37 - Bar None

Tony ambled into the hotel bar, with the intention of finishing the plastering job he’d started at the restaurant.  If he hadn’t been so pissed at Jon, he would’ve stayed and let the Romanians foot the entire bill for his next step toward a twelve-step program.

I’ll charge the rest of my night to my room.  Jon can foot the tab.

Glancing around for a vacant seat, he spotted a couple of stools at the bar, but he wasn’t really in the mood for company.  Unfortunately, all of the tables were full.  But was that…?  He walked toward the corner booth where a familiar face was smiling at him.

“Hi, handsome.”

Lilah.  Damned if he could stop a reciprocating smile from spreading wide as he approached the table.  His eyes raked over her in slow appreciation of what he saw.

No longer the weary traveler, she was now dressed for an evening out.  The low-cut sparkly shirt was dressier than anything she’d worn previously, and the pale cream of her showcased cleavage taunted him.  Tousled hair did its part by giving her the look of having been well-fucked, and the smoky outline of her eyes made them twinkle with a seductive secret.  Or maybe that was a rum glaze, considering the twenty-plus paper umbrellas set across the table to look like the Jersey shore on a hot August day.

 “You come here hoping to pick up a hot guy?”

“Not until I saw you walk in.” 

He was whiskey-soaked enough to welcome the visceral reaction that hit him below the belt at her huskily drawled flirtation. 

Drinking agreed with her.  The hesitant insecurity he’d gotten used to was nowhere to be found in the candlelit silhouettes of her face.  Tony was mesmerized by that candlelight.  More specifically by its reflection in the glossy lips curved into that damn smile.  It sucked him in every time.

“You have a beautiful smile.”

Lilah’s heart stuttered.  She knew he was drunk, but the slightly fuzzy admiration intoxicated her more than the four mai tais she’d enjoyed over the past hour.  Not only was he still speaking to her, he was speaking to her like a man who liked a woman.  He hadn’t written her off as a mental patient.  Optimism spiraled out of control, making her dizzy with one ecstatic cartwheel through her mind after another.  

Kicking her smile up a notch, she deflected the compliment with one of her own.  “Nothing compares to that Bongiovi smile of yours.  Would you like to join me?”

“I dunno.”  He was beyond adorable as he stood there with his hands crammed in his pockets, grinning like a mischievous little boy.  Tony nodded to her array of paper umbrellas.  “I’m thinkin’ you’re awful drunk.  Am I safe with you?”

The husky chuckle felt foreign to Lilah, sounding a bit sexy, even to her own ears.  She didn’t do sexy, but with Tony she wanted to try.  Flirting came easy with him tonight.   Her soul had been laid nearly bare, and yet here he was, giving her permission to be who she was.  It was…  empowering.   

“I’m not drunk, and as for your safety…  Do you wanna be safe with me?”

“Not drunk?”  Without further invitation, he slid into the intimate horseshoe booth, stopping with a enough distance between them to seat another person.  Placing his whiskey order with the server that appeared at his elbow, Tony nodded toward her array of paper umbrellas.   He commented to Lilah, “I thought you were Bluegrass, not Irish?  That’s a lotta fuckin’ drinks not to be drunk.”

“I ordered extra umbrellas.”  She picked up a vibrant blue parasol, twirling it between her fingers before offering it to him with a lazy, “Somebody taught me how to do that in Dublin.”

“Yeah?”  The way his eyes darkened when their fingers brushed had Lilah’s stomach muscles contracting in a delicious way.  “Good to know you’re learning important life lessons on your vacation.”

The waitress slid his drink on the table and Tony picked up the ink pen that accompanied it.  Watching him sign his name to the room charge slip, Lilah used the extra time to ponder her reply.  She was still in no hurry to speak as he took a swallow of the amber liquor, and then positioned the glass in the exact center of the cocktail napkin.

“I’m learnin’ lots of things,” was what she ultimately decided on, with a pointed look at his glass before locking eyes with him.  “I could probably even learn to like whiskey, given half a chance.  Can I have a taste?”

I cannot believe you’re about to do this, Lilah Jane.

“Sure.” 

The glass and napkin both slid across the black tabletop, but Lilah didn’t even spare them a glance.  She shushed the little voice in her head and concentrated on what the little bit of rum swimming through her veins was enticing her to do.  Lilah slid her bottom across the two feet of faux leather that separated them, and tipped up her face.  His eyes were sleepy behind the flames dancing in the lenses of his glasses, but there was still a curious interest in them.

“I don’t wanna waste your whiskey,” she murmured, scant inches between their noses when she tilted her head to the best angle for kissing.  “I just wanna taste.”

Tony’s mouth promptly opened against the soft touch her lips, and Lilah wasted no time slipping her tongue inside.  With the prying tip, she sampled the flavor of hard liquor from his heated slickness, each taste infusing her with a bubbly giddiness more reminiscent of champagne than Jack Daniels. 

When his muffled groan pushed an inebriating breath into her lungs, she let her fingers curl into his scalp, holding him close.  She indulged in a deep, lazy inhale as her mouth delicately devoured him.

