Sweet Surrendering (4 page)

I looked up to see if he was watching, but he was gone. I searched the rest of the bar, but it was too crowded to see. Well, a drink was a drink.

Taking the drink away from Sloane, I downed it and shoved the glass away so even if he looked over, he wouldn’t see the empty glass.

“Way to go,” Marisol gives me a thumbs up and a smile as the John Mayer wannabe finally exited the stage. “I’m not sure if my ears are going to recover from that. Why do we do this to ourselves?” She rubbed her ears as if to rub the last song out of them.

“Because we’re young and hot and it’s Friday night in Boston,” Sloane said, mimicking the heavy accent so many people around here had. Mine only came out every now and then, but I definitely had a tendency to drop the R’s in certain words.

I could feel the effect of the alcohol starting to take hold of me after the next two acts. I became pretty much cool with everyone and everything and I couldn’t stop touching everyone’s faces.

“Um, you should look at the stage right now, Ror,” Sloane said, moving my head for me.

It was him. Lucas Blaine. He was holding a guitar, had swapped out his diamond ear stud for a silver hoop and his hair was falling all over the place. Add the guitar and flannel shirt and he was one bow tie, pair of nerd glasses and a set of suspenders away from being a hipster. I’d personally never seen the appeal, but Lucas Blaine could make a duck costume sexy.

Damn him. Damn all good looking guys and their chin dimples and well-proportioned muscles and their hair that you want to touch so bad you can barely sit still.

Damn them all to the fiery pits of hell.

The announcer started to introduce him, but Lucas whispered in his ear, and then the announcer spoke into the mic. “Our next act is Lucas Blaine. Give him a hand everyone.”

Lucas pulled a stool forward and adjusted the mic as Sloane and Marisol talked about the various sexual things they’d like to do to him. Chloe just stared into her drink.

“Do you want to go?” I asked her, hoping she’d say yes so I had an out.

She shrugged.

“I’m good for now.” Crap.

I decided that I wasn’t going to watch. Nope.

But then the bastard started singing, “Sooner Surrender” by Matt Nathanson and my head snapped around at the sound of his voice.

Oh, fuck me. Again.

His eyes were half closed, his hair falling in front of them. And his voice. Oh, his voice touched me in places that a voice shouldn’t have access to.

His voice crawled down my body and under my clothes and teased me, taunted me, pleasured me. Like he was making love with music.

Alcohol. It had to be the alcohol causing me to be more turned on by a song than I’d ever been before. Everything else faded into the background as my entire being focused on him on that stage.

The song ended, and the spell was broken, almost with a snap, and I was back to reality.

And everyone was staring at me as my face flamed up.

“You, um,” Sloane said, taking a sip of her drink, “you didn’t tell us he could sing.”

“I . . . I didn’t know.” He sure didn’t put that on his résumé. Not that it would have made a difference.

My throat was dry, but I was out of drinks. I should have gotten a glass of water.

“I’m, I’m going to get another drink,” I said, getting up and hurrying to the bar without asking if anyone else wanted anything. I just needed to get away for a minute. Try to clear my head.

“What did you think?” a voice said behind me as a warm hand lightly touched my back to tell me that he was here.

I froze and didn’t answer, instead concentrating on trying to get one of the bartenders’ attention.

“You seemed to, ah, like it,” he said, removing his hand, but he was still close. The fact that the bar was so packed could have been responsible, but I didn’t think it was.

The bartender was completely ignoring me, and I had to get away from Lucas Blaine if it was the last thing I did, so I whirled around so fast, I nearly knocked him completely off balance and announced, “I have to pee.”

There were worse things I could have said, I suppose, but the way he smiled in response to my declaration morphed his irresistible face into something that was somehow even more irresistible.

Abort, Abort! I needed to bail, so I shoved him aside and headed for the ladies’ room. I swore I heard him chuckling behind me.

Of course there was a line at the ladies’, so I was stuck standing behind two girls that were trying to prop each other up and doing that whisper-yell thing that drunk people do.

I really didn’t want to break the seal and be peeing all night, but I had no choice. Once I was done, I snuck a peek back at the bar before I walked back to my table. No sign of Lucas Blaine. My eyes did a quick sweep of the rest of the room and found him in a worse place than at the bar.

He was standing next to the table I had vacated a few moments ago, smiling and clearly flirting with all of my friends.

They were all smiling and laughing at some joke he’d probably made and it was all I could do not to grab a pitcher of beer from the next table and pour it on his head. He probably would have loved that.

“There you are! I thought you’d fallen in,” Marisol said when I finally made my way back to the table. I had no choice.

Lucas’ eyes swept up and down my body, as if he’d just seen me for the first time instead of staring at me for hours.

“Nope,” I said and moved to get back in my chair, which Lucas just happened to be standing next to. I went to pull the chair out, but he did it for me.

“Need a boost?” He was making fun of me, the jerk.

“No, I’m fine,” I said as I used the bar attached to the legs of the stool to vault myself into it. Doing so was none too graceful, but I had short legs and I was not accepting help from him.

“So Lucas was just telling us all the reasons you should hire him. I swear, if you don’t want him, I could use an assistant,” Sloane said, looking at Lucas like she was going to lick him up and down. I gave her a death glare that he couldn’t see, standing on my other side, and she kicked me under the table.

“You have an assistant,” I said, because it was true. She had plenty of college students that would work for nothing just for the chance at making it in the fashion world.

“Mmm, but my assistants are usually female or gay and don’t look like him.” Lucas seemed to be swelling with the praise.

