I breathed, my pulse hammering. Now that I’d had a taste, I wanted more of him. I was committed to following through, and I was smart enough to know that the electricity between us wasn’t the usual.
He opened his mouth as if to say something but then slammed it shut, his eyes studying me as if he were considering something serious.
“Do I suck at kissing?” I asked.
“No.”
“Tequila breath?” I grimaced.
“No, no, you kiss great. Bloody incredible. That’s the problem.” He raked a hand through his hair, his face tightening.
He seemed like a completely different person.
What was going on?
“Are you married? Dating someone?” I asked.
“I’m the Lone Ranger.”
“Why? Are you a selfish asshole who only cares about himself?”
He paused. “Yeah.”
“Well, you’re in luck. That suits me just fine. So shut up and kiss me.”
A few beats of silence went by as his eyes bored into mine.
I stiffened. “Fine. I can take a hint. You aren’t interested. Welcome to the club.” I shifted in his lap as if to get up, and his hands tightened around my waist.
“Wait,” he said, his demeanor softening. “I am interested. Trust me.” He bit his lip in a hot way that was completely manly. “It’s just—when you’re angry later, will you remember that you wanted me to kiss you?”
“Of course. We’re just having fun.”
“Are you begging me to kiss you then?” His voice was husky, tinged with a note of familiarity.
My hands brushed the hair off his forehead, my nails trailing along his cheek. “Is that what you want?”
“I can’t remember what I want,” he murmured, and his mouth swooped down to capture mine again.
The sounds of the club faded away and all that mattered were his lips on mine, our tongues tangling. Lingering small kisses as we paused to breathe, then longer ones. His tongue licked my top lip and then he sucked it between his teeth. He owned me, and I lost myself, consumed by the fire that started in my bones and made its way through every part of my body.
He was the King of Kissing.
The Supreme Ruler.
“Remi,” he breathed between a kiss to my lips.
“Yes,” I replied. He felt it too. This cosmic force bringing us together. The heavens rejoiced, the universe was understood, and all things were possible.
Magic.
I didn’t care who saw—Lulu or the bartender or the blue-haired guy. Sparks spread as his mouth left mine to glide across my jawline to my neck, my ultimate weakness, where he sucked hard, then layered the tender spot with soothing kisses and whispers of my name—as if he knew exactly what I liked. He made his way back to my lips and ravaged them again, diving into the recesses, searching, exploring as if he were dying of thirst and I was water.
Wait.
Clarity arrived slowly, in bits and pieces, and then all at once as the threads of truth that had been lingering in the back of my mind dawned. Fate. She’s a tricky bitch and the mere change in a footstep, the choice to take a different path, creates a synchronism of moments that align and fall gently into place, like a butterfly that unerringly finds its way home no matter the distance.
Fate had found me and kicked me in the stomach—hell, she’d just tossed me to the wolves.
This was not a stranger.
He’d said my name.
I tore my lips from his, chest heaving. “You . . . but the tattoo . . . hair . . . Dax Blay?”
He grinned with a cockiness that now seemed all too familiar. “You can call me Dax. Or Sex Lord. Or Daddy. Whatever floats your boat.”
I inhaled sharply. How had I been so stupid?
Hurt lodged in my throat; not that I wasn’t used to his smart remarks, but when pointed directly at me, leftover anger and pain from our past came roaring back to the surface like a newly opened wound.
Don’t let him under your skin.
I slapped him on the face. Not as hard as I wanted, but hard enough that my hand stung.
He gritted his teeth, gave me a hard glare, and lifted his hand to touch his cheek. “You were supposed to not be angry.”
“Why aren’t you back in Raleigh where you should be?” My fists clenched.
“Why aren’t you with stuffy old Hartford?” he snapped right back. His eyes flicked to my bare ring finger and then bounced back to my face. “Aren’t you supposed to be married? Why are you running around London kissing random men?”
“Ah! You knew it was me the entire