though it’d discovered who it’d been missing.
Careful. You’re getting carried away.
Hadn’t I already decided that was what this weekend was for?
My body made its vote known, my attraction to him so strong it pervaded my senses and left me crossing my legs as tight as they would go.
“Ah, look at our gal, finally going all heart-eyed,” Ellie said.
“She’s lit up like a horny little sparkler,” Cat so helpfully added. “I think tonight might be the night she breaks her dry spell. I guarantee there ain’t nothing about her dry now.”
The two of them giggled. I lifted my middle finger in the air, aiming it in their general direction without bothering to look away from Archer. In the next instant, the two of them squished in on either side, giving me hugs that encouraged me to get some.
As if I needed any more encouragement.
Archer slowed down the melody, singing out the last part with extra volume, and then letting that note hang in the air for a sensual eternity.
Hopefully, that’d apply to his skills in the bedroom, and hell yeah, I was going to find out.
Raucous applause erupted, people whistled, and then his eyes locked onto mine, as though mine was the first reaction he wanted to see.
Just like that, I was in love.
Not full-blown love, but the middle ground where lust and the inkling of love meet. Strings formed from my chest to his, ones I was sure he could play as expertly as he’d played the ones on his guitar.
He winked, his cocky grin relaying he could tell he’d left me all gooey and warm, and I melted into a salacious puddle. Several women swooned, and I fought the urge to stand up and tell them that wink was all mine, same way Archer was.
He announced his next song, and Catalina jabbed her elbow into my side. “Breathe, girl. If you pass out, you’ll never get laid.”
Unsurprisingly, the tune was as haunting and glorious as the first, and the crowd pushed to their feet, demanding an ovation. He shifted his guitar around so that the strap cut across him, and he was wearing the instrument as a backpack. Then he held up a hand.
The bar fell silent, and when drunk people obeyed, he’d definitely struck a hell of a chord.
“I’ll play another song on one condition…” Archer let everyone stew, basking in his moment in the spotlight. “And that’s if the most beautiful woman in the room will sing it with me. Penelope, would you be so kind as to join me onstage?”
The who does what now? Sure enough, Archer beckoned me toward him.
I vehemently shook my head, and he vigorously nodded his, the same way we’d done earlier tonight while arguing about our email exchanges.
Archer wrapped the long fingers I’d been obsessing over around the microphone and lifted it closer to the mouth I’d been infatuated with since he’d brushed it to mine. “I have it on good authority that Penelope is an amazing singer, and I’ve been dying for a demonstration.”
Unsure what else to do, I yelled, “The only thing I’m prepared to demonstrate is a roundhouse to your face.”
“Well then, get up here and do it,” Archer challenged, spreading his arms wide as though giving me a bigger target. Clearly, he was underestimating my follow-through. “Looks like she’s a little shy. Will you all help me get her up here? Penny, Penny….”
I was seriously going to kill my friends, and I shot them a glare, so they couldn’t say they hadn’t been warned. That’s why they’d downplayed their exchange with Archer.
Cat smooshed her face to mine and gave me a side-long glance. “He’s showing off his B-D-E. Now it’s time for you to stroll up there and prove yours is just as big.”
“We did toast to it after all,” Ellie said, doing some cheek smooshing of her own.
I heaved a sigh, wanting to argue but not having a tripod leg to stand on like Archer evidently did.
Taking that as a sign I was giving in, Cat and Ellie nudged me out of my seat, and it was either stand or fall to the floor. I considered the second option in the hopes I might re-injure my ankle or the wood would give way and swallow me whole, but my pride won the arm-wrestling match against embarrassment.
At the roar from the audience, I snagged the drink I’d been nursing from the table, tipped back the last of its contents, and slammed it on the table. Then I