I could still say no. I could tell them to go without me, but something about what they’ve said rings true on a deeper level I can’t ignore. I’m thirty-six, single, and not a step closer to finding anyone. Maybe I do need to do things differently.
I put the mask in my pocket. “Fine. Lead the way.”
3
RAFE
The car draws up outside Delirium, and Henry and Julian stare at the blonde woman who just got out of the cab ahead of us and walked up the steps to the front entrance. I say walked, but really it was some kind of mesmerising sexual stride, like Marilyn Monroe tottering down the train platform inSome Like it Hot,but without the suitcase and steam jets knocking her off her stride.
“Ten out of fucking ten,” Julian mutters as we all slip our masks into place and one of the doormen opens our car door. Julian unfolds himself, and Henry and I follow, stepping out into the cool night air.
Julian still has his gaze locked on the blonde as she passes through the huge double-door entrance. I can’t blame him; I’ve half an eye on her myself. The way she moves and the sensual roll of her hips, encased in a pink sequin dress that barely hangs lower than her arse, are hard to look away from.
I tap my index finger on the underside of his open jaw. “Stop drooling.”
He turns to me, eyes wide. “Did you not see her?”
“I saw.”
Henry bids the bouncers a good evening, and while they greet the three of us respectfully as we take the steps and pass through the doors, they aren’t really concentrating. Their gazes trail after the blonde like she’s got their eyeballs attached to her dress by invisible threads.
We all watch as she checks a large cherry-pink leather handbag in at the cloakroom. Rising on tiptoes, she leans across the desk, which makes her dress slide up further and exposes the lower curve of her buttocks.
Christ.
She has hourglass curves and a perfectly round ass, objectively speaking. Her legs are toned as if she spends a lot of her free time in the gym. Or perhaps she’s a runner. Long blonde hair that’s styled in huge golden curls swings down her back.
Mask nights bring out the kinkiest women.
I find myself wondering if she wears something more sedate at home, or if this is her normal attire.
The three of us cross the lobby faster than we should, and we’re standing right behind her as she presses the call button for the elevator with a pink-painted fingernail. Glancing over her shoulder, she takes us in, her chin tilting. It’s a slight movement, but brazenly sexual, infused with the suggestion that she thinks she could take all three of us at once. An intangible current runs through me.
Julian nudges me with his elbow. I ignore him.
The elevator doors open, and Henry spreads an arm, inviting her to enter the elevator before us, which she does.
I step in afterwards and turn back to my friends. Julian has a wide grin on his face as he steps forwards to follow me, but Henry holds him back with a hand fisted on his jacket sleeve.
“You go ahead,” Henry says to me. “We have to check something down here.”
Julian blinks, features drooping as he glances at Henry’s hand on his sleeve. “But everything I want to check is already in the lift.”
Beside me, the blonde lets out a tinkle of laughter, and Julian composes himself just in time to wink at her.
She smiles, lurching across me to press the button that closes the doors. “Me too,” she purrs in an accent that’s unmistakably from the Southern States of America. It’s an unexpected sound in London, and one I haven’t heard for a while. My relatives in the States are based in New York, so that’s normally where I go when I visit.
As the doors close, I catch a final glimpse of Henry’s face, a brilliant smile breaking over it, and Julian, whose over-excited leer at the blonde is disintegrating into a parody of outrage. Julian rarely gets turned down by any woman, given his dark hair and sharp jaw, paired with blue eyes that shoot laser beams of sexual innuendo twenty-four seven. Seeing his response to her outright rejection is hilarious, and if this woman weren’t a total stranger, I’d smack her a high-five and laugh about it. But as it is, I stand very still, as if I haven’t registered her at all, the echo of her softme tooresounding in my ears. The left side of my body prickles with awareness, and in my peripheral vision, she’s a blur of blonde and pink. The elevator is full of her scent, a perfume that somehow conjures images of dark nights and secret rendezvous; romantic and sensual all at once.
The elevator whirrs as we head up to the first floor.
I give her a sideways glance, but her face is down turned, her eyes distant, as if the act she was putting on, themask, has slipped. The shift in energy fills the space.
Clearly what she’s presenting—her playful flirtation—isn’t all there is, and it intrigues me even more.
It’s only a flash, a split-second view, and then it’s gone.
“Want to see if we can fit in a quickie before we get there?” she says.