Kissing Rhett feels different from any other man, and I’m not sure if it’s because of his powerful, complicated aura—or the fact that something so morally, ethically wrong could feel so dangerously good.
I want to ask what he’s doing when our gazes catch. I want to know what this is. And why me? But I know this can never be anything, so asking would be pointless. Besides, more than likely he’s just a horny guy who saw a girl in a bar and decided to go in for the kill.
In my heart of hearts, I know our time together was more about convenience than poetics.
“I should go,” I say, releasing a sheltered breath.
His smirk fades, along with the dimples I’m just now noticing, and his steely gaze darkens.
“Yeah,” he says, as if he’s suddenly drawn the same conclusions but for reasons all his own. “You should.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Back up a sec.” Bostyn’s jaw hangs when I finish telling her the sordid details of the last twenty-odd hours of my life.
I hold nothing back.
I tell her the truth.
I tell her what I’ve done and how I did it.
And I hang my head when I’m finished.
“Do I even know you right now?” Bostyn’s clear blue eyes dance between mine.
“What shocks you most? The fact that I slept with a stranger or the fact that I haven’t exactly told him who I am?”
“Uh, both,” she says, her tone insinuating that I should’ve read her mind. “You’re literally the most honest person I know. And the most distrusting. You trust no one except, like, me and your mom. And you always tell the truth, even if it’s uncomfortable. This isn’t you. This isn’t you at all. There’s someone else in the control tower of that big old brain of yours.”
“Feels that way.”
I slink to the floor of my brother’s living room, pulling my knees against my chest as Bostyn stares like she’s seeing me for the first time.
“You want to grab drinks?” I ask. “Since last night didn’t work out? I still haven’t told you what I was going to tell you last night.”
“Oh, yeah. Prescott Club?”
“What is it with you and that place?”
She laughs. “Worried you’ll run into him again?”
“Yes!”
“He won’t be there.”
I huff, feeling my lips begin to curl when I think of running into him again. I’m so bad.
“How do you know he won’t be there?” I ask.
“Gut feeling. Anyway, I’m telling you, stiffest drinks in the city. Plus, the Tuesday night bartender has a thing for me. He hooks me up with free drinks, and I don’t get paid until Friday, so ...”
Inhaling, I imagine how awkward it would be to bump into Rhett there again, but the odds of that happening are slim to none without a doubt.
No one drinks on a Tuesday, and if they do, they sure as hell don’t return to the same bar they visited the night before, not in a city with 1,784 other options.
Screw it.
“Fine,” I concede. “Let’s go.”
Nine
Rhett
* * *
“He didn’t deserve you.” I slide my drink toward Allison because she needs it more than I do and the bartender’s a little slower than usual delivering the goods tonight.
She cups the crystal tumbler in both hands, her sleeves pulled down to her fingertips. Taking a drink, she tries her hardest not to make a face, but she can’t help it. I don’t blame her. Shit’s strong; an acquired taste. But after the burn will be the sweetest escape she’ll ever know, even if it’s only temporary.
“All the good ones are taken.” She lifts her glasses to dab at the corner of her eye with the edge of her sleeve. Allison dresses like it’s autumn no matter what the time of year may be. But she’s a small girl and she’s always cold, so I don’t give her any shit for it.
“That’s not true,” I say. “You just haven’t met him yet.”
Her baby blues mist over, and she smiles. “You’re sweet to say that, Rhett. I know you’re just saying the things people are supposed to say in situations like this.”
Releasing a breath, my shoulders slump. “I’m sorry. I suck at this. I really do.”
“And you’re dealing with your own stuff,” she says, her voice tapering to a whisper. “You don’t have to do this. We can leave after this drink.”
“No,” I say. “Stay here. Drink as much as you want—on me. And call in sick tomorrow.”
She laughs, though her eyes are still glassy. “Rhett, I can’t call in sick.”
“Why not? I’m your boss, and I say you can. Hell, take the whole fucking week if you want.”
I glance at the bartender who shows no signs of heading in our direction anytime soon. This one’s different from my usual guy, then again, I don’t typically come here in the middle of the week.
I lift a hand, trying to casually garner his attention, but his gaze skirts over the heads of the Japanese businessmen he’s trying to serve and lands on a couple of women coming through the doorway.
“No fucking way,” I mutter.
Allison rotates in her seat, craning her neck to see what I’m staring at. “Oh. It’s that girl from this morning.”
“Yeah.” I rub my palm along my five o’clock shadow. “Yeah, that’s her. Never would’ve pegged her for a stalker.”
“Is she stalking you though? She hasn’t even looked over here. I don’t think she’s even scanned the room. And she’s with someone,” Allison says, always my squeaky voice of reason.
“That’s what they do,” I say. “The good stalkers are so good they don’t look like they’re stalking.”
“Hmm.” She isn’t buying it.
The bartender finally approaches, and I feel like I haven’t seen him in years. I order a whiskey sour and a lemon drop martini for Allison because on her best of days, she’s a little ray of sunshine, and she could use something uplifting at this point.
“I should probably stop after this,” she says when he returns with her martini glass.
“The night is young, Al,” I say, eyes focused across the bar to where Ayla seems to be elbow deep in some kind of fascinating conversation.
Allison’s right. Ayla hasn’t so much as glanced in this direction. Not once. Not even for a fraction of a splinter of a second.
There’s a restlessness stirring inside me. I can’t sit here and pretend she isn’t over there. I can’t sit here and pretend like her taste isn’t still on my tongue and that her perfume hasn’t been on my skin all day or that I haven’t been replaying our morning fuck session over and over in my head. I even stroked it while thinking of her this afternoon when my cock wouldn’t stop throbbing every time I passed the kitchen island.
“Are you going to say hi?” Allison interrupts my dirty, dirty mind.
I bite my lower lip, giving it good pause. “Probably not.”
“Why not?”
Oh, Allison. So young. So naïve. She has no idea how this works.