Just a quiet night for a little smutty reading and an early bedtime, where the most disquieting part of the entire process was trying to figure out why my feet were always freezing when I went to bed.
A couple women passed me, both holding expensive-looking cocktails. The brunette had boobs that defied gravity, in a shirt that was cut down to her belly button. No breastfeeding forher, I could almost guarantee that.
The blonde gave me a friendly smile when she caught me staring. “I like your shirt,” she said.
“Thank you.” I glanced down, making sure there was no nipple to be seen. “Where did you get that drink?”
She pointed to the other end of the room. “Specialty drinks are over there in the corner, at the bar with the blue lights, but the regular bar is back here.” With a conspiratorial grin, she leaned closer. “The men are back by the blue lights. Definitely go to that one.”
After saying thanks, I puffed out my cheeks, blowing out a slow stream of air. In order to have that pretty pink thing with the sugared rim, I’d need to trek through the writhing bodies, and I was not drunk enough for that.
I wasn’t drunk at all, really. There was just enough that my head felt light and my shoulders weren’t tight with tension like ... well, like they always were.
There was another bar along the wall to my right—the regular bar, as she’d called it, which didn’t look all that regular to me. The bottom half glowed white, the edge lined with a hot-pink light that reminded me of Vanessa’s hair. Three beautiful bartenders flipped bottles and pulled taps and filled drinks for the equally beautiful people who waited on the long edge. But where the bar made a 90-degree angle, there were three seats, two unclaimed, and in the third—the middle—was a man’s broad back in a simple white shirt.
His head was down like he was staring at something in his hands, probably his phone, and I sucked in a fortifying breath and made myway to the seat to his right, so that I could hide in the corner until I felt a bit less like I wanted to run and lock myself in a bathroom stall.
I tried to edge around his arm without making contact, but my shirt brushed against his skin as I tucked myself into the empty seat.
He glanced up sharply, and my mouth went dry at the fierce look on his face.
“I’m sorry. I should have asked first. Is this seat taken?” I asked, nerves making my fingers tingle.
His frown deepened for a moment, but it didn’t change what I knew to be true.
He was beautiful—features hard and chiseled in the flashing lights of the club. The sheer breadth of his body was intimidating, rounded biceps and curved shoulders, veins roping over his forearms and hands. The air around us was thick, like standing outside as a storm rolled in, raising the hairs on my arms while I waited for him to speak. It was dark in the corner where we sat, and with the pulsating lights behind us altering my perception, it was impossible to tell what color his hair or eyes were. Gray, maybe. Or blue?
God, how long had I been staring? Like I’d never seen a jawline like his before.
I had. I’d seen lots.
Okay, maybe notlots. But at least three.
“I’m not trying to hit on you,” I blurted out. “I’m not even trying to make conversation with anyone. I’d prefer not to, actually. You can sit here and not say a single word, for all I care, but I shouldn’t have assumed you were sitting alone.” His eyes narrowed slightly, and with the suspicion there, let me tell you, it didn’t help stop the nervous rambling. “I don’t even want to be here. My friend forced me, and I’m kind of in hell.”
His brow furrowed. “No.”
I blinked. “No to which part? Because I promise, I don’t want to be here.”
There was a glass of beer in front of him, and for a moment, he looked down at it, spinning the glass in tiny circles with his giant man hands. They were massive. Everything about him was. Eventually, he lifted his head and pinned me with another unreadable look.
“No one is sitting there.”
I exhaled. “Okay, good.”
He arched an eyebrow. “Doesn’t mean I wanted company, though.”
My stomach dropped right down into my cute kitten heels. “Oh.” Then my gaze narrowed incrementally. “That doesn’t mean you get to claim the entire row just because you’re oversized.”
His brows shot up. “Oversized?” Slowly, he turned on the barstool, his legs spread wide, one brushing mine as he faced me with an elbow braced on the bar. Being in his crosshairs made the air do that electric buzzing thing again, but this time it was the hair on the back of my neck. “I’m quite sure I should be offended, Red.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, come on, like that isn’t the most unoriginal nickname in the entire world. And you are.”
“What?” He was staring at my hair now, gaze lazily trailing down to my face and then landing on my mouth. I wet my lip, more of a nervous tic than anything else, and his mouth opened slightly, like he was going to speak and then thought otherwise.
“Oversized,” I repeated. “You’re ... larger than average.”
“Average what?”