Finally, they stop talking and Hot Brunette begins nonchalantly looking around the room at everything and everyone other thanme. Because, of course, that framed picture on the wall of the Seattle skyline is endlessly fascinating. Okay, clearly, the girl’s activelynotlooking over here—probably trying to come off like her eyes aren’t being pulled like magnets on steel to me. Fine with me, sweetheart. Play your little game. I’ll wait.
Okay, Hot Brunette’s gaze is fiiiiiinally migrating, ever so slowly, toward me at the bar.
Here she comes.
Her gaze is drifting toward me.
Getting closer.
Hang on. Wait. What the fuck? Hot Brunette’s eyes have already swept down the full length of the bar and right past me... too fast for me to hold her gaze or even flash her a quick smile. And now she’s chatting with her red-haired friend again.
I glance to my left. There’s a man and woman sitting immediately next to me with two open stools on their far side. “Hey, would you two mind shifting down a couple seats?” I ask the man. “I’m trying to free up two stools next to me.” I motion toward the duo at the door by way of explanation and the dude smiles broadly.
“Sure thing,” he says, getting up. “Good luck.”
And that’s all the invitation Redhead needs. Without hesitation, she grasps her friend’s upper arm like she’s wrangling a misbehaving toddler out of a candy store and literally drags her toward the two open stools.
Come to Papa, baby.
As Hot Brunette walks toward me, she keeps her head down and eyes averted, giving me a chance to ogle her undetected—hot damn!—but about twenty feet away, she unexpectedly lifts her head and looks straight at me... and then doesn’t look away for a long beat—long enough for me to know I’m fucking toast.
Heat floods my entire body.
I smile at her, my pulse pounding in my ears.
Hot Brunette returns my smile and quickly looks down again, her cheeks blazing, but I’ve already seen my future in her eyes, as surely as if I’ve peered into a crystal ball: I’m about to become Captain Ahab and this beautiful woman my whale—and, clearly, there’s not a damned thing I can do about it.
5
Tessa
“…for all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking cannibal.”
—Herman Melville,Moby Dick
“Jackpot!” Charlotte blurts into my ear.
“What?” I turn my head toward whatever or whoever Charlotte’s looking at with such unmistakable lust in her eyes, but she grabs my forearm and squeezes hard, snapping my attention to her vise-like grip. “Ow,” I say, grimacing. “What the...?”
“Don’t look!” Charlotte hisses, her eyes wide. “The hottest guy ever is sitting at the bar right now. Oh my effing God,don’t look.”
“Charlotte, you’re kind of hurting my arm, honey.”
“Sorry.” She lets go. “I had to squeeze something so I wouldn’t pass out from all the blood whooshing into my cooch, all at once.”
“Well, squeeze your own damn arm next time the world’s hottest guy gives you a lady-boner.” I rub my forearm. “That hurt.”
“Sorry.” Charlotte gasps and squeezes me again. “Tessa, he’s looking right at you.”
“Or you. We’re standing right next to each other, babe.”
“No. He’s definitely looking atyou. Oh, wow, you should see the hungry look on that man’s gorgeous face. Oh, God, he’s mentally eating you out.”
“Jesus, Char. Now we’ve both got lady-boners. I’m gonna look.”
“No, no, not yet. Let him salivate a bit longer. Holy hell, he wants you. He’s staring at you like a starving man at a butcher shop window.”
“You’re crazy.”
