Unfiltered & Undressed (The Unfiltered Series) (2 page)

I huffed impatiently as I shoved away from the table. “Fine. I’ll get ‘em myself.” Busy or not, there was no way I was walking out of here without our keys.

I waded through the sea of tanned and toned bodies, feeling out-of-place in my worn blue jeans and Grateful Dead t-shirt. Whenever I was pushed, I pushed back, and I tried not to be skeeved out by the fact that when I did, my hands met exposed flesh more often than not.

If you judged by looks alone, Emerson could easily pass for one of these California girls, with her straight-from-the-bottle blonde hair and those superlong legs of hers. It wasn’t until she opened her mouth and you heard her twang, or you learned of her undying love for Taylor Swift and spangled clothing, that you knew she really belonged deep in the heart of Texas.

Me, I knew I wasn’t the typical California beauty, but I’d never really been the typical anything. I hadn’t inherited my mother’s sultry Cuban looks, and frankly I didn’t even pass as Hispanic on the surface. But I didn’t have my dad’s superblonde Waspy thing either. I’d landed somewhere in between mousy and uninspiring.

Still, I had my assets, and I’d learned early on how best to utilize them to my advantage. But I wasn’t like the other girls in this place who felt the need to put those
assets
on display wherever I went.

Once I finally reached the bar, after managing to wiggle and squeeze my way through the crush, I exhaled audibly.

A girl with sleek mahogany curls, skin that looked airbrushed, and full scarlet lips called out to me from the other side of the counter. “What can I get you?” She’d just cracked two beers and passed them to a guy who handed her a twenty. She didn’t offer him any change in return.

It was louder over here, where it was so much more crowded than the rest of the place, and I had to yell to be heard, “I’m looking for Billy!”

The dark-haired bartender looked me up and down, and I could tell by her less-than-impressed expression that I’d been found lacking. “Yeah? Well, you and just about every other girl here.” She indicated the swell of bodies squeezed together and clamoring for attention near the other end of the bar.

I followed her gaze, and realized why Lucas had come up empty-handed when he’d gone after my keys.

Girls. A whole lot of them, all converged in one location like a school of sharks locked in a feeding frenzy. I perused the mob of overglossed lips and barely-dressed bodies, and tried to see what all the fuss was about. Then I managed to catch a glimpse past them to the bartender beyond.

Billy
, I presumed.

Billy, with his tousled hair and a t-shirt fitted so snuggly there was almost no need to imagine the muscular chest hidden beneath. Billy, with his too-good-to-be-true boyish looks. Who laughed in all the right places and flashed his Colgate-worthy smile and revealed just the hint of a dimple as he slid drink after drink to the predatory girls who swarmed on the other side of his bar, desperately trying to make him notice them.

Billy, who had the keys to my new place.

I stormed toward him, not sure if it was him I was annoyed with because
he
was the reason I was here in the first place, surrounded by a gaggle of horny beach sluts rather than tucked away in my new “cozy beachside bungalow,” or at myself because the reason he had them at all was because we’d been later than we’d expected. Either way, this wasn’t how I’d imagined spending my first night in California.

Managing to find an open patch of bar, I leaned over its sticky, over-shellacked surface. “Are you Billy?”

A girl glowered down at me from my side of the bar, her platform heels making her at least six inches taller than me. “
Hey!
Wait your turn
!” She sneered and shouldered me out of her way. It was amazing to watch the way that nasty expression of hers transformed the second she was in front of
Billy
again, her game face firmly back in place. She gazed at him adoringly, as if she’d never bared her fangs at me at all.

The guy behind the counter stopped what he was doing and looked me over, and I wondered if he was thinking the same thing the other bartender had—that I didn’t quite measure up to the other girls in here. Then his eyes narrowed the slightest bit as he plucked a glass from the rack in front of him. “Name’s not Billy,” he said, almost absently. He pulled the handle on the tap, filling the glass to the top before handing it to the girl who was still blocking my way. He winked at the girl. “On the house, Daph.”

She picked up her beer and took a not-so-demure sip, batting her false lashes at him while her tongue licked the foam from her heavily lined lips. Her tongue made several more trips around the block, just in case the gesture had been too vague.

It so wasn’t.

“Thanks, Will. You’re a doll,” she cooed.

I stood there for a moment, blinking as I realized what she’d just called him…

Will. His name was
Will
.

