High Strung (Power Station Book 1) (8 page)

Jase tipped his bottle of beer and took a swig. “Don’t be looking at me, dude, I’m not blowing you.”

“Nice one, asswipe. Like I’d want to have my dick sucked by you.” I’ve got nothing against dudes sucking other dude’s cocks; I just don’t subscribe to it for myself.

“You baited her dude, what were you expecting?” Troy took a seat on the couch and pointed at me to do the same.

Like I was going to chase after her like a loser. Dan Evans did not chase after a girl no matter what she looked like, even if she gave amazing head. Okay, if she gave amazing head, that would be grounds to break my rule but it was too late now. She had too big of a lead and I had no idea of her head-giving talents so therefore, by my own rules, I could not pursue.

“Just let it go, man. You’ve both had your fun, now move on.” Jase sunk his ass into the chair beside me.

He was right. I should let it go. She was beautiful, there was no denying that, but she had a chip on her shoulder a mile fucking wide. A girl like that meant work, and she obviously thought she was too good for me, her and her fucked-up idea of who I am was too much trouble.

I clenched my fist, my body still all jazzed up from her little stunt. I should just go find a random girl and forget it even happened. Forget her and her delicious fucking mouth. Damn it, now I was thinking about her again.

“Dan.” Troy snapped his fingers in front of my face, snapping me back to attention. “I can see your cogs turning, let it go.”

I nodded, pretending to agree with him and he rolled his eyes, giving me
that
look. The look that told me, we both knew I wasn’t letting it go. I don’t know why but that girl had gotten under my skin and come hell or high water I was going to need to figure out why.

With the dawning of
the new day also came panic. Panic induced by the foggy memories that slowly bubble to the surface, panic about the half-remembered words that float in your subconscious that you hoped never spilled from your lips, and panic from the body aches echoing through your muscles which point to an
active
night.

I was home in my Brooklyn apartment which gave me pause, as I had remembered deciding to spend the night at Megs’s, but after leaving
Panic
—the club not the state of mind which was burning through my body today—I had very little recollection of what had transpired. Perhaps, I just caught a cab and came home? Maybe Megs had found someone she wanted to share her vagina with; she’d been pretty intent on it earlier. That would have definitely prompted me to hightail it back across the bridge. Or maybe the need to play show-and-tell had been mine. Megs’s borrowed dress from the previous night was strewn carelessly on the floor beside me but I was still wearing my bra and panties. That had to be a good sign, didn’t it? The bile in my stomach churned as I slowly turned my head to survey the other side of my bed, praying with everything I had it would be empty. Rumpled sheets and a pillow were my only bedfellows. I slowly breathed out a sigh of relief. Whatever I did last night could be forgiven, as long as I didn’t continue those mistakes in the morning. I could chalk it up to an unfortunate evening resulting from questionable judgment and move on.

“Good morning,” a husky voice greeted me, my previously forgiven sins now flashing before my eyes. “I was hoping you would wake up soon.”

Standing before me was Dan Evans, still wet from a shower with one of
my
towels wrapped around his hips, barely affording his modesty. Seriously, I had bigger towels; did he choose the tiniest one? Ashlyn, you are worried that he chose the tiniest towel? Seriously? Dan Freaking Evans is in your bedroom, has been in your shower, and…is. In. Your. Bedroom.
What the hell?
  But damn, he looked good. All the exposed ink covered skin glistened as he moved closer to my bed. It made the colors in his tattoos more vibrant, life-like. His chest flexed as he lifted his arm to dry off his hair, thankfully with another towel and not the one wrapped precariously around his lower body. He was lean but incredibly toned, his body resembling a poster you might find in a biology lab. Each muscle clear and defined, it would be so easy to take a marker and start labeling - starting with those lower abdominal muscles no one knows the name of and what most women simply call the V.

“FUCK!” My horror overrode my libido as I realized what must have transpired.

“Now, you’re talking,” remarked a grinning Dan as he sat down on the bed, the mattress compressing under the weight of his body. “You know, for someone so uptight, you sure have a dirty mouth when you’re drunk.”

I raked my hands through my messy morning hair in frustration trying to remember how he got here, surely Dan didn’t just teleport into my bedroom. Half-naked. Wet. “How? What? Where? I said goodbye to you. I remember saying goodbye to you.”

“Yeah, that. That was not cool.” He tossed the towel he was using for his hair onto the floor casually as the smile teased at the edges of his mouth. “Why did you kiss me and then run away?”

“Because…” The reason no longer made sense in my own head. “Because I thought I should loosen the reins a little, make out with some random guy. Megs was on my case about being normal, and you made me angry. I wanted you to stop talking.”

“Way to make me shut up. You showed me.” Dan’s fingers slid up my arm pushing my hair out of the way. I hated to admit that him touching me didn’t feel so terrible. It actually felt nice. Gah! No. I was not willing to allow myself to make the same mistake twice. I shrugged off his hand, determined to fight off any further advances. At some point I needed to get my head in the game, now would be a good time for that. I sat up, hoping my vertical positioning would prompt my smarts to kick in. Unfortunately becoming vertical also highlighted that I was in my underwear. The sheet slipped down to my waist and revealed my bra. Dan’s eyes dipped down and gave me an appreciative smile before I was able to scramble and pull up the sheet to cover myself. Not that it mattered at this point; he’d seen it
all
last night no doubt. Regardless, the free show was not going to continue today.

“I know I left. Megs and I walked out of the front of the club. I know we did.” I scanned my memory for an anchor - nothing.

