But maybe if I hooked up her company with his...
“Wait,” I said, realizing I’d neglected to get some crucial information. I skimmed the crowd. “I don’t even know your name.” I was talking to myself, though, because he’d disappeared.
“I’m pretty sure you can just refer to him as Mr. Sebastian when you call his secretary,” the bartender said. “Can I get you a refill?”
I ignored the question and the fact that he’d been eavesdropping because I was currently freaking out. “He was a Sebastian?” My face felt hot and it had nothing to do with the alcohol I’d been drinking. I’d been talking to a celebrity. A Sebastian in the flesh. Thank goodness I hadn’t known before. I would have definitely said something stupid.
It was possible I’d said something stupid anyway. I scanned back through our conversation looking for anything cringeworthy. Everything I could recall was pretty banal.
This definitely meant I couldn’t pass the info on to Kendra, though. I’d already tried to suggest approaching the Sebastians on several occasions, and she’d instantly nixed it every time. Something about their family being too close to hers, wasn’t appropriate, blah blah blah. I wasn’t a rich girl. I didn’t understand all the rules of society.
Too bad because Mr. Sebastian and I had had a connection. I was pretty sure I could have sold him. What a deal that would have been.
“Oh my God, he was a Sebastian,” I repeated to myself.
“There are several of them around here,” a voice said at my side. An annoyingly delicious and familiar voice. “Dime a dozen.”
I turned to find myself face-to-face with the stupid-hot player, and damn if he wasn’t even hotter close-up. “You,” I said, a bit scornfully because I was feeling contemptuous about the way he lit every nerve in my body on fire.
“You,” he said in turn. His tone seemed to both appreciate my scorn and know full well the source of it. “I was hoping we’d meet again.”
“I was hoping we wouldn’t.”
“Funny, I don’t believe you.”
He wasn’t an idiot, and the truth was glaringly evident. I couldn’t stop staring. My eyes were magnetically drawn to him. He was so gorgeous, it made me need to take a seat, and I was already sitting. His hair was lighter, I realized, than I’d figured in the dark. Brownish-red with golden hues, so perfectly messy in distribution that it had to be natural. His eyes were a killer blue. I’d always been a sucker for blue eyes. And for stupid-hot player types. It was like he’d been ordered up for me specifically, a Tessa Turani cocktail guaranteed to make me mind-numbingly drunk from just looking at him.
“Can I buy you a shot?” he asked, as if I needed alcohol when he was in my system.
Somehow I managed to pull my gaze away. “It’s an open bar.”
“In that case, I can afford to buy you two.” He summoned the bartender who hadn’t gone far, that nosy little spy. “Four shots of…” Blue Eyes looked at me. “Tequila all right?”
How had he known? “The source of many a bad decision.”
“Tequila it is.”
He was so smooth. Much smoother than the liquor would be, I knew from experience.
Yet, I didn’t object when the bartender put the four shots in front of us, along with a shaker of salt and a bowl of limes.
Just seeing the setup made me want to take my clothes off. Or maybe it was Blue Eyes that did that. He knew how to fill a tux, and I had a feeling he looked even better with it off.
He and the bartender knew exactly where this was going. How dumb was I?
I held up a single shot. “A little obvious, don’t you think?”
“That I want to be one of your bad decisions?” He lifted one as well. “I thought honesty was deserved after what we’ve been through together.”
“As if we’ve gone through a bonding experience.”
“I found it incredibly bonding. See, you watched.” He leaned in close, lowering his voice to a rasp that only I could hear. “And I find that very, very hot.”
A shiver ran down my spine. Yeah, I needed the tequila. Skipping the salt, I shot the first glass back then reached for a lime. I cringed, not just from the sour taste but from the words he’d said and my reaction to them.
I shook my head. “And you’re bonded with women that you find hot?”
“Temporarily,” he grinned. “Yes.”
That smile was a serious weapon. “There’s that honesty again,” I said, pretending that I wasn’t doomed. “I should give you credit for it.”
“You should.” He poured back his own shot, no salt, no lime. He was letting me know he was hardcore, in case that did it for me.
Of course it did. My type to a T.
Perhaps it was because he was so perfectly my weakness that I continued to fight it. “Just because I watched didn’t mean that I found it hot.”
“But you did.”
“I never said that.” I’d said I found him hot. It wasn’t the same thing.
He shrugged as if the semantics didn’t matter. “You didn’t have to.”
No, I didn’t. I was a puddle of wet for him. He didn’t have to put his hand between my legs to know.
I swiveled toward him, finally giving in. I lifted the second drink up so that we could clink them together when he lifted his. We shot them back together, and though I tried to resist, I broke down and sucked on the lime.
I could feel his eyes on me as I did, scorching with their intensity. I could practically hear his thoughts. She’ll taste like citrus when I kiss her.
I had to cross my legs to ease the ache. “Who said you were the reason I watched?” This time I was flirting. Teyana would be so proud when I told her later. “Maybe it was Eden I found hot.”
“It wasn’t.”
He’d gotten closer, somehow without even seeming to move. Instead of two people sitting next to each other, we were two people sharing one space. His body pressed against the outside of my thigh. I could feel that touch everywhere. My nipples steepled like antennas attempting to draw more of that electricity in.
He reached out to brush a lock of my hair behind my ear, then let his fingers trail down my neck.
“You’re rather sure of yourself,” I whispered.
“Tell me your name. I’ll make you sure of me too.”
I stood up in a sudden panic. “No. No names.”
“I didn’t think it was possible, but I’m even more turned on.”
On my feet, the world felt a hell of a lot less steady. It was the alcohol, of course, but also it was him, this charming brute of a man. Saying charming things and smiling his charming smile and gazing at me with his charming blue eyes.
Dumb and doomed. That was me. “I think I should leave.”
“Let me take you.”
I knew I couldn’t agree to that. Letting him take me to the apartment I shared with Teyana in Jersey City would be as bad as giving him my name. Besides, I was staying at Kendra’s, and I definitely couldn’t lead him there.
But I’d had enough drinks to make it difficult to think straight, and if he was offering to take me to his home, we both knew the answer wasn’t no.