Or maybe this is all payback for the emails.
Maybe he’s messing with me.
Tossing back the remainder of my drink, I slide off the barstool and fling my purse over my shoulder.
“Where are you going?” he asks, looking me up and down.
“This isn’t cute, this thing you’re doing,” I say. “You’re not charming. You’re not anyone I remotely feel like spending my Saturday night with. I’m going somewhere else.”
“Stay.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“I see that.” He sips his drink, his stare boring through me, all but nailing me in place. “Still, you shouldn’t leave. Not on my account.”
“Do you speak to everyone you meet this way?” I’m not referring to the formality in which he speaks—which reminds me of a young Rudolph Valentino or even a Clark Gable. This man isn’t a “bro” or a “bruh” type. He’s on a level all his own.
“What way?”
“With contempt and condescension,” I say.
“Yes.”
Rolling my eyes, I place some cash on the counter and swipe my coat off the back of my bar stool.
“You’re not seriously going to leave, are you?” He watches me. “Let me buy you a drink. I feel awful you didn’t get to enjoy your first one. You all but chugged it the second I sat down beside you.”
Impressively perceptive.
But still an asshole.
“If I let you buy me a drink, will you leave me alone?” I eye the Manhattan beside him, with its melting ice cubes, wondering if his fragile ego craves attention to soothe the burn of being stood up.
For a moment, I see him as a damaged human and not a blatant jerk.
My adoptive mother used to say, “It takes all kinds,” which I always interpreted to mean that the world would be boring if we were all the same. And I agree. But that doesn’t mean I need to subject myself to this particular non-boring individual.
It’s too bad, really. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. My heart broke for him.
And then he sent that email …
I contemplate his offer, lingering in an indecisive gray area for several long and obvious moments before he reaches for my wrist and tugs me closer.
“I don’t want to ruin your night.” A wolf-like glint resides in his pale blue irises.
A second later, he flags the bartender and points to me and my empty flute.
I couldn’t tell you why … but I decide to stay.
My seat is still warm and his stare is more intense than it was before, and when I finally dare myself to meet his gaze with one of my own, I’m almost positive I see something else in them—something all too familiar.
My lemon-sweet cocktail arrives within minutes and Bennett Schoenbach lifts his glass to mine.
Something tells me we’re toasting to the same thing.
Loneliness.
Twelve
Bennett
* * *
“I don’t hate anything. Or anyone,” the attractive blonde beside me declares as she sips her third cocktail. We’ve been talking—bullshitting about nothing and everything—for the last hour while Jax’s Manhattan wastes into water beside me. The bastard got held up with his clingy girlfriend and he isn’t coming.
So far she’s told me she loves old movies.
Anything old Hollywood.
She volunteers on the weekends (surprise, surprise).
But I’m more interested in what she doesn’t like—those are the kinds of things that tell you what you need to know about someone.
“Liar. Everybody hates somebody.” I sip my whiskey, my gaze trained on her luscious, peach-colored pout.
Disagreements make for the best foreplay, and I have every intention of taking this ray-of -sunshine home with me tonight and hate-fucking her into multiple orgasms before calling her a cab and praying we never meet again because I don’t do repeats.
The more I get her to find me cerebrally repulsive, the hotter the sex will be.
She’s already attracted to me, that much I can deduce. The way her eyes skim over me, the way her gaze lingers on my mouth, the way she touches her hair when she thinks I’m not looking. The way she rolls her eyes when she laughs.
Fight as she may, she wants me.
And we haven’t even exchanged names.
“You say that with such conviction.” She squints. “But you couldn’t be more wrong. I’ve never hated anyone in my life.”
“Liar.”
I focus on her bee-stung mouth, wondering how her lips would taste between my teeth, and when she reaches for her glass, I steal a glimpse of her legging-covered thighs, imagining her cashmere skin beneath my palms.
“Life’s too short to hate anyone.” She shrugs. “Plus, you get what you give, you know? If you go around hating people all the time, they’re going to hate you right back.”
“And what’s wrong with that?”
“Everything.” Her words are breath-filled and certain.
“You have no idea how freeing it is to not give a damn what anyone thinks of you. You could tell me you hate me and I won’t feel a thing. I’ll go home and sleep like a baby.”
She squints. “I don’t believe you.”
I sip my drink and face forward. “I don’t need you to.”
“Deep down you want to be liked, loved, whatever. But you’re scared. So you wear this asshole suit of armor that makes everyone immediately detest you because then you’re in control. You get to decide if someone likes you or not.”
I flag down the bartender, lifting my empty tumbler. “What makes you think that?”
“Because nobody is this awful in real life.” She reaches for another drink, giving me side-eye. “And I refuse to believe you’re as awful as you’d like people to believe.”
“Do you charge by the hour for this? Thought we were just a couple of strangers sharing a drink. Didn’t realize you’ve been psychoanalyzing me this entire time.”
“I’m sorry but this thing you do, it’s a defense mechanism. Lots of people do it. And in my experience, the harder someone is on the outside, the softer they are on the inside.” She offers a humble shrug but wears a buoyant smirk on that fuckable mouth.
She thinks she has me figured out.
She couldn’t be more wrong.
“In my experience, playing armchair psychologist is a complete fucking waste of time.” I burst her bubble.
“Can’t help it. It’s what I do.” Her eyes glint, the palest marbled blue, and she bites her lower lip to stave off a smile. “I find people fascinating.”
“You find me fascinating?”
“People in general,” she corrects. “Which, I guess if you want to get technical, you fall into that category.”
“Why did you really come here tonight?” I change the subject because the magnetism between us is clearly intensifying and it’s time to stop playing around. I was screwing with her earlier when I accused her of coming here to ‘fish’ for men, but I’m beginning to suspect I wasn’t that far off. She’s a gorgeous woman alone in a popular hookup bar on a perfectly good Saturday night, entertaining flirtations from a man who hasn’t even bothered to get her name.