try to fight this feeling from showing on my face. For some reason I look over to the wall again.
Mr. Tall, Dark and Fuckable is gone. I glance around in an attempt to find him. I don’t see him towering over the mass of bobbing heads in the crowd. My heart sinks into my stomach, making my nausea feel worse.
“Sorry,” I say, taking my arm off Bozo and stepping aside so his hand drops off my ass. “I just remembered I have to meet someone. Maybe next time.”
Before I can step away his fingers grab my arm, pulling me off balance. “Don’t play games with me,” he grunts, his breath coming out hard and fast like a bull. “You were all over me a second ago. You wouldn’t have come out here wearing no underwear if you weren’t up for it.” He runs his other hand up the back of my ass again to prove he was right. “I can smell that you want me from here.”
I cringe. I try to shake his hand off, but his grip is like a vice. “Let go of me, you pig.”
Instead he pulls me to him and tries for a kiss, his disgusting mouth puckering like a fish. His other hand slips under the hem of my dress. I lean back and try to balance on one heel so I can kick him where it hurts. Before I do, he releases me, almost causing me to fall over. He disappears behind a wide back wrapped in black cotton. I grab the bar to steady myself.
Oh God. It’s him. The man from the wall. I know it’s him. Even though I can’t see his face, I recognize his presence. I stare up at his thick shoulder muscles pushing out against his shirt, then down his lats, which are wide enough to hang off, tucking down into a trim waist. Finally to a round ass and lovely strong thighs hugged by dark blue denim. Holy sweet Jesus. My mouth is already watering.
“She said she had to meet someone. Now back the fuck off,” Mr. Tall, Dark and Fuckable’s words rumble to my ears over the thump thump of the music. Even his voice sounds like sex, deep and rough and demanding.
“Shit. Okay, man. I’m going.”
“The fuck you are.” This sex god steps back so that I can see that he has Bozo by his shirt. He yanks Bozo forward. “You apologize first. And make it a good one.”
Bozo starts to grovel at me, but I can’t hear him. I’m mesmerized by my first close-up look at this man’s face. He was good looking from far away, but up close he is just… beautiful. Not in a structurally perfect Abercrombie and Fitch pretty boy-model come-run-with-me-through-the-fucking-daisies kind of way. God no. He is beautiful like the wild, untamed mountains. He’s tan skinned, thick jawed and stubbled, and there’s a scar that cuts across one of his eyebrows. His generous lips are pulled into a scowl that makes him look dangerous and a little bit nasty in all the right ways. This combination sends a rush of heat through my veins.
I was so wrong about his eyes. They aren’t brown. They are the intense green of rough seas, turbulent and luring with depths that fear I might never be able to swim out of.
He stares back at me, meeting my gaze head on. His snarl softens into a smirk. He still manages to make it look mean. Like a warning.
I definitely should not be staring back so boldly. I definitely should not be wondering how dark a shade his eyes get when he’s turned on. I definitely definitely should not be going anywhere with him to find out.
I only realize that Bozo has finished groveling when he is shoved away. “Get lost and stay lost.”
Bozo disappears into the crowd. I’m left with him. He still hasn’t broken eye contact with me.
I hear a little voice in me begging me to be the first to look away. Play it cool. I snap out of my reverie and lean one elbow against the bar so that my other hip rolls out, something I know showcases my small waist.
“So I guess I owe you a thanks then, huh?” I tilt my head down so that my hair falls across one eye and look up at him. I give him my fake name just quiet enough so that he has to lean in to hear it. Now that he’s right where I