“Am not.”
“Are, too.”
I chuckled at our childlike banter. “It’s thehumidity and the lights and—stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you know what you’re doing.”
“Maybe I do.” Chase’s smile turned into something dangerous. “Maybe there’s an evil master plan beneath all my spontaneity.”
“Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose of being spontaneous?”
Chase grinned but didn’t respond.
We walked past the Columbia Restaurant where I’d had lunch with Mark and Priya, past one of Ybor’s dozen tattoo parlors. We passed a group of bachelorette party girls I recognized from the bar earlier in the night. Each wore a matching hot pink sash. They were singing along to something playing from a nearby bar. One of them waved at us, shouting, “You two are adorable!”
Chase beamed and waved back.
I died a little inside . . . in a good way.
“Are we adorable?” I asked.
“Can you argue with a gaggle of drunk women wearing tiaras and sashes? Is that allowed?”
“Fair point,” I said. “I’ve never been adorable before. It’s weird.”
“Get used to it.” He bumped my shoulder with his, his hand squeezing ever tighter.
We reached the corner of 7th and 17th, where the crowds started to thin out. The music was still there. There was always music in Ybor. But down here, at the end of the action, it was quieter, more distant, yet somehow more intimate.
Chase stopped walking.
“What—” I started to ask.
Then he pulled me down a side street.
Not gently. Not “let me show you something.” He just yanked my hand with purpose.
“Where are we going?” I asked, stumbling to keep up.
Chase didn’t answer. He just kept walking, faster now, dragging me along until we reached a darkened alley between two old brick buildings.
Then he tugged me into the shadows.
Out of view.
Away from the streetlights and the people and any semblance of public decency.
Fear spiked in my chest. My mind raced.
What if this guy, this beautiful, blond hottie, is a serial killer or child molester or—
He shoved me against cold brick, the outer wall of some old cigar factory, the kind Ybor was full of, and I barely had time to register the rough texture before his mouth was on mine.
Oh.
Oh!
