Long enough for it to start feeling a little non-one-night stand-ish again. I mean, holding each other afterward is what couples do, right? Not people who just fucked in an alley.
Or maybe he just isn’t sure he can walk yet. I’m not sure I can.
I squirm a little in his arms, and he finally releases me, securing the condom as he pulls out. There’s some rustling as he disposes of it and pulls up his pants, and I take the opportunity to do the same. My body is still buzzing with leftover pleasure, and I’m not quite sure what the etiquette is in situations like this. What comes next? A friendly handshake? Or do we both skulk back out to the street and go our separate ways like it never happened?
My jacket’s still inside, I realize, and my car is parked in the little lot behind the bar.
“Um, thanks,” I breathe. “That was…”
I don’t really know how to describe what just happened. My brain is still ninety percent mush, making it hard to come up with the right adjective to do it justice. So I just clear my throat and slip past him, making my way carefully through the darkness toward the mouth of the alley.
A hand around my wrist stops me as I’m about to step back out onto the sidewalk. “Wait.”
I turn to find him staring at me. His eyes look almost like they have a blue glow now, a little brighter than before. Some guys, once you sleep with them, kind of lose the charisma they had before. Not this one. He’s still radiating intensity.
He tugs me back into the curve of his body and kisses me again. It’s immolating, and my traitorous knees, already weak from the orgasm, buckle again. It occurs to me that I really don’t want to go—that I’d be perfectly content to keep kissing him for hours, which is kind of alarming. The last thing I want to do is get attached.
“Tell me your name,” he murmurs against my mouth. It’s almost like a command, intense and charged, and the answer is on the tip of my tongue—
But, no.
If he knows my name, he can easily ask the other bartenders about me or look up me up online… and while I wouldn’t mind another couple mind-blowing orgasms from the guy, it’s better if this stays a one-night stand. I don’t want it to turn into an actual thing. Once is fine, but if you sleep with someone multiple times, you tend to get attached—or at least, I do. That’s just how it works, and that’s the last thing I need right now.
Besides, I know nothing about this man. I don’t think he’s creepy or an asshole, and he’s handsome as fuck and the personification of sin, but is that really enough to base anything real on? I don’t think so.
“Sorry, handsome,” I whisper. “You can just call me Reckless.”
I kiss him one last time, hard and fast, to give him something to remember me by.
Or maybe it’s the other way around, and I’m trying to steal a little piece of him to take with me.
Either way, I pull back quickly.
Then I twist my wrist out of his hold and dart up the street, slipping back into the bar. Grabbing my jacket, I make my way through the late night revelers.
Behind me, I can hear him entering as well, hurrying after me, but I know this place better than he does. I move through the crowd to a small hallway in the back, slip out the door, and I’m gone.
Chapter 5
I’ll be honest. Over the next several days, I can’t quite get mystery guy out of my head.
It’s annoying, to say the least. A few times at work, I catch myself looking for him, eyeing the corner booth where I first spotted him, and then I mentally berate myself for it. I’m not going to moon over some guy, especially one I only met once—and especially not when he might’ve wanted more and I’m the one who turned down that possibility. It’s my own damn fault he’s gone without a trace, and I refuse to wallow.
At least the hookup did accomplish its main purpose though, which was to take my mind off Maddy and how much I miss her. As thoughts of dark blue eyes and raven hair consume my thoughts, I manage to hold off from pestering my sister