Seeking Nirvana (7 page)

The injured man groaned
, writhing in pain on the cold flooring in the parking lot of Bernie’s Liquor, while Walker swiftly stepped over the flaccid body.

All I wanted to do was run into his arms and thank him until I was blue in the face. But I refrained, and concentrated
solely on pushing myself up from my ass. “Don’t tell me you have vigilante added to your résumé, too.” I grinned.

Walker
crouched down to help stuff some of my snacks that were scattered, back into the grocery bag. “Irish vigilante…that has to be a first.” We peeked up in unison. God he had a great smile with an adorable dimple on his left cheek, and his eyes were glimmering. Stuffing my packet of Rusty’s in the bag, his smile vanished. “What are you doing here, Kady?”

I bit my lip and
released an ungainly sighed as I pushed myself up straight. I shook my head, not wanting to dredge my shit up in public.

“Come on,
” he cocked his head, gesturing in the direction of the house, and that dimple teased me with another appearance on his left cheek. “Let me walk you home.”

Walker was the kind of man that never failed to
surprise me. He looked all rugged with his sexy, messy hair, his leather jacket, jeans and boots, yet he was being a gentleman and carrying my bags. I typically wouldn’t have expected that level of decency from anyone who looked like him. Again, a flaw in the human race: judging a book by its cover.

We strolled down the tree-lined
street; the late night breeze tore through my hair as I hooked stray tendrils behind my ear. “I don’t know why I froze,”––I shook my head faintly––“I wouldn’t have usually. Thank you for helping though, Walker. I don’t know what I would have done.”

“’Aye, that’s alright, Kady. I make it a duty to save at least one damsel in distress every so often.” I
couldn’t stifle my giggle. Usually, I would have been embarrassed about feeling that vulnerable, but he made me laugh at it, he made it seem not as serious as it was. He took my mind away from it. I admired him for that.

“So, you
still haven’t told me, why were you out after dark stocking up on your liquor?”

I peeked up at the Irishman
who was leisurely walking beside me, his gruff really set off his features. “I’m trying to forget.”

“Forget?
” he piped. “We’re trying to hotwire those memories, Kady, not forget them.”

“Certain revelations are too painful to face, Walker. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“’Aye, come on now, darlin’,” he bumped our shoulders playfully. “I’m more empathetic than what I look. Just don’t tell that boyfriend of yours,” he spoke with an arched brow.

We giggled, chatted, and joked the entire way home. I was so enthralled by his accent that we ended up passing
the house, and having to backtrack down half the block. As we passed the chocolate building next-door, I spotted Mrs. Steinbeck peeking through her drapes. Some people really are nosey.

“
So, here we are,” he muttered, handing me my bags. “I bid you goodnight, Kady.” He nodded his head and gave a small chivalrous bow. The way my name fell from his lips, those perfect, molded, pale lips, had me trembling once more.

Clasping his hands together, h
e was turning on his heel when I called him back. His lips curled and even in the darkness, I could see how bright his eyes were. “Do you want to come in for a coffee?”

Hands
resting loosely in his pockets; he hung his head and sniggered before lifting his focus to my bags. “You have three bottles of wine in that bag alone, Kady, and you’re offering me coffee?”

“I
actually thought you would have preferred beer,” I winced, shrugging my shoulders feebly with a nervous chuckle.

He stalked toward me, slowly
gracing the steps one at a time, until we stood virtually toe-to-toe. Towering over me, my breathing caught. “I’m Irish, darlin’, I’ll drink anything.”

“Take your boots off, I don’t want any dirt trailed through,” I groaned a
s I walked through the door. Slipping my heels off by the staircase, I heard him chuckle––a deep, rasping chuckle which caused me to glimpse over my shoulder. “What’s so funny?”

He flailed his head. I stared deeply into the Indian Ocean which was glimmering
with wry amusement. “Never mind.”

