“Have fun!” Cooper yells after us.
I glance back at him and catch as he gives me a subtle nod. It’s his way of giving me time with Nessie after spending the afternoon with her. I smile, appreciating the time before I turn and follow her back down into the club.
The alcohol chases my inhibitions and straggling hopes that returned to the battlefield after Tyler’s reaction. Nessie might be right. Maybe he’s attracted to me, but that means little to nothing, and tonight I need it to mean less. Those thoughts take a backseat as we find a space on the dance floor, dancing and laughing as the world disappears into a familiar territory of Nessie and I having fun together.
Cooper finds us several songs later, and Nessie’s face lights up. I wait to see Tyler behind him, but the crowd closes around Cooper, and when a guy in a deep blue shirt and New York accent asks me to dance, I don’t look back.
“I need something to drink,” New York yells after several more songs have played. “You want to get something?”
I glance toward Nessie and Cooper making out and back to New York. He’s a good dancer, and his broad chest and quick smile have made it easy for me to forget what I was running from when we arrived. I nod. “Yeah.”
He flashes another quick smile. “I’m Reggie,” he says.
“Chloe,” I respond.
He repeats my name. “It’s nice to meet you, Chloe.”
I smile, trying to remember how to flirt as his hand floats down my back, resting right above my ass. We weave through the crowd, heading to the bar, which is still overflowing with people.
“What would you like?” Reggie asks, his gaze skipping from me to the bartender as he tries to get his attention.
I shake my head because the only drink I can think about is Sazerac and slippery nipples.
Then Tyler appears, his blue eyes accusatory as he looks at Reggie’s hand on my back and then me.
“I’ve got her,” Tyler says, beckoning the same bartender Reggie’s been working to catch for the past several minutes.
Reggie raises his eyebrows, his hand slipping from my back. I glance from him to Tyler, feeling irrationally angry by him interfering when I needed this—needed the attention of someone else who wanted to buy me a drink and spend time with me and chase the rest of these ghosts from my thoughts.
I sigh, moving past Tyler in the direction of the restrooms.
When I reach the hallway, a hand at my waist stops me. I turn, catching Tyler’s eyes shining intensely back at me. “Are you trying to make me jealous?”
I laugh in spite of myself, fully aware he’s about to lay open a new wound with the lashing of words, assuring me he doesn’t get jealous, much less by me. The idea of making him jealous hadn’t even crossed my mind because I knew it was impossible. My intention was purely selfish—an attempt to seek sanity, to forget him. I shake my head, not wanting to hear the verbal blows that will remind me I’m his favorite new head game.
His palms fall flush against the wall on either side of me, his mouth so close I smell that he was drinking a Sazerac. “What are you doing to me?” His gaze drops to my mouth, and the column of his throat moves slowly as he swallows. He leisurely lifts his gaze to meet mine, and there’s a crease between his brows with the weight of a thought he doesn’t like. “Why do you look at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m redeemable.”
I pull my chin back, surprise hitting me like a cold drink to the face as the hope in my chest slowly rises to its feet again. Of all the things I thought—expected—for him to say, this was not even within the same galaxy of possibilities.
“Dammit, Chloe.” He leans closer to me, his forearm connecting with the wall. I trace the lines of his face with my eyes, catching a subtle scar across his jaw, the roundness of his lips, the way his stare cuts through me in a way that leaves me feeling exposed, which is both terrifying and liberating. He raises his left hand, brushing the back of his fingers from my temple to my jaw. “Tell me you want me. Tell me you’re drowning in thoughts of me because I constantly feel like I’m one breath from drowning. Tell me you feel this.”
Never have I questioned my cardiologist’s assurances about my heart being fine, but right now, my doubts feel like a fact as my heart beats like the dryer when we put too many clothes inside—off balance and clunky. His stare pleads with mine, searching for what I fear most to expose: how much I want him. I tear my gaze from his, but he’s everywhere, his lips, his scent, his warmth.
I pull in a fraction of a breath. “I don’t want to be a mistake that you avoid for the next ten days.”
He closes his eyes and shakes his head. “You want to know the first time I wanted to kiss you?” His eyes dip to my mouth again, and he licks his lips. “We were outside, and you were telling me how the moon was nearly the same distance across as Australia.”
“I kissed you that night,” I admit the moment I avidly work to forget and pretend never happened.
His eyebrows hitch. “I know, and then you started avoiding me.”
“Because that guy said I was your third hookup of the night.”
He pulls his chin back. “What?”
I nod. “That guy who was smoking weed,” I tell him, recalling the memory like it happened last night. “He started laughing and said Tyler Banks is already on his third hookup of the night. God, he must think Americans are so easy. And your reaction was to smile.”
He shakes his head. “I remember the guys, but…” He shakes his head again. “I most certainly didn’t hear him because otherwise, I would have knocked out his fucking teeth. Chloe, you were the first girl at Brighton I kissed.”
My heart feels dizzy as hope breaks past sense and claims an early victory.
“You’re the only girl at Brighton—the only girl, period—who I want to kiss.”
He ruins me with his admission.
He also raises me.
My feelings are in a constant state of contradiction and imbalance that has me fully addicted and entranced to everything about him.
His bright blue eyes dance between my mouth and my eyes, then he starts to shake his head, but leans closer with another giant contradiction. “This will change things. If you ask me to kiss you, nothing will be the same. Not this time.”
“What changes?”
His eyes slowly shift between mine. “Everything. Everything will change because I want you in ways I can’t even describe. I want to own you, possess you, and claim you—I want to fucking free you, Chloe.”
He buries his fingers into my hair, his palm resting hot against my jaw. “People will come at you—want to be your friend, want to ask you for favors, talk about you behind your back, start rumors—it won’t be easy.”
I’m so entangled in his words about wanting to claim me that I can’t ask logic to take a seat and join in the conversation because desire cleared that space and is lighting the candles and turning on some sexy music. “I don’t care,” I tell him.
Regret flashes in his eyes. “Chloe…” His gaze starts to slip, and I can feel the distance as he works to pull himself away, though he hasn’t moved a single inch.
“Truth or dare?” I ask him.