For a while, I got to be blank. A brand-new canvas. Untouched snow.

I’d checked my baggage at the door, and just was.

And it was perfect.

There was no room for unhappiness when squeezed between two sets of washboard abs.

New life motto, right there.

I gave István a couple notes and sent him to get more drinks. In the meantime, I turned to face Tamás. He’d been pressed against my back for God knows how long, and I’d forgotten how tall he was. I leaned back to meet his gaze, and his hands smoothed down my back to my ass.

I smirked and said, “Someone is happy to have me all to himself.”

He pulled my hips into his, his arousal pressing low against my stomach, and said, “Beautiful American.”

Right. No point expending energy on cheeky banter that he couldn’t even understand. I had a pretty good idea how to better use my energy. I slipped my arms around his neck and tilted my head in the universal sign of “kiss me.”

Tamás didn’t waste any time. Like, really … no time. The dude went zero to sixty in seconds. His tongue was so far down my throat, it was like being kissed by the love child of a lizard and Gene Simmons.

We were both pretty drunk. Maybe he didn’t realize that he was in danger of engaging my gag reflex with his Guinness record-worthy tongue. I eased back and his tongue assault ended, only for his teeth to clamp down on my bottom lip.

I was all for a little biting, but he pulled my lip out until I had one half of a fish mouth. And he stood there, sucking on my bottom lip for so long that I actually started counting to see how long it would last.

When I got to fifteen (FIFTEEN!) seconds, my eyes settled on a guy across the bar watching my dilemma with a huge smile. Was shit-eating grin in the dictionary? If not, I should snap a picture for Merriam-Webster.

I braced myself and pulled my poor, abused lip from Tamás’s teeth with a pop. My mouth felt like it had been stuck in a vacuum cleaner. While I pressed my fingers to my numb lip, Tamás started placing sloppy kisses from the corner of my lips across my cheek to my jaw.

His tongue slithered over my skin like a snail, and all the blissful alcohol-induced haze that I’d worked so hard for disappeared.

I was painfully aware that I was standing in an abandoned-building-turned-bar with a trail of drool across my cheek, and that a guy across the room was now openly laughing at me.

And he was fucking gorgeous, which made it so much worse.

Sometimes … the now sucked. 

2

MY AMUSED STALKER had olive-toned skin, dark eyes, and hair cut close to his head. He had that muscled, military look about him, which sparked half a dozen dirty puns in my head about him invading my territories. Plus, he was tall with a permanent smolder that would have made Tyra Banks stop the crazy train and stare.

Unfortunately, the only staring happening was on his part. Why did it have to be someone so hot who witnessed my face sucking of shame? And as if he could read my thoughts through my gaze, he laughed harder.

I tore myself away from Tamás and put my hand up to keep him from following me.

“Bathroom!” I blurted.

The word meant nothing to him, so he reached for me again.

“Eh-eh!” I gave him the Heisman and tried, “Toilet?”

His brow furrowed, and he held a hand to his ear. So I yelled louder, “Toilet!”

The volume didn’t help, but it did make a dozen or so people around us who obviously spoke English stop and gawk at me. And my traitorous eyes found the guy across the room. If he laughed any harder, he was going to pop a lung.

Damn it.

I guessed he didn’t have any issues understanding my English.

I turned and fled, probably only exponentially increasing the size of the scene I’d just made, but I was only focused on washing away the embarrassment with another drink.

I tried to walk over the rubble pile that led back to the bar, but the ground kept moving, and I felt a million miles tall in these heels. Tipsier than I realized, I blinked, trying to bring the world back into focus. I had to bend and balance my hand on a chunk of concrete to keep from toppling over.

“What? No more locals around to carry you?”

I turned my head to the side, and my worst fears came true.

Soldier Smolder. He was even more gorgeous up close, which was only magnified by his deep voice. And from the sound of it, he was American, too. The look on his face was part teasing–part condescending, but his eyes still had my organs doing somersaults.

Or … that could have been the alcohol.

Both. Let’s go with both.

“I don’t need anyone to carry me. I’m perfectly—whoa.”

