“And what’s that?”
A scowl knitted up her forehead. “‘What’s your sign?’ Or was it going to be something along the line of ‘what is a girl like you doing in a place like this’? Or maybe you were getting ready to play it off that you knew me from somewhere. That one’s my favorite. Whatever it was gonna be, no, you can’t have my number.”
A rough chuckle rumbled around in my chest, and I moved so I could lean in closer, my head angled so I was about six inches away from her.
Which was apparently too damned close.
Because the energy coming from her hit me like a punch to the face.
Full force.
Fierce and furious.
Didn’t help that she smelled delicious.
Like a plump, juicy plum.
The same color as those damned lips.
Fuck me, if I didn’t want to take a bite.
“I wasn’t actually going to waste my time on a number. I’m more of an ‘in the moment kind of guy’. I figured you and I could get out of here and find something a little more . . . interesting to do. You look as bored as I am.” My voice lowered, a caress at her ear. “I promise you won’t regret it.”
A shiver lifted across her skin, so alive I could feel it, before outrage rushed in to take its place.
She reared back, blinking through her offense.
“Wow.”
That was all she said.
But I could hear a slew of other insults rambling around in her mind.
I leaned in closer, knowing I was crossing a line considering I was in a place filled with my colleagues. But this girl somehow managed to make me forget all of that.
I couldn’t rationalize anything but going after what I wanted.
Right then.
In that moment.
A release.
A blissful oblivion.
A blackout.
And I wanted it with her.
I glanced down at her left hand, expecting to see a huge rock sitting on her ring finger. My dick gave a little fist pump when I found it bare.
“So, what do you say?” I asked, voice casual though I felt anything but.
This girl managed to make me feel off-kilter. Thrown from my game.
Her brow lifted and her tone dipped in disbelief. “You expect me to just . . . walk out of here with you? Just like that? Just you and me in some dark corner? No numbers required because we won’t be seeing each other again? No regrets?”
The last she spat.
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. Besides,” I murmured, “I know exactly what a girl like you is doing in a place like this. Just like the rest of us . . . you’re here because you have to be. Because it makes you or whoever you’re with look good. You don’t have to pretend with me that you give a shit.”
Disgust rolled from her. “Who the hell are you?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
Huffing, she pushed to standing. “You’re right. It doesn’t matter who you are because you’re the last person I’d ever want to know.”
Glass clinked as she shakily set her flute onto the bar, and she let her gaze swing back to me, her head angled to the side as she picked up the small clutch that had been sitting on the bar in front of her. “And for the record? You don’t know the first thing about me, and I’m pretty sure I would regret even a single second I spent with you.”
Without giving me a chance to respond, she moved to slip out of the space between us. When she did, the top of her thigh brushed across my knee.
I jerked, and she stumbled, a sharp gust of air sucked into her lungs.
I was doing the same. Air locked in the tight well of my chest. Heavy and dense.
It felt like a torch had just whipped across my skin and climbed right into my veins.
My ears rang, and my heart started drumming an erratic, harsh beat.
I held my breath, not sure what the fuck that feeling was.
Hating it and wanting to hold it in the palm of my hands at the same time. Knowing it would scorch me if I did.
What the hell?
I shook my head to break the stupor. That was right when her spine went rigid again, and she gathered herself as she started to walk away. All leg, her slinky dress hugging those lush curves, the fabric dipping down to expose the small of her back. So sexy I could hardly fucking breathe.
She moved across the room and disappeared into the crowd without looking back.
My stomach fisted.
“Shit,” I muttered, gulping down the rest of my drink, trying to chase the unsettled feeling away.
This absurd urge to chase after her.
I didn’t chase women.
They weren’t interested in my proposition, they could go on their way.
No harm.
No foul.
But that sensation wouldn’t abate.
Shit.
What was wrong with me?
But it didn’t matter how hard I tried to convince myself that going after her would be a mistake, I was downing my scotch and slamming the empty onto the bar before my feet were carrying me across the floor.
Two
Grace
What in the world had just happened?
It felt as if I’d stepped right into a riot.
Unrest and tumult.
The man a disorder I could feel coming from a hundred miles away.
Gorgeous and powerful and oh so wrong.
I could feel those potent, strange-colored eyes searing into me from behind, as if he could remain sitting right there and they could still chase me down. Pin me. See everything hidden inside.
I did my best to keep my head held high and to keep my feet from slipping out from under me. I rushed through the room filled with round-tables covered in fine linens and china and crystal where dinner had been served that I hadn’t been present for.
I was the damned fool who’d sneaked in after.
Uninvited.
Unwelcome.
I made it through the tables to the other side of the room where a band was set up on the makeshift stage, playing a slow R & B cover from the seventies. Below it, couples had moved onto the dancefloor.
I started to cut across it, my heels sliding across the slick floor as I rushed for the massive ballroom doors at the opposite side.
The promise of retreat was a mere forty feet away.
God, I never should have come here.
I’d been sitting at that stupid bar licking my wounds, trying to hold back the tears and the anger and the sorrow, all the while praying that Kenneth Millstrom might have a change of heart and come up to me.
Tell me he’d represent me.
That I had a fighting chance rather than him laughing at me and saying, “I’m sorry, but you have to know that’s just not going to happen, sweetheart. I’d be a fool to take you on as a client. You’re wasting your time.”
Sweetheart.
What a douche.
I still couldn’t tell whether he’d been being condescending or sympathetic. Either way, it didn’t matter. Those words still had the same effect.
They’d crushed me.
Then, not thirty minutes later, I was being propositioned by that asshole.
That asshole who had my chest heaving for air as I searched for sanity.
No question, that man had the power to strip me of both.
How could I even allow a man to affect me? Even if it were only for a second?
Oh, but it wasn’t only for a second. Because I felt it again. An overwhelming surge of heat that washed over me from behind.
Something dark, almost sinister, an open invitation to step into his expensive brand of sin.
I thought to propel myself faster, hike up my skirt and run, but instead I was whipping my head over my shoulder, unable to stop myself from seeking out those eyes, slowing like one of those stupid girls who stepped right into an ambush she was just too dumb to see.
Tripped up and trapped.
My heart raced, already certain of what I would find.
Oh, was I right.
That gorgeous man was making his way through the crowd. Couples who were dancing spun out of his way, as if he had the power to command a storm. To part the waters with the wicked gleam of those eyes. Or maybe it was just with the ruthlessness that oozed with every step that he took.
As if he were on the hunt.
The second he caught sight of me, his sexy mouth twisted up in an arrogant grin.
There I was, in for the fight of my life, and I was allowing myself to get all hot and bothered by some gorgeous stranger who was clearly after one thing.