“You coming to the Sand & Slam on Friday night?” she asked, not yet ready to give up on him.

Will-not-Billy
gave the girl a sheepish grin while my cheeks grew hot over the fact that I’d mistaken him for someone else. “Sorry—can’t,” he explained.

“Aw, you’re always busy,” the girl huffed. She took another sip, her tongue doing that weird licking thing as it took another provocative pass around her lips. And when Bartender Will turned his back on her dismissively, she finally called it quits, casting me a
Good-luck-with-that
look, before tottering away on her too-high platforms.

I didn’t move right away, so when he spun back around, I opened my mouth, thinking maybe I should apologize or order a drink or something, but I never got the chance.

“Who told you to call me Billy?” His tone and mood were far less banter-y than they had been a moment ago, when he’d been giving free drinks to the Lip Licker. It only took me a second to make the connection I’d been missing.

Will… Billy. Of course. I hadn’t been mistaken. Billy was short for William.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You
are
him?” My irritation at being here in the first place returned full force. “I don’t know what difference it makes whether you’re Bill or Billy or William…” My voice raised, and I couldn’t help noticing that my accusation had drawn the attention of several pairs of heavily made-up eyes. “But Lucas told me you have my keys, and I want them back.”

The noise that had been deafening just seconds before died down to a dull roar, and now it felt like everyone was listening to us.
To me
.

I turned to glare at those around me, and then I snapped back around to face Will, but he was giving me the cold shoulder now too, his back facing me as he ignored me the same way he had the Lip Licker.

“Hey!” I pounded my fist against the bar. I no longer cared if I attracted a full-blown audience. I refused to be brushed aside. When he still didn’t respond, I reached up and tugged the cord of a giant bronze bell that was hanging above the bar.

The metallic clang vibrated loudly through the air, ringing hollowly in my ears. “You!” I shouted, and when he finally whirled around to see what was going on, I pointed at him.

But before I could demand he hand over my keys again the strangest thing happened. The entire crowd erupted into earsplitting cheers, and I was suddenly being grabbed and pushed and pulled. When I was lifted off the ground, I struggled to escape, flailing against those who held me. But it only lasted a second before I was deposited on the edge of the bar.

I started to hop back down when I heard the first person yell the words, “Body shot!” It was quickly followed by another and another and another, until soon everyone was chanting the two-word phrase.

LAUREN

I was still sitting on the bar as I searched for help, trying to find Emerson or Lucas in the crowd to see if they had any idea what was happening, but they were nowhere, lost in the swarm of faces and waving arms.

The other bartender—the girl with the flawless skin and dark curls—tapped my shoulder, forcing me to twist around on the countertop. “You’ll have to pick someone else. Bartenders are off limits.”

“What…” I stammered. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You picked Will. When you rang the bell.” She said it like the answer was obvious and I was being intentionally dense.

Will appeared beside the dark-haired bartender then, wiping his hands on a towel and wearing a smug expression. From this close, and from this angle, I could see just how green his eyes were. They glinted mischievously when he spoke, “I think I could make an exception, just this once.”

His words made the crowd go even wilder.

The other bartender shrugged and uncapped a bottle of Cuervo, lifting her eyebrow at me. “This’ll be a whole lot easier if you lay down, honey.”

“I don’t know what you think I agreed to, but I’m
not
doing a body shot! This is all a big misunderstanding,” I insisted as I tried to wiggle off the countertop again. Several pairs of hands shoved me back up.

Will took a step closer and winked at me knowingly, making me want nothing more than to smack that taunting look off his face. “You were the one who rang the bell. I don’t make the rules,” he explained.

It finally sank in and I realized exactly what this was—same bar, different game. In Rio Verde it had been whatever hot waitress decided to wear the giant sombrero for the night and call herself “Tequila Tina.” She’d go around the bar offering body shots for a dollar, and would pull the tequila from the holster slung around her waist.

Here, it was a brass bell. Got it.

Will dangled my keys defiantly for several seconds, and then, when I didn’t make a move toward them, he tossed them on the counter, the challenge fading from his face. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t gonna make you do it. It was my job to hang on to them till you got here. Just take ‘em and go.”

I heard several jeers, but that wasn’t what made me change my mind. I’d never been one to back down from a challenge. “No way,” I said, taking a breath. “A deal’s a deal.”

