I paused, thinking.
Could I go through with this?
One-night stands were not my usual. I enjoyed more cautious fun, like filling out my yearly calendar, writing life goals, and typing up spreadsheets. I had every single detail of my existence planned, right down to my future kids’ names.
And the last time I’d had a spur-of-the-moment fling, it had nearly ruined—
“What’s this?” Concern crossed his face as he noticed my wrist attached to my dress. I’d completely forgotten about it. “What’s wrong with your arm?” A warm hand cupped my elbow, his fingers then traveling to my wrist.
“I snagged my bracelet on my dress.” Another blush rose up from my neck as I recalled the spectacle I’d made. “It belonged to my grandmother—an heirloom—and was a gift from my late father for my sixteenth birthday. I’m—I’m terrified I’ll break it or ruin the dress. Knowing my luck, I’d do both.” I looked down at the diamond-studded bracelet and grimaced. “It will kill me to break it, but I guess I can always have it repaired.”
“Here, let me see it,” he said, inspecting the fabric where my hand currently dangled.
Did I notice that his face was nearly in my cleavage?
Yes, and I really didn’t care.
Did I notice that his male scent made me want to rub against him like a cat?
Yes, pet me, please. Make me purr.
“Can you slide it off?” he asked.
I willed my pulse to slow down. “No, the clasp is the part that’s stuck to the material and it’s too tight to slide off. Trust me, I spent a while trying to get it undone.” I blew out a breath. “It’s been a crazy evening.”
“Hmmm.” His lips puckered in a cute way as he leaned in closer, and I swallowed, feeling shy all over again.
He was
so
not my type: muscled physique, a tattoo, cocky.
But tonight I wanted revenge sex.
And here he was—Mr. Beautiful—delivered on a silver platter.
It would be a travesty to not take advantage of the opportunity, right?
Absolutely,
the tequila said.
He sent me a rueful grin. “This is going to sound like a cheesy pick-up line, but if you let me put my hand down the front of your dress, I’d be able to detach the bracelet without ripping the fabric. I won’t grab your tit on purpose.” He winked boyishly. “Wanna give it a go?”
Touch the tit!
Touch the tit!
I cleared my throat. “Sure, that would be nice.”
With a finesse that surprised me—as if he were used to sticking his hands into ladies’ clothing—he reached down the neckline of my dress, the back of his hand pressing against my lace bra. My nipple hardened—of course—and my face grew redder. Praying the darkness of the club hid my embarrassment, I avoided his eyes and studied the dragonfly on his arm. A few tense moments later, he found where the metal was snagged and gently maneuvered it through the fabric.
“Free at last,” he murmured as I shook my arm out in relief. I didn’t even see a hole in the dress.
“You’re quite the handyman. My bracelet means the world to me, and this dress—let’s just say it cost more than my car payment. Thank you. Seriously.” Impulsively, I gave him a quick hug and pulled back. “Um, can I buy you a drink to show my appreciation?”
His fingers traced down my spine. “Let’s start with a thank-you kiss.” His voice grew husky. “I’d love to kiss a real angel.”
An explosion of heat detonated in my body.
The blue-haired guy next to him snorted, probably at the total pick-up line Mr. Beautiful was dishing out. But I liked his lines. A lot.
“Ignore him,” Mr. Beautiful said, indicating his friend. “He’s jealous you fell in my lap and not his. Now about that kiss . . .”
“Right here in the club?”
“I like to imagine people watching us. Don’t you?” he whispered in my ear.
I shivered. Maybe. The idea did sound deliciously sexy.
His lips brushed my earlobe. “Besides, doesn’t a prince deserve his spoils? I caught you—you could have died right here on the floor.”
“I fell from the stool. It’s not like it was a building or something.” But my head was already leaning toward his.
“But it could happen,” he said, fingers tracing my lips, his face inches from mine.
Butterflies did somersaults in my stomach.
“I suppose there’s a slight chance I could be headed to the hospital on a gurney right now.”
“Indeed.”
Maybe it was the tequila, maybe it was the anonymity of the mask, maybe it was the fact that he’d asked so sweetly, or damn, maybe it was just
him
, but his reasoning made perfect sense. I nodded.
