Ava instigates the next kiss, and I fall deeply into it, being taken off to a faraway land where pain and regret no longer exist. I feel her pulling away. No. I’m not done yet. So I bend with her, refusing to surrender her mouth, growling deeply in warning. She doesn’t fight me.

This woman.

She’s knocked me sideways, and she needs to know.

I forfeit her mouth for her eyes. It’s no loss, because her eyes are always so alive, and that life is passing over to me. “You’ve got me, baby.” Forever from now.

She gazes up at me, and I will her drunken mind to absorb that statement. She has to understand I am wholeheartedly committed to this. To her. But she’s quiet, just watching me, thinking, and I begrudgingly accept she’s had way too much to drink to make sense of this.

So I give her a small smile and a tender kiss. “Come on.” I return her upright and cover her lower back with my hand, guiding her through the crowd to a table, having to encourage people aside to make way. She’s definitely unsteady on her feet, and all I can think is . . . what if I wasn’t here?

I scan the area for a spare stool, finding nothing. God damn it. I can’t drag her around the bar until I find one. I position her at the table, checking her stability before releasing her. “Wait here,” I order, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “Don’t move.” I back away, my eyes watching carefully for a stumble as she places her purse on the table. No stumble, but I don’t feel any better about leaving her. I’m just about to return to her when I spy her friends joining her at the table. It gives me a few moments to hunt down a stool.

I find one at the end of the bar and grab it. “Hey, dude, I’m sitting there,” a guy calls, making his way over.

I look at the stool. Then to him. “Looks empty to me,” I say, lifting it and raising it over my head to clear the crowds.

“Hey, put the stool down.”

I stop in my tracks, turning toward him, my jaw twitching. “Want it over your head?” I ask, and he backs away, hands up in surrender. “It’s for a woman. You going to insist on keeping it?”

“You should have just said.”

“I’m saying now. So, do you want the stool over your head?” I tilt my head in question, wondering what the fucking hell has gotten into me.

“Take the stool.”

“Thought so.”