You and Tequila

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Vegas. Another trip to the glamorous city that never sleeps, enriched with sparkling bright lights and pumped with intoxicating oxygen that energizes the mind and encourages any human to keep moving forward. Keep spending another dollar. Keep walking down the busy streets.

In Regina's case, keep the two concerts booming larger and brighter than the previous year. And when the last sound of music fades into oblivion, signaling her time to step off the stage, keep going. Just one more song. Maybe one more after that if the crowd pleads hard enough. Just another song after that one because there's an energy pulsating from the audience that amplifies through the arena and vibrates deliciously against Regina's skin.

And after all that's said and done, Regina locks herself in her enormous ensuite, the one Emma had found herself in a world of trouble one-year-ago to date.

Tangled raven tresses in disarray continuously slip into her view as Regina remains hunched over the grand piano, struggling to create another chart topper. And Emma, well...she's wrestling with her own haunting thoughts.

A soft ballad drifts through the hotel room and elegantly sweeps through Emma's ears as she lies curled up in the fetal position upon Regina's California king-size bed. Her eyelids droop closed as she listens to the intricate melody filling the air and warming her soul. For a split second, she's certain that this beautiful tune could drift her off to dreamland, but then the jittery anxiety slithers beneath her flesh again and she's kicking away her covers in frustration.

She exhales slowly in a lame attempt to calm herself down, but she's too nervous. Something in her gut is screaming out to her girlfriend and she just can't ignore the sensation any longer. She cannot risk turning her cheek on a feeling that's constantly been gnawing at her.

She swings her feet over the edge of the bed, her skin immediately prickling from the bitter cold temperature icing out the room. She shivers violently and wraps the massive comforter around her shoulders before she stands upright. With a heavy heart, she trudges her feet filled with dread toward the piano, knowing damn well that the past week Regina has been nothing but short and agitated with her. She knows she's sneaking up behind the beast, poking the ill-tempered creature with a pointy stick which will indefinitely piss off her girlfriend, but she cannot allow Regina to push herself through another night with a good conscience.

Tentatively, she tiptoes behind the black bench, noting Regina's rigid posture as she scribbles something down before she angrily erases away the words and furiously writes something else down instead. Her heart aches in agony as she gently wraps her arms around Regina's waist while her lips seek out the tender spot below her girlfriend's ear.

"Come to bed," she murmurs, even though Regina just flinched from her touch and attempted to squirm away.

"I have to focus on this song," Regina flatly replies as if someone stole her soul and left this vacant shell of a person.

A person she once knew and loved very deeply, but today...

"You need to come to bed," Emma husks, her lips trailing softly down Regina's neck to place slow and sensual kisses across the hot flesh below.

Emma delicately skims her nail over Regina's skin, carefully pulling the spaghetti strap down her shoulder as her lips follow the path every inch of the way. That is until Regina shrugs her off and hastily snaps her strap back into place.

"Emma, stop! I need to focus on my album tonight," Regina declares, resting her fingers back down against the keys and it doesn't go unnoticed to Emma's eyes, just how badly those digits are trembling and nothing magical is being produced.

"Regina, please," she pathetically pleads, leaning back down to hold the fragile woman against her chest, but Regina is quick to react, shoving Emma away.