His hand tilted my chin back for a better angle as his full lips fit perfectly over mine. He deepened the kiss slowly, soft as silk, with the skill of a guy who knew exactly how to stoke fires. My hands threaded through his hair as heat raced up my spine, and when he groaned his appreciation, I melted into him.
The graze of his teeth, a soft nip on my bottom lip, and I clung to him.
Hot. Slow. Mind-blowing. Kisses.
Until it ended abruptly.
He jerked back as if stung, and even though I couldn’t read his expression behind the mask, I saw a deep furrow on his brow. He rubbed a quick hand across his jaw and cursed under his breath.
Had I done something wrong?
Bitten his tongue?
“What happened?” I breathed, my pulse hammering. Now that I’d had a taste, I wanted more of him. I was committed to following through, and I was smart enough to know that the electricity between us wasn’t the usual.
He opened his mouth as if to say something but then slammed it shut, his eyes studying me as if he were considering something serious.
“Do I suck at kissing?” I asked.
“No.”
“Tequila breath?” I grimaced.
“No, no, you kiss great. Bloody incredible. That’s the problem.” He raked a hand through his hair, his face tightening.
He seemed like a completely different person.
What was going on?
“Are you married? Dating someone?” I asked.
“I’m the Lone Ranger.”
“Why? Are you a selfish asshole who only cares about himself?”
He paused. “Yeah.”
“Well, you’re in luck. That suits me just fine. So shut up and kiss me.”
A few beats of silence went by as his eyes bored into mine.
I stiffened. “Fine. I can take a hint. You aren’t interested. Welcome to the club.” I shifted in his lap as if to get up, and his hands tightened around my waist.
“Wait,” he said, his demeanor softening. “I am interested. Trust me.” He bit his lip in a hot way that was completely manly. “It’s just—when you’re angry later, will you remember that you
wanted
me to kiss you?”
“Of course. We’re just having fun.”
“Are you begging me to kiss you then?” His voice was husky, tinged with a note of familiarity.
My hands brushed the hair off his forehead, my nails trailing along his cheek. “Is that what you want?”
“I can’t remember what I want,” he murmured, and his mouth swooped down to capture mine again.
The sounds of the club faded away and all that mattered were his lips on mine, our tongues tangling. Lingering small kisses as we paused to breathe, then longer ones. His tongue licked my top lip and then he sucked it between his teeth. He owned me, and I lost myself, consumed by the fire that started in my bones and made its way through every part of my body.
He was the King of Kissing.
The Supreme Ruler.
“
Remi,
”
he breathed between a kiss to my lips.
“
Yes
,” I replied. He felt it too. This cosmic force bringing us together. The heavens rejoiced, the universe was understood, and all things were possible.
Magic.
I didn’t care who saw—Lulu or the bartender or the blue-haired guy. Sparks spread as his mouth left mine to glide across my jawline to my neck, my ultimate weakness, where he sucked hard, then layered the tender spot with soothing kisses and whispers of my name—as if he knew exactly what I liked. He made his way back to my lips and ravaged them again, diving into the recesses, searching, exploring as if he were dying of thirst and I was water.
Wait.
Clarity arrived slowly, in bits and pieces, and then all at once as the threads of truth that had been lingering in the back of my mind dawned.
Fate.
She’s a tricky bitch and the mere change in a footstep, the choice to take a different path, creates a synchronism of moments that align and fall gently into place, like a butterfly that unerringly finds its way home no matter the distance.
Fate had found me and kicked me in the stomach—hell, she’d just tossed me to the wolves.
This was not a stranger.
He’d said my name.
I tore my lips from his, chest heaving. “
You
. . . but the tattoo . . . hair . . .
Dax Blay
?”
He grinned with a cockiness that now seemed all too familiar. “You can call me Dax. Or Sex Lord. Or Daddy. Whatever floats your boat.”
I inhaled sharply.
How had I been so stupid?
Hurt lodged in my throat; not that I wasn’t used to his smart remarks, but when pointed directly at me, leftover anger and pain from our past came roaring back to the surface like a newly opened wound.
Don’t let him under your skin.
I slapped him on the face. Not as hard as I wanted, but hard enough that my hand stung.
He gritted his teeth, gave me a hard glare, and lifted his hand to touch his cheek. “You were supposed to
not
be angry.”