There was something intimate about being close enough to sniff another person’s skin… Lilah loved few things in life more than the smell of a man, and this particular man smelled better to her than most.  On Tony, the faintest hint of smoke mixed with his cologne and natural scent to imprint a permanent keepsake in her scented memories. 

“Bluegrass…” he murmured, gently breaking the kiss.  “This is gonna get unsuitable for public viewing.”

Rolling her lips inward to blot away the lingering moisture, she pushed a piece of hair back from her cheek.  Furtively assessing his tone and his facial expression, she fiddled with the larger-than-usual gold hoop dangling from her right earlobe.

God, how she hated to look a gift kisser in the mouth – well, not really.  His mouth was exceptionally good, but…  She had to ask.  Sharing physical intimacy with him was all well and good, but Lilah had to know whether or not to keep a leash on everything else.  She didn’t want to wake up the next morning feeling and thinking one thing, to find out he was on a completely different page.

“Does this mean you’re okay with everything?  That you’re okay with me?”

A dark shadow swept over his face, contorting it into a mask of consternation before he firmed his chin and deliberately blinked it away.  Slow to speak, when he did, it was with quiet confidence.   

“I can’t think about Fate tonight, Lilah.  I don’t wanna think above my waist right now.  You feel better in my arms and bed than anyone has in a helluva long time, and I’m not ready to call it done.  That’s all I got.”

It was more than she’d had a right to hope for.  He hadn’t told her to take a hike, or that she was a fucking fruitcake.  And, considering that she’d never had anyone feel as good in her arms - along with her slightly rummy state - Lilah had no qualms about following wherever he wanted to lead tonight.

“Okay,” she agreed affably before screwing  her mouth in a droll twist and borrowing his words.  “But I got something else.  A slight problem.”

She let go of the earring, squirming a bit on the booth to create some space between them.  Slipping two fingers into her back pocket, she pinched them together to capture the nearly identical plastic cards she’d tucked in there earlier.

“Is anything ever going to be easy with you?” he groused good-naturedly, scooting over to avoid her elbow.

“Suth-uhn wimmen ahh not easy, we ahh agreeable.  Easy is equivalent ta slutty.  Howevah...”  She batted her eyes innocently along with the over-exaggerated accent, and tried her hand a coquettish smile.   “I’m agreeable to bein’ easy once or twice, if you like it.  Does that count?” 

Receiving the laugh she’d been aiming for, and a soft “I’m holding you to that,” as a bonus, Lilah lightly patted his thigh and placed the plastic rectangles face-up on the table.  Both bore different variations of the hotel’s logo.  “There’s my problem.”

Retrieving his glass and imbibing a healthy portion of his iced alcohol, he kept his fingers curled around the glass, looking puzzled.  He clearly thought he'd been provided with firm proof of her drunkenness. 

“Room keys?  That’s your problem?  Did you get locked out and have to get another one?”

Lilah hesitated.  She didn’t want to stir anything up between the brothers, but if Tony had been the one to ensure an extra room was available ‘if she needed it’…  She preferred to know why.

“In the event that you wanted me to go, I was making preparations.  I inquired at the desk to see if there were rooms available for tonight and, at first, I was told no.  When she asked if I was a current guest and found out my name… It turned out there was a room after all.  I was told that Mr. Bongiovi had made arrangements, in case I needed it.  Unfortunately, she didn’t know which Mr. Bongiovi.  Was it you?”

“Goddammit,” he swore lustily, immediately reaching for his phone.  “No, it wasn’t me.”  After animatedly tapping the screen two or three times, he put it up to his ear.  “This is the last fucking straw.  Meddling busybody motherfucker is gonna get another piece of my mind now, and an ass kicking as soon as I can get my hands on him.”

Thank ya, Jesus!

She didn’t care about the 'arrangement', as long as it wasn’t at Tony's direction.  It certainly wasn’t enough to waste a good thinking-below-the-waist-whiskey-tasting-too-much-for-public-viewing evening.  Jon wasn’t going to screw them out of their night.

Lilah gently, but purposefully pried the phone out of his fingers and touched her thumb to the red ‘Disconnect’ bar at the bottom of the screen.  Putting the phone on the table top, behind his glass, she pled softly, “Don’t.  Don’t ruin our night with this.  Now…”  A French manicured fingertip tapped the room key on the right.  “This one is the key to your room.  I’m hopin’ I know the answer to this, but just for the record…  Is that the one you want me to use?”

He wiggled his butt so that they were hip-to-hip and looped an arm around her shoulders,  fingers dangling just above her right breast.  Her hair had to be tickling his nose, as deeply as it was buried when he darkly professed, “Just for the record…  I expect you to be in my room for the rest of this fucking tour, exactly like I said last night.  I will personally tell you if anything changes.  Got me?”

Not yet, Baby, but I will have you as soon as we get upstairs.  And, the further this goes, I'm starting to wonder about keeping you.

“Then finish your drink,” she requested quietly, her hand already snaking up his thigh.  “So I can have another taste."