“Yeah, you did. That’s where I found you two, at the front of the club, on the floor. I don’t get why girls wear such high heels. I’m all for being sexy but the ones your friend was wearing were bordering on stilts. Anyway, she twisted her ankle walking out. Fell straight onto her ass. I’m pretty sure it’s just a sprain but she flat out refused to go to the ER, babbling about looking like an idiot with her folks.” He shrugged, not knowing the context of Megs’s refusal. Even in her inebriated state, Megs knew the minute she stepped into an ER someone would have recognized her last name and possibly connected it to her parents.

“So I called Troy and Jase and they came out the front to helped me get the two of you home. We got Megs situated with some ice and ibuprofen, incidentally repeatedly saying our last names got old, real quick.” He rolled his eyes before continuing, “And then we headed out of the city to your place.”

“So what? You followed me up to my apartment and took advantage of me?” I cringed knowing how low my judgment had slipped; I’d let a stranger into my apartment and let him do who knows what to me. “You are such a creep.”

“Me? Oh sweetheart, last night was all you. You were all over me in the Suburban on the way home. Practically jerking me off in the back seat. I was just going to get you into your apartment and leave but you begged me to stay. Told me how much of a good girl you’d been your whole life and that you wanted to be bad.” His grin widened. “It’s the good girls you need to watch out for.”

“No, this isn’t happening. That sounds nothing like me. I don’t jerk off random guys in cars and I don’t have one-night stands, especially not with musicians. Hell, I’ve never even been to a concert.” I shook my head, wishing I could go back in time, tell myself to stop drinking, tell myself not to go the VIP section, tell myself to stay home and order pizza instead.

“Whoa. Hold up a minute. You’ve never been to a concert? Like ever?” Dan recoiled in horror.

“No, never. That however is not relevant, what is relevant is that even when I have been drunk in the past, I have never just gone home with a guy. Someone must have slipped something into my drink. I surely must have been drugged.”

That had to be the explanation. Of course, drugs. Let’s go with that, except that our drinks hadn’t been left unattended at any stage and there had been no opportunity for drugging to take place. Ugh! Back to square one.

“Wow, Ashlyn, You’re a virgin. I’m sorry, babe. I had no idea.” His voice softened as he looked on me with pity-filled eyes. His ill-directed compassion made me angrier.

“I’m not a fucking virgin, you idiot. I’ve had sex before.”

“I was talking about a concert virgin. I kind of feel sorry for you.” He eased back onto the bed unconcerned or oblivious to the telepathic mind bullets I was shooting him with.

“I just told you I think I might have been drugged and you are more concerned with the fact I’ve never been to a concert before. What is wrong with you?” I narrowed my eyes, wondering if this was an angle or he was just genuinely simple minded.

“Nothing is wrong with me, what is wrong with
you
? You’ve never been to a concert, had a one-night stand, or jerked off a guy in a car. What the hell did you
do
in college?”

“I studied, asshole. What you are
supposed
to do in college. Be a viable member of society, get a degree, try and gain a future so I wouldn’t be a drain on welfare. Of course you wouldn’t know about that, would you?” I spat back indignantly.

It wasn’t the first time I had been questioned about my lack of college-experience. I wasn’t a prude and I wasn’t boring, I was a realist. I wasn’t gifted with an obscene IQ and while I was far from stupid, I had to work my ass off for every single “A” I got. I literally couldn’t afford to fail, knowing even if I passed every class I would still be crucified by student debt well into my thirties. Adding another semester or two because I wanted to party or make out with imbeciles who wouldn’t even respect me enough to call me in the morning was not an option. I had to stay the course, knowing my pay-off would come later in life when I would be rewarded with a six-figure salary, making the sacrifice worthwhile.

“Did you have any fun? Like any at all? Your life sounds like it was a major snore.” Dan yawned, punctuating his stance. His arm grazed mine as he moved. My bed wasn’t huge, and his large body took up much of the space as he sat beside me.

“I had plenty of fun. I didn’t have to degrade myself to do it either. Aren’t you a little sick of being a crotch hound? Is that what you want on your headstone? Here lies Dan Evans, spent his life in between the legs of women.”

Dan stretched his arms and folded them at the back of his neck, the colorful canvas of his breathtakingly chiseled torso flexing with his movements. He noticed my eyes dip and gave me a satisfied smile.

“I’d die happy that’s for sure.” He raised an eyebrow and smiled, his pleasure evident. “Can you preorder headstones? I’m thinking that would be a good one, and I don’t want to forget and then someone write something lame.”

“Are you ever serious? Even for like a minute?” Something told me he wasn’t joking and somewhere in his mind he was leaving a mental note to commission said headstone. How this man had gotten so far in life was bewildering to me. I refused to believe that his good looks had paved his way to an easier life, that shit would just not be fair.

“Why? So I can conform to whatever fucked-up idea you have in your head? There are plenty of people who like me just the way I am. I see no point changing.”

Dan grinned, edging closer to me with a complete disregard for my personal space. He invaded my safe bubble of insulation, dipping his chin so his face was inches from mine. I could feel his breath tickle my skin as he studied me with his dark brown eyes. Their warmth gave me tingles in places,
places
I’d love to see him peering up at me from. My breathing deepened as I felt my nipples harden against the fabric of my bra. What? I wasn’t sure if I was angrier at my erotic thoughts or my traitorous body.

“You are making my head hurt.” I pulled my knees up to my chest, affording me the slight physical distance I required to think straight, ’cause if I looked at his eyes any longer I was probably going to kiss him. I hated the lack of control I apparently seemed to exercise when I was around him. Why could I not remember? “I can’t believe I slept with you. Please tell me we at least used protection?”