“My God, if you make his head any bigger he’s going to fall over, and that wouldn’t be very attractive,” I said.

“The only praise that would make my head swell would come from you, Miss Clarke,” he whispered so low my friends couldn’t hear it. Ugh, I hated how he called me “Miss Clarke” outside of the office. What was this, 1953?

“Secrets don’t make friends,” Sloane said, leaning in, as if he was going to share what he told me with her.

He did lean over to her and whisper something, but I didn’t think it was what he told me, because she gave him a look and then started laughing.

“You’re right,” she said, nodding.

What? What was he right about? Oh, this man was infuriating.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he said after I kicked Sloane under the table. She was going to be spilling her guts later when we got home.

“You already did that,” I said, my voice flat. Even Chloe had dragged herself out of her breakup misery to watch my interaction with Lucas. We must be entertaining.

“I could buy you another. Just say the word.”

“Actually,” I said, turning toward him, “I’m a little tired, so I think I’m going to go home.
Sloane
, why don’t you come with me?” I grabbed her arm, forcing her to get off the chair and pulling her through the crowd.

“Hey, it was just getting good,” she whined and pulled back against me. Where strength was concerned, Sloane would win, but I could always take her out at the kneecaps.

“Please? Can we go?” She shook her head and dug her heels in.

“I will go after you let him buy you a drink.”

“He already bought me one.”

“Let him buy you another. It’s not going to kill you.”

Oh, Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph. I was going to murder her.

“One. Drink.” She beamed and dragged me back to the table where Lucas was wearing a similar grin. I wanted to slap it right off his face.

Sometimes, you say you’re going to have one drink and you have one drink. Go home and wake up refreshed and hangover-free.

And then sometimes you say you’re going to have one drink and one drink turns into two and the guy who has been buying you drinks and touching your back and your hair and making flutters in your stomach suggests that you go back to his place, and that also seems like a good idea (because of the drinks) and then you’re in a cab, on the way to his apartment with no idea how it happened. One drink. It was just going to be one drink.

“I’ve wanted to do this ever since you walked around that corner in those red heels,” he said and reached for me across the backseat of the cab where I’d tried to put as much distance between us as possible while I tried to come to my senses.

One of his hands reached out and gripped my chin, and he moved his face so close that I could count the freckles on his nose and smell the faintest hint of Scotch on his breath.

“Don’t move,” he said and then his lips met with mine in a kiss so sweet, I was twelve again and at my first dance. Feather light and brief, he pulled away and the space between us was back. He looked away from me and out the window.

The fuck?

That was it? One little innocent kiss? That’s all he’s got? What was
with
this guy?

I was fuming. Sitting in my seat with my arms crossed and fuming. All that teasing for nothing. He had to be screwing with me, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with it. I leaned forward to speak to the driver and tell him there was a change of plans before I gave him my address.

“Change your mind?” he said when he heard me tell the driver that I wanted to go to my own place. The driver sighed and looked for a place to make a U turn. This was probably for the best. This guy was not going to get the upper hand. This time I was shutting him down.

This was the last time I was going to see him. I would rip up his résumé. I wouldn’t even have Mrs. Andrews call him to say that he didn’t get the job. It was a bitchy move, but I needed this guy out of my life. He made me feel unstable, and I did not like feeling unstable.

“Yes. This was a mistake. I shouldn’t have even let you buy me a drink, but Sloane made me.”

“Oh, so this is Sloane’s fault. I see.” Now he was mocking me.

“Look, I’m going back to my apartment and you’re going back to yours and I never want to see your face again.”
Especially your chin dimple. And your eyes. And your hair.

“Fine, fine with me.”

He shrugged and went back to looking out the window. We were nearly to my place.

“There is something seriously, seriously wrong with you,” I said.

“Why do you say that?” He turned to me with a little smile.

“Are you serious? You barge your way into my office and turn my interview upside down. Then you won’t leave me alone at the bar. You buy me drinks, suggest that we go back to your place, tell me that you’ve wanted to kiss me since you first saw me, and then you do kiss me—the most tame kiss ever—and now you’re acting like this is completely normal behavior. Yes, there is something seriously wrong with you.”

“You thought the kiss was tame? Well, if you’re such an expert, why don’t you show me how I should have kissed you.” His eyes sparkled in the light of oncoming headlights. Ah, so this was his game. Okay, two could play at that. It was time to get the upper hand, so to speak.

“Okay, Lucas Blaine, I’ll show you a good kiss.”

I knew it was a terrible idea, but I had something to prove to him.

Slowly, I crawled across the space between us and he turned as I climbed into his lap. Ha. I hadn’t even done anything and he was hard. I could feel it pressing against his jeans as I straddled him, putting both hands on his shoulders and then moving them down his chest. I let one hand rest on the growing bulge in his pants, and I shifted a little, so he was pressing harder against me. I wanted to get a little something out of this, too.

Air hissed between his teeth as I moved the hand on his jeans and ground my hips, just a little. My other hand moved back up to his face, going around and tangling in his hair, wrapping my fingers in it.

Yes, it was soft as I thought it would be. I pulled a little, moving his head back, and he made a sound in his throat.

Good boy.

I was pretty sure the cabbie had already passed my place, but he was probably getting as much out of this as we were.

I lowered my mouth, but I didn’t kiss him. Not yet. First I kissed his cheek and then inched my lips a tiny bit lower until I was at the corner of his mouth. Then I switched to the other side. I could feel his muscles tensing and quivering under me. I was playing him like a violin. I was owning him.

I sucked on his bottom lip and it was like something in him broke. I was thrown backward on the seat until he was the one on top.