Walker trailed behind me as I paced through the living room, into the dining-room and kitchen. I stood at the white and oak kitchen i
sland, sifting through the bags while he removed his leather jacket. “So we have, white, red and rosé,” I told him, withdrawing each bottle in turn. I risked a glance as he made his way over to the kitchen. He was wearing a tight white T-Shirt, with a red and black plaid shirt undone. I couldn’t help but notice and secretly salivate over the way his T-shirt dipped and stretched over his torso as he sauntered toward me with purposeful strides. It took three consecutive swallows to rid my throat of that lump of desire which was choking me. “Which one should we open first?”

He held up his index finger and skirted the corner of the island, whipping one of the tea towels from the surface as he did so.
His heat and his breath on my back and neck manipulated inner chills and inescapable tingles as he stood behind me. “What are you doing, Walker?”

“Helping you make up your mind.
” I felt his exhale on the curve of my ear before he slipped the folded cloth over my eyes, tying it at the back of my head. I shuddered as my sexually unsatisfied body spawned addictive pulls and spasms of my muscles in my pelvis and lower back at his proximity. Strong hands were set on my shoulders. As I was only wearing a vest, I felt the roughness of his calloused, workman hands on my flesh, and my chest tightened and heaved as I strived once again, to rein in the lustful demon that Walker along with his sexy-as-fuck brogue roused in me.

“Walker,” his name was a husky intonation as it drifted along a sexually charge groan. I so hoped that the acting classes I took in high school would cover that embarrassing notion.

“Shush…you ready, Kady?” God the temptation in his voice…

Before an answer even left me, he was counting to ten and spinning me around. I had no idea which way was up or down, left or right. Even though my head felt like it was going to explode, and my
lunch was crawling up my throat, I couldn’t deny the enjoyment I was experiencing with him. He finally stopped spinning me after ten.

“Which one, right, left or center?”

I craned my neck, hoping that even with the blindfold in place, and the world spinning mercilessly, I was staring at him. “And you had to spin my around to ask that question? Wouldn’t it have been easier to spin the bottles around instead of me?”

“It
doesn’t matter, it’s done. Just pick one, darlin’, I’m dying of thirst here.”

With my hands on my hips, I breathed in deeply, taking in his scent…his manly, addictive scent which was just as sexy as the lilt in his voice. My body shuddered.
“Center.”

We were halfway through draining the bottle of white. It had been a while since I felt that
level of comfort and ease with someone. I hadn’t truly felt it with Liv that night Liam came back from poker with the objective of starting World War Three. And it’s safe to say, I definitely hadn’t been feeling it around Liam himself.

Why had he lied about my parents?
What else has he been lying to me about? Why was he so irritable? And why the fuck was he uninterested in being sexually intimate with me? I sniggered inwardly, even if he was interested in being sexually intimate with me, would I want that from him after the things which had transpired?

“So, how’s you and Liam doin’ now?”

Heaving a sigh, I lifted my brow and shook my head. The mere mentioning of his name had me feeling drained. “I think it’s going to take a lot longer than what any of us thought to shed light on that one. I don’t particularly want to even think about it tonight.”

“Then we shall forget,” he raised his glass, and I followed suit.

Lowering the glass from my lips, I set it on the glass surface of the dining table and swirled my fingers over the rim casually. “What does,
Anili
mean?”

He
cocked his head and crumpled his brow. “Anili?”

“Yeah, the um…the night you came here and I couldn’t get the shower working. Liam said something about me not grasping how
it works, and you mumbled something that sounded like, ‘anili’. I was wondering if it was Irish for idiot.”

The creases in his
brow loosened, his eyes widened and mouth curved. “God no, you’re no idiot, Kady. And it’s okay, don’t worry about it, it doesn’t mean anything,” he purred, although, I could still sense that nothing, was indeed something.

Two bottles in to project, ‘Forget the Recent R
evelation’, and Walker began to sway. “Are you drunk?” I jeered.

“Am
I drunk? No, darlin’, but you’re surely halfway to that destination.”

