Big Dick Energy - Cindi Madsen Page 0,48

along with a musical guest who’s new to us. I hope y’all will give him a warm welcome…”

Here it was, the moment I’d been anticipating for two whole weeks. Of all the shitty timing. I’d finally made progress with Penelope…

Only to cockblock myself.

“Archer York?” The manager put her hand over her eyes and peered through the crowd. Her smile spread as her gaze lit on me, and then she was gesturing me up to the stage. “Come on up and show us what you’ve got.”

18

Penny

Talk about premature celebration.

The earsplitting feedback from the microphone had wrenched me from the amazing moment with all the finesse as a bucket of ice water over the head.

Wait, I’d thought, first I need to win, not just get a glimpse of what’d it’d be like to kiss Archer York.

Of the countless times I’d been interrupted, I loathed the one that’d just happened the very most. Completely irrational, given that one of my coworkers had interrupted my virtual tour of a parking garage they’d so-gallantly bestowed upon me to design so he could mansplain hybrid engines.

Big surprise, he’d bungled it up.

Not so unexpected: he’d blown a gasket when I’d corrected him, insisting that was what he’d meant.

As Archer made his way through the crowd, my nerves stretched thin, fraying thread by thread until I was an unraveled mess. I hadn’t been this nervous for someone else in… I didn’t even know. Maybe when Catalina had taken the bar exam, but she’d been so confident she’d pass that it seemed silly for me to worry.

Archer intercepted Cat and Ellie on their way back to the table. He paused to talk to them, and what was he doing?

Hello. Get that fine ass of yours on stage already?

Oh no. What if he’s not a good singer? Or he totally bombs?

Not that it would affect his sexiness or how badly I wanted to finish that kiss. I hadn’t had the chance to fully latch on before it’d been over. I told myself we would have plenty of time to finish what we’d started, but when it came to Archer and me, we were magnets that repelled instead of attracted if they weren’t lined up just right.

Maybe if we set some guidelines and called tonight a one-time indulgence… Or proclaim that what happened away from the office stayed out of the office.

Yeah, ‘cause nothing says let’s get sexy like making rules about it.

My friends took their seats as Archer stepped onto the stage. “What did he say to you guys?”

“We just wished him luck,” Cat said, the end of a skinny straw bobbing up and down from between her teeth.

Nothing betrayed any signs of falseness, and yet I’d known my friends long enough that I could tell they were omitting something.

Before I could demand they spill, Archer’s smooth voice carried through the room, amplified by the microphone I had beef with. He absentmindedly strummed at his guitar as he introduced himself, and then his gaze met mine.

At the tiniest lift at the right corner of his mouth, the fuse within me lit and burned fast and bright. Then the lights dimmed, one circle of gold illuminating him with the kind of lustrous glow he inspired within me.

Completely captivated, I held my breath as he played the first chord to his song. God, I wanted those long fingers on me, moving, plucking, eliciting a myriad of beautiful noises.

Archer shifted closer to the mic and added his voice to the acoustic music. His voice came out full-bodied with a raspy edge that awoke a neediness deep within me. My teeth sank into my lower lip, and my heart seized beating.

A malfunction that should probably worry me, but how could my heart possibly bother pumping in and out blood when it’d been filled with the man on stage.

“He’s, like, really good, right?” I whispered into air so thick with desire—and not just mine—that I nearly choked on it.

Next to me, Catalina and Ellie just bobbed their heads.

Most of my playlists were made up of a whole lot of pop, something I was unabashedly unashamed of, but I had a special list with songs similar to the one Archer was singing. Heavy on the guitar, soulful lyrics. They were the sort of elegies I found solace in, regardless of the way they left me aching with regret and a perplexing amount of loss. As though my soul yearned for something—or someone—it hadn’t yet met.

Although tonight… Well, tonight the heavy hollowness in my chest felt as