Jolee noticed my stare and she tossed a small wave in my direction just as her boyfriend, Ford, stepped up beside her, wrapping one of his arms around her waist. Jolee had her life planned out; she was going to open her animal rescue, and if things continued the way they were, Ford would most likely help her run the business.
Last night she had mourned the loss of my internship with me, and we indulged in some red wine – as we tended to do when things didn’t quite go our way. My sweet cousin offered to help me find a new internship, but I knew that her plate was already full due to her Master’s courses beginning this summer.
I was screwed.
Slouching against the seat, I wiped a bead of sweat from across my brow as a moan vibrated out of my throat. Of course, my sleeping neighbor chose that moment to wake up and look over at me with an interested expression.
“Hey, want to meet up when this is over?” he leaned over and asked me out of the blue. My nose scrunched in disgust at his insinuation.
Could this day get any worse?
I tried to ignore the boy beside me who was unabashedly checking me out, his beady eyes raking my body up and down, I attempted to listen to the keynote speaker. I couldn’t remember her introduction, but she was asking us to think back to our favorite moment from college.
“Was it meeting your first friend? Was it pledging your fraternity or sorority? Was it taking that first class that interested you? What was it?”
It didn’t take much to think back to what moment was my favorite from college. Hell, it would most likely go down as the best moment of my life. It wasn’t any of the items that she listed that impacted me. It wasn’t a friend, a decision, or a class – it was a boy. No, a man. A tall handsome man that has haunted my dreams for 346 days.
The smoky club was filled to the brim with college students preparing for the summer break. I stepped inside the door after waiting outside for the last thirty minutes. The club was in a popular dining area in Boston that I had ventured to a few times, but I’d never been inside one of the buildings.
Covert was the name of the club and it lived up to its name. Tucked away in an alley between two greasy diners, Covert was one of those places that you usually found by accident or someone else brought you to. I was the latter, except the guy that brought me walked off with one of the redheads that had been behind us in line. He had smiled at her in the cocky way that frat boys do, and she offered to suck his cock.
I made sure to wave goodbye with a particular finger as they headed back to her place. It was fine though, he kept trying to cop a feel through dinner that I ended up paying for.
Tonight I was determined to have fun.
The music was pulsing around me as I let my gaze wander around the main room. My body rocked with the beat on impulse. I took a step toward the bar along the back, my fear of crowds weighing heavily, and I knew that a shot of something would help loosen me up.
What I thought would be a quick trip ended up with bodies knocking into mine. Purple and blue lights flashed around me as men and women groped my exposed skin and clothes. My anxiety skyrocketed as I got knocked farther into the center of the room and not toward my destination. I could feel the panic attack rising in my chest, wrapping its claw-like grip around my lungs and neck. I wanted to scream for everyone to move, but the noise got caught in my throat, suffocating me.
With the blackness closing in, I did whatever I could to push people aside, punching and scratching at them to get free. I kept my head down as I tried to barrel through the crowd until I ran into a large solid mass. No amount of pushing or shoving could get him to move.
“Please,” I cried out over the music, fear wrapping itself around me.
His large hand wrapped around my arm and tugged me closer to his body, and then we began to move. With his brute strength, he practically carried me through the mass, my feet barely hitting the floor until we were tucked safely into the corner of the club next to the bar.
I looked up at my savior to thank him but choked on my gasp as I took him in. He was taller than I had imagined, my head barely coming up to his shoulders, with dark wavy hair and a perfect amount of scruff on his chin. We were buried in the shadows of the club, but his eyes were a gorgeous seafoam green that shimmered from the lights. They stood out to me like beacons guiding me through the harbor. The panic attack that had been threatening to overwhelm me dissipated away into the music of the club. All because of this man’s touch.
“Thank you,” I murmured even though I knew that he couldn’t hear me, but he nodded in understanding.
Turning toward the bar behind me, I tried to flag down the bartender, assuming that my rescuer was finished with me, but I was startled when I felt a large hand rest on my hip. There was no masking the shiver as he leaned over me, his lips brushing against the edge of my ear.
“Is there a boyfriend?” he questioned, his gravelly voice caressing my skin like the petals of a rose, seducing me, enticing me.
My words failed, and for a second, I almost couldn’t comprehend what this gorgeous man asked me, but I found my head shaking reflexively.
“I want you to come with me.”
“Where?” I replied as the bartender made her way in my direction. She glanced between myself and the man standing against me, the corner of her eyes lifting in familiarity, and I had to wonder if he had a history with her.
“My place.”
Under normal circumstances, my brain would shout at me to turn around and tell this guy where he could shove his proposition, but instead, I found myself wondering what it would be like. What it would be like to not care for one night. What it would be like to give in to the attraction I felt toward this man I’ve known for all of five minutes. What it would be like to be carefree.
When the bartender asked what she could get me, I paused, playing a game of roulette in my mind.
“No, I’m fine,” I told her, my hands gripping the edge of the bar as my stranger had slipped a finger under the hem of my shirt, rubbing the soft skin of my waist. He knew what it meant that I had turned down a drink; he was buying his time taunting me until I said the words to him.
She walked away, leaving me with this stranger that had thrown me for a loop. I knew what I wanted to do and say, but it was a very dangerous game that I wasn’t sure that I could play. The devil and angel on my shoulders argued back and forth, but the angel was losing. And as the man leaned closer to me once more, he bit the bottom of my ear with his teeth. My knees buckled beneath me, and if it wasn’t for the hand he had firmly placed at my waist, I would have collapsed onto the sticky wooden floor.
I turned my head to face him, wanting to thank the stranger for saving me a second time, but my tongue dried up faster than the Sahara when I took in his gaze. Hard, hungry, and aching. I lost all train of thought the moment his tongue peeked out and rubbed the front of his teeth. Did he know what that move did to women, particularly my lady parts?
“Fuck,” I whispered as my grip loosened on the bar, watching in awe as the corner of his mouth tilted upward in a smirk so sexy I was certain my panties had disintegrated.
“Yes, that’s what I want to do with you.” That voice of his oozed sex and wrapped itself around me, slithering across my skin.
I felt my head nod and words slipped from between my lips, but I couldn’t understand my voice. All I knew was that the angel on my shoulder had grown her own pair of devil horns.