I tried to straighten up, but my ankle twisted and the world went a little topsy-turvy. In what seemed like fast-forward, I went from standing to sitting on the rubble in the blink of an eye, the heels of my hands scraped raw from the rough concrete. I was still trying to figure out if I was moving at lightning speed, or if the world was moving really slowly, when suddenly—I was flying.

My vision filled with a strong jaw that gave way to soft, full lips. And then eyes so piercing, they reminded me of growing up in church and feeling certain that somewhere out there was a God that was watching, and could see everything I didn’t want him to see.

“You remind me of God,” I mumbled, then immediately wished I could suck those words back into my mouth.

He laughed. “Well, that’s a new one for me.”

“I meant …” I don’t know what I meant. God, I was drunk. “Let me down. I don’t need anyone to carry me.”

He spoke, and I felt his low voice vibrate from his chest into mine. “I don’t care what you think you need.”

Story of my life. I loved men as much as the next girl, but why was it that they always seemed to think they knew better?

I rolled my eyes and said, “Fine, carry me all night. Works for me.”

I leaned my head on his shoulder and snuggled up against his chest to get comfortable. I was just curling my hand around the back of his neck when he plopped my feet down on the ground, on the other side of the rubble. I winced, pain jolting up from my ankles to my knees from the hard landing.

Sigh. I should have kept my smart mouth shut. I pretended like I wasn’t disappointed, shrugged, and turned toward the bar. He appeared in front of me so fast, and my reflexes were so slow, that I barely managed to keep from face-planting into his pecs.

Wait … Why was I trying to keep from doing that?

He said, “What? No thank-you?”

I leveled him with a stare, feeling more sober than I had a few moments ago. “I’m not in the habit of thanking people who do things to me against my will. So, if you don’t mind—”

I pushed past him and flagged down the bartender, who thankfully spoke English. I asked for tequila and took a seat on a barstool.

“Give her a water, too,” my stalker added, sitting down beside me.

I eyed him. Hot, he was definitely hot. But I’d never met a guy in a bar who tried to get me less drunk. That somehow made it harder to trust him.

Twisted, I know. But I had learned a long time ago that if you didn’t figure out what people wanted from you at the beginning, it would come back to bite you in the ass later. Plus, if I was reading the tension in his jaw correctly, he was angry, and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why he was sitting there beside me if I annoyed him so much.

I said, “You’re awfully pushy, stranger.”

And kind of dangerous. Who knew stranger-danger could be so hot?

“You’re awfully drunk, princess.”

I laughed. “Honey, I’m barely getting started. When I start talking about how I can’t feel my cheeks and get a little touchy-feely, then you’ll know I’m awfully drunk.”

His eyebrow raised when I said touchy-feely, but he didn’t comment. My shot arrived, along with a cup of water. I glared at the latter, pushing it away from me, then grabbed my shot.

This trip was about adventure, about living life with no baggage and no strings and no thought. Only now. It definitely wasn’t about drinking water.

I tipped back the shot.

Now.

For a few seconds, the warmth settled in my middle, grounding me. I was beginning to get used to the lemon slices, sweeter than limes, but the sour taste still gave a tiny jolt on my tongue. I signaled for another, but my tagalong’s deep voice sliced through the lovely haze I was building.

“If you’re trying to drink away the memory of that kiss on the dance floor, I doubt it will work. That’s the kind of kiss that sticks with you.”

Cringing, I said, “You don’t have to tell me that.”

I wiped at my cheek again even though the slobber was long gone.

The cup of water slid back in front of me, pushed by his forefinger. I squinted up at him. His dark eyes were steel gray, hardened. But there was a hint of a smile in his gaze that was nowhere to be found on his mouth.

And a fascinating mouth it was.

I said, “You know, you could always help me find another way to erase the memory of that bad kiss.” He turned and leaned his back against the bar. His arm brushed mine, and I shivered. So, he was a bit on the aggravating side, but he was also big and warm and masculine, and, hell, I didn’t need to list anything else. I was already sold. My body didn’t so much care about what kind of tension was between us. Tension was tension.