Feeling ballsy, I rested my hand atop of his. His
body stiffened. He froze mid-exhale as his gaze dropped from my eyes, to my hand. I felt his fingers stirring beneath me. “You are drunk; don’t lie to me, Walker. You’re swaying.”

At that moment, I was thankful I was wearing a bra, because I could have poked his fucking eyes out with how hard my nipples
had got just by the way his eyes caressed and stroked the length of my body.

“No, darlin’
,” I took advantage of breathing in his rugged scent as he leaned in closer, his eyes narrowed. “You’re the one who’s swaying.”

“Nope,” I flailed my head, my ponytail whipping me in the face. “I’m perfectly fine, but I’m hungry. Are you hun
gry? I think we have stuff here.” I peeked over my left shoulder to the refrigerator. “With the two of us, I’m sure we could knock something up.”

“I have to say, Kady, I’m
lovin’ your choice of words tonight.” He pushed himself from the seat as I staggered into the kitchen.

“What do you fancy?”
I slurred then giggled at my unintended double-entendre. He was silent. I slowly craned my head around the large refrigerator door to make sure he hadn’t passed out. He was staring at me, a stare that spoke copious amounts of words, yet none that I was in the right mind to read. His dark eyelashes swept down to meet the arch of his cheek as he blinked.

His eyes tightened, a lopsided grin dominating his features.
“Let’s go for an egg sandwich?”

“Umm…” my shoulders were vibrating; I hollowed my cheeks in a vain attempt to silence my cathartic laughter.

“What?”

“I don’t know how to fry an
egg,” I managed to say through the streams of tears that fell from my eyes and aching ribs.

“Oh, dear,
Lord.” He rolled his eyes, and that made the laughter-fit come harder and faster. I struggled to breathe as I folded my right arm across my middle to hold my side. “Sometimes the best time to learn something new is after a good drink. Come on, I’ll teach you.”

While my Irishman dug through the state of the art refrigerator, I unhooked the pan from the wall, shushing it as it made a loud clanging noise against the other equipment. I sifted through the cabinets for the oil.

“Found it,” I called, a little louder than necessary.

“Good girl, now, poor a bit into the pan.” I did as instructed with one eye firmly shut. Walker didn’t stray from behind me, and I had the chance to actually enjoy him being there, the feel of
him and the enjoyment of reestablishing a bond with a person who had been in my life for nearly eighteen months but have no recollection of.

He held my hands as I broke the shell, and guided me as he parted the casing
, steadily pouring the contents into the heating oil. I watched as the goo began to turn white, and relished the way his arms were around me, his hand encased over my left which was holding the pan handle steady, and the other guiding my hand with the spatula. “You’re doing brilliant, Kady. I told you it wasn’t hard.”

That’s what he thought. Inside I was screaming that
it was too hard, being this close, this physical, feeling his hard body against my back, encompassed by his strong arms, smelling his scent, the alcohol on his breath, his tone as he whispered encouragements in my ear. I was struggling more with combatting my body’s demands to turn in his arms and lose myself, more than I was struggling to fry the fucking egg.

“Keep basting it darlin’, be careful though, it spits.” Now he was fucking killing me. I squeezed my legs firmly shut, my ch
est heaved while uneven breaths were sucked into my lungs.

The effect he had on my body at that point was undeniable. The alcohol just made me brave it more.

Just like he warned, the oil began to spit. Tiny, hot pin pricks landed on my chest, my arms and throat. I sunk my teeth into my lip to halt my groans and I sank further into his burly arms, tossing my head back against his chest. I could feel the definition that lay beneath the material under the back of my head. I expected the sizzling oil to burn, to hurt…well; it did, but whereas my body’s instant reaction should have been to brush it away or move back, I just stood and welcomed the piercing which heated my skin before cooling to a sensuous tingle. The way the scalding stab influenced my muscles, making them tighten and pull was something unusual, but so addictive.