“Yup, art history major.”
“Oh yeah? What are you going to do with that?” he asks, lifting the beer to his sculpted lips. He never takes his eyes off of me. I like it. I crave his attention more than I should.
I shrug as if I don’t have it all planned out. Because I don’t, not anymore. Robert’s family owns a museum just outside of town and I always thought I’d work there. So much for that idea. I’ll be looking at any other museum in the country than the one with his family’s name on it.
The thought is unwelcome and a new sense of loss washes over me. I take a good long sip before picking out a blueberry to suck on.
“You live around here then?” I ask, desperate to change subjects.
“Visiting a friend.”
I glance behind him and then turn to get a better view of the place. “Where is he?” I presume his friend is male and then correct myself, adding, “Or she?”
He shakes his head once, placing both his hands on the bar and tapping his thumbs like they’re drumming to the music. “No she.”
The answer warms me and I have to put my drink down for a moment before I find this one gone too quickly as well.
“He is busy tonight and left me to look after his place while he’s out of town.”
“So you’re house-sitting?” I ask and finally get a good look at his eyes. They’re baby blue, such a pale shade. It’s not fair how God made some people roam this earth looking like sex on a stick.
“Yeah, I’ve got the time and he had to head out on short notice.”
“Work let you off without a problem?” I say, wondering what he does for a living.
“I work for myself. So yeah.”
“Entrepreneur?” I ask to pry further, wondering if he’s lying and this is a pickup routine he does. If it is, it’s working.
I’ve never thought of myself as horny. Especially since I’ve been in a long-distance relationship for three years and going without sex never bothered me. Sitting next to Mr. Right Now, though … I am not too far away from being all-out needy.
The conversation is easy and flows. Every time I laugh, my knees sway a little too much to the right and brush against him. One time his hand grazes them and with the light touch I can feel those sparks other people talk about.
Time passes, and I feel all sorts of things I’m not sure I’ve ever felt before. It’s all so new and I wonder if this is what Sharon refers to when she talks about “first flirt jitters.”
“You have an accent,” he says and I laugh at the comment, a little too loud. Rolling my eyes, I set down the shot glass, our second together, on the polished bar and look at it rather than those piercing blue eyes I can feel drifting down the crook of my neck.
I wonder if he’s thinking about kissing me there. With his rough stubble, I imagine it would feel coarse and scratch my neck. Heat simmers along my skin, but it’s even hotter between my thighs. I wonder for a moment what it would be like to feel his stubble down there. I want to feel that. I want to feel what that’s like.
Am I really going to do it? I think as the shots finally seem to hit my brain, making me a little more blurred than fuzzy.
“I think I’ve had enough,” I say, my voice full of humor and I know the smile is still present on my face. I can feel one plastered there. I’m a chicken. I’ve always been a little scaredy-cat.
“What’s wrong?” he asks and he reaches out to help me get off the barstool. I’m a little too short and grateful for the help. But the second his skin touches mine, electricity ignites, every nerve ending coming alive.
The barstool scrapes against the ground as I get up, trying to stand on my own.
My feet slip back into my heels and I stumble, caught off guard by the slight hint of pain. With a yelp from my lips, my hand reaches out to grab on to something, anything.
I didn’t need to, because he’s quick to wrap his own strong arm around my back. He’s all hard muscle, coiled around me tight. Being this close to him, his masculine scent hits me suddenly. It’s like a cool breeze across the sea. Fresh with a hint of rain coming. He smells like home.
I’m too busy getting lost in him to realize my hand is far too close to his … downstairs.
“Oh!” I jump back, and he eases his grip on me immediately. My grimace fades when humor glints in his gorgeous eyes. “Sorry,” I whisper. The wince is from embarrassment, not from my shoes this time.
“You all right?” he asks, sitting back in his seat but not taking his gaze off me. The suggestion of laughter still lingers on his lips, but he eyes me with concern.
“I had a little before I got here,” I tell him with a nod. “You know, alcohol.”
“Uh-huh,” he says and smirks at me.
“So I’m just feeling a little tipsy.”
“You need a glass of water.”
“I just want to go for a second.”
“Running away, then?” he asks and I gawk at him.
Shaking my head, I deny it and say, “I’m not running away.” Although that’s exactly what I was going to do. I lie when I add, “I’m just going to the restroom to wash my hands.”
“To wash your hands?”
“It’s the polite thing to say.” I lower my voice. “Would you rather I tell you I have to pee?”
His laugh is unexpected. It’s louder than the chuckles before, genuine and everything I want to hear from those lips right now. It’s deep and the cadence is as rough as the calluses on his hands.
“You’re real cute,” he tells me, his smile reaching his eyes. “Can I at least have your name?”
Mags. My name is there on the tip of my tongue. But that’s what Robert called me.
I don’t want to be Magnolia.
Tonight, I want to be a rose. Beautiful and delicate, but covered in thorns. You can’t fuck with a rose.
“Rose,” I say, lying for the second time tonight. In a matter of five minutes, I’ve already lied to this man twice. Once about running away, and now about my name. I’m not proud of that, but the way he murmurs Rose like he’s tasting it on his tongue, makes me feel just about okay with lying.
Maybe even good. That bit of heat from before ripples through me, and the ease that washes away the panic that hit me a moment ago, that definitely feels better than good.
“And you?” I ask and he simply stares at me. For one long second and then another. “Your name?” I add, thinking maybe I didn’t make sense.
His tongue clicks against the roof of his mouth, drawing attention to both his strong jawline and his gorgeous lips. Especially the bottom one. My gaze stays there another second before I realize I’m waiting on him to give me his name.
“Why don’t you head to the bathroom, or wherever you’re going,” he says confidently. “I’ll tell you when you get back.”
He flashes me a wink with an asymmetrical grin playing at his lips, right before turning back to the bar. The music and chatter are so loud around me that I can’t hear what he tells the bartender.
It doesn’t matter, though. The bathroom is my refuge. Every step I take to get there, every second I spend in the small line before I can snag a stall, I think about whether or not I’m actually going back to the bar.