With a voice like his slithering over my cold skin, I’d rather have a night of rough fucking. But I’m as good at deflecting strangers as I am my friends and I loosen my shoulders with a vague shrug. “Nah, just killing time.”
“Me too.”
I don’t ask why. I don’t care. And he doesn’t seem to mind that I don’t pursue the conversation. He nods, like he understands—like heknows—and goes back to nursing a beer he’s not drinking either.
He doesn’t look at me again, but I find myself staring athim. Studying his weathered boots and tanned calves to the subtle strength in his stance. He’s not built like Jack, or covered in ink like Sol, but everything about him screams masculinity and it taps into a part of me I’ve used too often to escape. A part of me I’ve tried to tame for the sake of the good people I’ve let it hurt.
And this bloke, he’s not making it easy.
He shifts, stretching a little. The subtle arch of his neck calls to me and I have to look away, fixating instead on the last bead of condensation running down my beer bottle. On the low growl my stomach emits and how much it hurts—how much Ilikethe pain and I really fucking shouldn’t.
I’ve been here for hours. Surely it’s morning?
I don’t want to glance at the windows and find out. For many reasons, but the starkest is I’m almost scared to drag my gaze over the man next to me again. To let that spark in my blood become something real, even if I’m dead set to walk away from it. But I’m not like Sol who can tell the time by instinct alone, and I’ve been caught in my thoughts too long to guess. Dayscould’ve passed. Weeks. And I suddenly need out of this bar as much as I needed to be here in the first place.
A dull headache blooms in my temples, one I’ve earned—one I deserve for the strain I’ve put on my body since Sol handed me an innocuous envelope last week. I roll from my stool and return my phone to my pocket. The bar sways a little, but I’m used to it. I plant my feet on the floor and my balance holds.
Or does it?
A warm hand—thathand—grazes my elbow. “Easy now.”
He thinks I’m drunk. And I suppose it’s better than the truth. All the same, I step back from his touch even as my body begs me to move closer.
I leave it at that.
I leavehim, and go outside, hyper-aware of the few seconds it takes him to follow me into the perfect summer morning. Sunshine and a cool sea breeze. The kind of morning that reminds me why I stay when the love and friendship, thefamily, I have at home doesn’t feel like enough.
It is enough.
I know that. Iknowit. But I’m not there yet. Not until I sit at the most fucked-up table of them all and give a piece of my soul away.
The man from the bar fills the space beside me. I feel him on every inch of my skin and tug my hood up to shut him out.
He chuckles. “Let’s take a walk.”
From a stranger, it should sound like a threat, but I’ve been around enough lethal men to gauge his motivation.
Concern.
Protection.
Maybe even something else, and the longer I’m awake and destructively hungry, the more I want that.
The more I crave it.
And so we walk, along the sea front, in silence that doesn’t feel as oppressive as the eerie quiet I’ve forced on myself. The tide is out, leaving the beach dimpled and still, and only the seagulls disturb the peace.
We make it to the sheltered rocks before the man stops and lights a cigarette. He takes a drag, frowning at the smouldering cherry before he offers it to me.
I don’t smoke. Not often, anyway, but the temptation of something he’s touched proves too much.
His frown deepens as I take it. “You don’t seem the type.”
“To smoke?”
“Maybe.”
I lean against a rock, the rough surface digging into my back. His response doesn’t make much sense, but I’m okay with that.