“Why aren’t you back in Raleigh where you should be?” My fists clenched.
“Why aren’t you with stuffy old Hartford?” he snapped right back. His eyes flicked to my bare ring finger and then bounced back to my face. “Aren’t you supposed to be married? Why are
you
running around London kissing random men?”
“Ah! You
knew
it was me the entire time,” I huffed. “Once again, you’ve proven I’ve always been a game to you.”
And that thought cut so deep not even the tequila could dull it.
“Girls love my games.” His insinuation made a thousand memories bombard my brain.
Me.
Him.
Us.
Seventy-two hours in a small bedroom.
Kisses. Beautiful, wonderful, endless kisses.
Love
. Lust.
And then—devastation.
Darkness.
“No snappy comeback, Remi?”
My eyes narrowed and if I could have shot flaming arrows from them, I’d have landed several in his crotch. My eyes touched there and then quickly darted away, but obviously not before he noticed.
His lip curled. “You still like what you see? Once you’ve had Dax, you never go back.”
“As usual, your ego is so big it takes up this entire nightclub.”
He grinned tightly. “Really? I seem to remember you liked how
big
I was. You couldn’t get enough of my ‘Mr. Argentine Duck’”—he used air quotes—“which
you
so aptly named after some rare bird with a seventeen-inch cock.”
He remembered that?
Of course, he wasn’t seventeen inches—but he wasn’t shabby either.
My face reddened.
I changed the topic. “Nice. Just great. Do you have any idea the measures I took to make sure I avoided you at Whitman after you dumped me? Which is hard to do considering it’s a small university,” I said. “I’ve dropped two classes just so I didn’t have to sit in the same room as you. I’ve walked out of the cafeteria if you came in. I’ve left the library right in the middle of a group study session. The only place we saw each other was at parties and formals. And here you are tonight . . . not going by the rules of
I never want to talk to you again
, Dax.”
He grunted. “I don’t know about your rules because you never told me, and I swear by all that is holy, I didn’t know it was you on that barstool. Not until that first kiss. I mean, your voice was familiar and you smelled like you, sugary and sweet, sorta like a cookie—and your body”—he raked his eyes over me—“is still rocking the hot curves—”
“You’re so full of yourself that . . .” I scrambled for a word. “ . . . I—I can’t even describe you.”
He crossed his arms. “I see you still think you’re better than everyone else, but you fell in my lap, and don’t think I didn’t see you checking me out in the mirror. You were practically shagging me with your eyes.”
I cringed. “Only because I didn’t know it was the irreverent self-absorbed waste-of-oxygen-who-expects-all-women-to-worship-at-his-feet that I went to Whitman with. And you’re a Tau.”
“And you’re an Omega little sister,” he retorted distastefully.
The blue-haired guy, who’d been listening intently, took a step closer to us, hands waving. “Wait, wait. So you two have a history—like before this Hartford guy?”
We both glared at him.
He chortled with glee. “This is bloody hilarious.”
“No, it’s not, Spider,” Dax said. “All bets are off.”
The guy snorted. “Never.”
What bet? His name was Spider?
Spider turned to me. “I apologize for my cousin. He’s had a hard summer taking care of me. Moving on, how do you know the bastard?”
I angled my chin. “The girl he was sleeping with at the time caught us together at the frat house. She told her entire sorority
I
was the reason he broke up with her. Then these—these mean girls proceeded to egg my dorm room door, and the next day my car was covered in sticky notes with
slut
written on them, not to mention the entire campus gossiped about me for months—”
“What the hell?” Dax whipped his mask off, and I bit back a gasp at the full impact of his face. He slayed me, especially with those mercurial gray eyes with thick, black lashes longer than any girl’s.
He was too gorgeous.
Too dangerous.
Too much of everything.
He was exactly what I needed to avoid.
A muscle ticked in his jaw. His fists clenched. “Eva-Maria did that to you? Why didn’t you tell me?”
I’d been too destroyed to look at him, much less talk to him.
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” I said quietly, remembering.
Stormy eyes met mine. “I never told a bloody soul about us. And as I recall,
you
walked out on me. Maybe you should have stuck around for an explanation instead of storming out of my room.”