Hers was embarrassingly squeaky and as weak as her attempted ignorance. “What response?”
He flashed a knowing smile. “What, you think I can’t tell when a woman is attracted to me?”
Nope, this was not the AJ she remembered. The golden boy was gone, replaced by a primal creature teeming with raw sexual energy. The electricity in the air was liable to burn her alive.
“Y-you…” She swallowed hard. “You don’t seem like the kind of man who does stuff like this. Sleeping with someone you’ve just met…”
“Why do women always take it upon themselves to decide what kind of man I am?”
“Am I wrong?” she challenged.
After a beat, he gave a sheepish grin. “Fine. I haven’t had a lot of one-night stands. But…” His eyes burned. “I have a feeling not going home with you tonight would be the biggest mistake of my life.”
She didn’t have time to absorb that intense answer, because suddenly he was touching her.
Holy hell. The air damn near incinerated when his callused fingertips stroked her wrist, sweeping over the roses inked on her skin.
“Let me take you home, Brett,” he said roughly. “Let me show you who I am.”
Her breath got stuck in her lungs when he brought his other hand into play. He traced the line of her jaw before sliding his palm behind her neck, then dragging it higher so he could thread his fingers through her hair.
His touch was magic. Sweet and gentle and—or not, she amended when he gave her hair a sharp tug. He nudged her head to the side to bare her throat, his spicy, masculine scent drugging her senses as his head dipped and he planted a hot kiss on her even hotter flesh.
Brett gasped at the sharp sting of teeth nipping her neck. “I know who you are,” she stammered. “Or at least I thought I did.”
A dark laugh fanned over her skin. “I’m pretty sure you thought wrong.” He planted an openmouthed kiss right beneath her ear.
She moaned.
“Christ, you smell so fucking good.” AJ rubbed his cheek on the side of her throat, his stubble scratching her hypersensitized skin.
He still hadn’t kissed her on the mouth, and her lips were trembling in anticipation. When he released her and took a step back, she actually whimpered in disappointment.
“My car’s parked in the back,” he said huskily. “Why don’t you say good-bye to your friends and then meet me in the parking lot?”
God, she should say no.
But what came out was, “Don’t you have to go back to work?”
He smiled. “I’m co-owner of this place. I can take off whenever I want.”
The revelation that he owned the club barely registered. She was too focused on the curve of his lips, too entranced by the seductive smile that once again brought an ache to her core.
“Final answer?” he drawled after her silence had dragged on too long.
Say no.
Are you crazy? Say yes!
Her brain and her libido were fighting a battle inside her, and she struggled to reconcile the conflicting pleas. She really should say no. She was supposed to be making smart decisions these days—a one-night stand with a guy she knew from high school was not a smart decision. It was a reckless one.
But…damn it, he was so gorgeous she couldn’t look away. And her body still tingled from his skillful touch, his hot mouth on her neck, his intoxicating scent.
She took a breath. “Yes.”
He tipped his head. “Yes?”
“Yes, I’d like you to take me home.”
There. She’d said it. No turning back now.
She would walk the smart-decision path tomorrow. Tonight, she was taking a detour.
She was choosing reckless.
Chapter Three
The car ride was riddled with fits and spurts of conversation, which only highlighted the problem with spur-of-the-moment decisions—they rarely ever stayed spur of the moment, at least not unless the invitation for sex was immediately followed by said sex. But since there’d be no sexing until they reached Brett’s apartment, she had no choice but to make small talk with the man whose bones she desperately wanted to jump.
“Turn left at the next light,” she told AJ, who sat behind the wheel of his black Jeep.
The slight crease in his forehead revealed that he was sensing her nervousness, and he was right to sense it. At the moment, her palms were clammy and her heart was pounding so hard it was all she could hear.
It wasn’t a matter of not being attracted to him. Because she was. So badly her panties were soaked. But…this was AJ Walsh. All the girls in high school had fantasized about the guy, doodling his name in their binders, praying he’d say hi to them in the hall. Brett might have been an outcast, but she hadn’t been immune to AJ’s charms. She’d fantasized about him just as hard as everyone else, and a part of her couldn’t believe those old girlhood fantasies were about to become reality.
“You okay?”
His deep voice penetrated her thoughts. Blushing, she glanced over and nodded. “I’m good. You?”
“I’m just fine, angel.”
Angel.
God, now that he’d given her the nickname, he didn’t seem inclined to stop using it, and each time the husky word rumbled out, a shiver rolled through her.
She rested both hands on her thighs, discreetly wiping her damp palms on the front of her jeans. Music poured out of the car speakers, the volume so low it was barely audible, but her brow wrinkled when she recognized the song.
“Is this the radio?” she asked.
“No, it’s my iPod shuffle. Why?”
“You listen to Concrete Blonde?”
“I listen to a lot of things.” He raised his eyebrows when he saw her face. “Why do you look so surprised?”
“I don’t know…I guess it just doesn’t seem like something you’d listen to.”
“There you go again, making assumptions. So, tell me, what did you expect me to listen to?”
She thought it over for a moment. “John Mayer?”
A laugh popped out of his mouth. “Nope, can’t say I’m a fan.”
“Taylor Swift?” she suggested.
That got her a sheepish grin. “I’m not gonna lie. I think I have one or two of her songs on the shuffle.”
Brett sighed. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. We all have our guilty pleasures. Mine is Miley Cyrus. I blast ‘Party in the USA’ when I’m cleaning the house.”
The song in the car faded out, then switched to the faint sounds of hip-hop, which told her that AJ hadn’t been kidding. Apparently he did have an eclectic taste in music.
They went quiet again, and as they got closer to her apartment, her nerves returned. AJ might have said he was okay with one-night stands, but she didn’t quite believe him. No matter how dirty he’d acted back at the club, he still had good guy written all over him. His short, perfectly styled blond hair, crisp trousers and formfitting T-shirt gave him a preppy vibe—and in her experience, preppy men were usually all about relationships.
Well, Brett wasn’t looking for a relationship. Her last one had been about as healthy as deep-fried pizza covered in chocolate, and now that Troy was no longer part of her life, she was beginning to question her habit of throwing herself headfirst into relationships. She invested so much of her heart and soul into them, to the point where she lost sight of the rest of the world.