, to find James standing there, a flirtatious smile
playing at his lips. “Hey,” she said, her brows drawing
together. “where'd the pizza man go?”
    James
watched her, the lines in her forehead as her brow furrowed, her eyes
seeming cloudy and uncomprehending with alcohol. “The... pizza
man?” he asked, almost laughing. God, she was gone.
    “Yeah,”
Emily said, smiling, tilting her head up at him. “Pizza is
good.”
    “Well,”
James said, laughing. “I am no pizza guy... but I can...
deliver if you want me to.”
    Emily
laughed, a high, girlish sound and she reached out and slapped his
arm. “You're dirty.”
    “You
like it,” James shot back, reaching out to take her chin in his
hands. “How many of Maude's drinks have you had?”
    “Oh,
I don't know. Six or seven. They're called Window Makers,” she
said, her tone sounding haughty. “No. Wait. That's not it.
Willow Makers? W... w...” she looked up at the ceiling like it
had the answers, then looked around them with squinted eyes. “Why
aren't we dancing?” she asked, pouting at him and sounding
whiny.
    James
turned his head to the side. “That's a very good question,”
he said, reaching and pulling her forward. She toppled into his
chest, bumping her chin off his collarbone in the process and
laughing. “And I think the word you were looking for was
'widow',” he said. At her blank look he added, “Widow
Makers.”
    James
slowly started leading her off the dance floor, moving like they were
dancing still, getting closer to the door. If he didn't get her out
of there, she would end up falling all over herself. Or, worse yet,
going home with some random loser who didn't think she was too wasted
to consent.
    “You
smell like... a new car,” she declared, taking an exaggeratedly
long sniff of his shirt.
    “That
must be my new car scent cologne,” James laughed, prying her
arm from around his back so he could step away a little.
    “We're
outside,” Emily observed. The cool air felt nice on her
overheated skin.
    “Yes,
Sherlock, we sure are,” he said, watching as she stripped her
gloves off her arms and carelessly dropped them in the road. He
laughed, stooping down to retrieve them. Her red hair was blowing
around her face, cheeks pink from alcohol.
    “My
whole face is numb,” she said, pushing her hands against her
cheeks. “even my lips,” she said, rubbing her thumb
across her lower lip. “I cant feel anything. You could kiss me
right now, Mr. Fancypants, and I wouldn't feel anything. Nothing at
all,” she said, waving a hand out and almost slapping his face
by accident.
    “Nothing
huh?” he asked, trying not to think about her mouth. Trying to
focus on how drunk she was. And how kissing someone so drunk would be
hugely inappropriate.
    “Nope.
See?” she asked, grabbing the lapels of his trench coat and
tugging him forward, making him almost topple in the process. She
pulled him downward slightly and pressed her lips to his, a lingering
but chaste kiss. She pulled