“You sure? No shame in admitting you’re in over your head.”

“Over my head? You sure think an awful lot of yourself, don’t you?” I asked pointedly, trying not to let it show that my heart was pounding like crazy. It was just a body shot, no big deal.

Whoops and whistles erupted through the throng of people, and I swore my cheeks were going to burst into flames. Will grinned in response, running his hand through already tousled hair that looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. He couldn’t seem to help the appeal that oozed from him, and I told myself it was nerves that made my belly quiver, and not his broad shoulders as he spread his arms wide against the counter.

Cursing beneath my breath, I lay backwards, stretching out on the bar. I was determined to get this whole fiasco over with. I lifted the bottom of my Grateful Dead shirt up to my bra, exposing my belly, while the dark-haired bartender slipped a slice of lime between my teeth for me to hold. I’d watched enough of these at ASU-RV to know the drill.

When Will’s face appeared above me, I squeezed my eyes shut. I refused to let him see that even though I thought he was sort of an ass, I couldn’t quell the shiver of anticipation that started in the pit of my stomach and slithered even lower the moment he leaned over the top of me.

My breath caught in the back of my throat as his hands fell on either side of my ribcage and the skin of his wrists brushed against the bare skin of my abdomen. I kept my eyes shut, and when the first drops of tequila poured into my navel I nearly leapt off the countertop.

His breathy chuckle made me dare a quick peek, and when I did, he was staring directly at me, his emerald-colored eyes locked challengingly onto mine. That was right before he drew my hair aside so he could sprinkle salt across my collarbone.

He dropped low, the tip of his tongue finding the pulse at the base of my neck, and I wondered if he had any idea how furiously it was beating beneath his touch. He took his time collecting the salt, searching for each grain and making me squirm inside my own skin.

When he finally lifted his head, he stared down at me, studying me and trying to gauge my reaction. I kept my face as impassive as I could, refusing to give him the satisfaction of knowing how affected I really was.

His insistent lips dropped low then, closing around my bellybutton, and his tongue, which had only seconds ago been exploring my neck, dove expertly into the pool of liquor awaiting him. Jolts of electricity fired through my entire body.

I squeezed my hands into fists at my sides as the entire bar around us seemed to go silent.

I wanted to tell him he was doing this body shot thing all wrong. It was supposed to be done fast—salt, tequila, lime. One, two, three. Not this leisurely investigation of my body. But I was convinced that if I tried to talk the words would get caught behind the massive lump blocking my throat.

The suction of his mouth made me shudder, as despite myself, my body betrayed me. Fiery tendrils unfolded, and as he lapped at the tequila, drinking it up, I couldn’t help imagining what it would be like if his mouth moved lower…lower…
lower
…

As if punctuating the fact he was finished, he nipped at my skin, making me jolt, and goose bumps broke out over every inch of me. Then he dragged his body along the contours of mine ensuring I could feel every single muscle of his chest brushing across me until his mouth was exactly in line with mine.

When his teeth clamped onto the lime between my teeth, he didn’t let go right away. Instead, his lips stayed pressed against mine, and our breaths mingling until I could taste the tequila he’d just lapped from my skin.

I swallowed the lump in my throat and, with a small gasp, released the lime. It took more effort than it should have to force myself to look away from him as I rolled onto my side and out from beneath him altogether. I tugged the hem of my shirt down again as I hopped off the bar, and when I did, I was met by rounds of applause and catcalls and shouts for more, more…
more
!

“I did it,” I announced shakily, holding my hand out as steadily as I could, and ignoring the outbursts at my back. “I held up my end.”

He pinched the lime, still between his teeth, squeezing the rest of the juice into his mouth before chucking it away. “That you did,” he conceded. And then he grabbed the keys and tossed them to me.

My gaze dropped to the small silver keys in my palm.

This was what $10,000 had bought me: Freedom. An entire summer to figure my shit out, away from the pressures of school and my parents.

I spun on my heel.

“Hey!” Will called after me. “Don’t I get a thank you?”

I restrained myself from flipping him off, which was my first instinct. And when Emerson finally caught up with me out in the parking lot, she was breathless from running to keep up.

“Never saw you do that before.” Em grinned and bumped my shoulder with hers.

I sighed and bumped hers back. “Yeah? Well, I’ve done worse,” I answered, because Emerson was the only person in the world who knew the truth.