I place my hand on her shoulder to stop her, and her body freezes. I shouldn’t have touched her because now I look like a goddamned creep and she looks a little bit horrified.
This got dark, fast.
My mouth opens, and I’m on the verge of apologizing, but I’m not the kind of man who’s ever really been sorry for anything, so I stop myself.
Removing my hand from her, I straighten my shoulders and take a half of a step back. In the span of a couple of seconds, I see the two of us in bed, sweaty and spent. It could’ve been hot. And I sure as fuck could’ve used the release. But now my chance is shot to hell, so ...
“Do you need help? Or anything?” she steps closer to me, keeping her voice down.
“What? Jesus. No.”
“You’re really drunk and you’re coming onto complete strangers at some random bar. I think you need help.”
This isn’t some random bar, but I don’t have the mental stamina to sit here and defend it to her.
“It’s been a rough couple of weeks,” is all I tell her. It’s all she needs to know, and I refuse to elaborate if she asks. I’m not in the habit of making excuses, but in this case, after the last several days I’ve endured, I’m making an exception.
Her rosebud mouth bunches in one corner as she studies me. “You need me to take you home?”
“No, I do not need you to take me home,” I repeat her words. “I don’t need a fucking caretaker.”
Ayla’s hand splays across her chest. “Believe me, I’m not a caretaker. I can barely take care of myself most days. I was just offering to help you home, not wipe your ass.”
Goddamn.
This woman, this Ayla ... she reminds me of … me. The way she talks. The way she drinks. The looks she gives. The take-no-shit attitude. The only other person I’ve known who was remotely like myself was Bryce, but I’ve never met a female version.
“What?” she asks. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You can take me home if it makes you feel better.” I sound pathetic. I know that. Well aware. But if Ayla leaves this bar tonight, I’m never going to see her again. I’m never going to know what it’s like to fuck my equal, and in my warped, little drunk mind, I’m kind of curious to know what it would be like.
Plus, she’s the sexiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen. That, alone, is all the reason a man needs, truly.
“If it makes me feel better?” she mocks me. “I’m not doing this for my health, Rhett. I’m doing this because you need me to.”
My lips part, and I almost come back at her with a line about how I don’t need anyone, but then I remember I’m playing the part of a wounded bird, and the second I get her into my nest, she’s all mine.
“Come on.” She hooks her hand into the crook of my elbow and leads me to the door. “You’re paying for the cab.”
Six
Ayla
* * *
Shit. Shit. Shit.
What the hell am I doing?!
Rhett jams his key into the lock outside his apartment door. It takes him a few tries, but he eventually succeeds, and as I’m ushered into a pitch-black apartment that smells vaguely of vetiver and teak wood, I wonder how pissed he’d be if he knew the truth—if he knew I was Bryce’s sister and that I knew his name before he introduced himself back at The Prescott Club.
But to be fair, I wasn’t exactly planning to run into him tonight, and there wasn’t exactly an opportune moment for me to slip those little details into our conversation. I didn’t leave them out intentionally, and it isn’t like I’m not pretending to be someone I’m not.
I sigh. This could be justified a million ways and it would still, in the end, be wrong of me.
Rhett kicks his shoes off and flips on a light. The sounds echo. His place is expansive, bigger than Bryce’s. Nicer too. And cleaner. Everything’s shiny and organized. It doesn’t even look like anyone lives here.
The city is alive outside his window, in all its twinkling glory, and I could stand here for hours just taking in the view, but first things first.
“Can I borrow your phone charger?” I ask, digging my dead phone from my purse. “This thing’s been dying on me whenever the battery hits 37%. I’ve been meaning to take it in.”
He points to the kitchen, where I immediately spot a familiar-looking white cord plugged into an outlet. If it could just charge for twenty minutes, I could order an Uber and feel better about heading home safely.
Rhett’s gone when I turn around. I have no idea where he went or if he’s passed out in some random room, but I’m not about to go looking for him. Leaning against the counter, I will my phone to charge as fast as it can so I can get the hell out of here.
It feels wrong being here, pretending I don’t know him. I feel like a fraud who’s about to get found out any second, and something tells me I don’t ever want to experience the wrath of Rhett Carson.
There’s an undercurrent of anger in his eyes, something intense in the way he looks at me, like something’s boiling just below surface level, waiting for a chance to explode.
Shuffling feet from the hallway tell me Rhett’s alive and well and not passed out in some random room, but I’m not prepared for what I see when he comes around the corner.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph ...
I try not to ogle, but I can’t look away. I physically cannot.
He’s not a man, he’s a Greek god chiseled from stone by Michelangelo himself.
“Do you normally walk around shirtless when strange women from bars take you home?” I ask, masking my arousal with sarcasm as I take in the view. No shirt. Low slung navy sweats that show off two very chiseled arrows pointing toward a very noticeable bulge.
“All the time,” he says, taking a seat in one of his living room chairs. He interlaces his fingers behind his head, smirking in my direction.
He doesn’t look like the portrait of a man whose fiancée recently died in a tragic car accident, but I force myself to refrain from judging him because I know very little about his situation, and I’m sure there’s more to it than I could ever begin to assume.
Besides, we all deal with grief in our own way.
Turning away, I check my phone. It still says it’s charging, but the screen is black. It refuses to turn on, unlike the situation happening between my thighs at this very moment.
“You have somewhere to be after this?” he asks.
He seems ... less drunk now. And maybe the alcohol has worn off some since we left Prescott, but there’s something more coherent about his current state, and I can’t help but wonder if he lured me here under false pretenses as well.
Guess that’d make us kind of even.
Leaning against his marble island, I think about my brother and how many times he likely stood here, in this very kitchen, shooting the shit with his best friend. I imagine them laughing, giving each other hell. Talking about women and hockey and whatever else.
“It’s been a long day,” I say, honest to a fault, “and I just want to go home and go to bed.”
He rises from his chair, moving my way and keeping his cool blue eyes trained on me. He doesn’t want me to leave, and for some insane reason, I kind of want to stay. Or maybe I’m just curious about what would happen if I did.