We left through the heavy metal doors and walked through the parking lot to his car. I whistled when he stopped by a fancy-looking silver Porsche.
He seemed slightly embarrassed by my response as he opened the passenger door and motioned for me to get inside. Jamie hopped in the driver’s seat and gave me a steady look. I licked my lips. His gaze lowered to my mouth and darkened.
“Do you want to listen to music while we drive?” he asked, tearing his eyes away.
“Yes,” I said immediately.
He pressed a button and Dua Lipa’s Love Again started blasting through the car. I hadn’t ever appreciated how catchy the beat was.
I bopped my head as we drove, drinking in the streetlights that seemed to leave trails right outside my window. They weren’t as interesting as the lights in the club, but they still seemed more vibrant than usual.
We drove for what felt like a while, and eventually, I shut my eyes, enjoying the music and singing along to the songs I knew.
The car slowed down, and I checked to see where we were, noting we were exiting the freeway. That’s when it happened. There was a cold tingle in the back of my head, and suddenly, I was acutely aware that I was in a car with a man I really didn’t like.
A switch flipped, turning off the euphoria of the past few hours and flooding my brain with a sense of overwhelming awfulness. My mouth tasted rotten, and my limbs had turned to lead. I wanted to jump out of the car.
Jamie was focused on the driving, his eyes glued to the road. My hand reached to press the button to roll down the window, and this made him cast me a look.
“Are you all right?”
We were pulling into a neighborhood in the hills of LA, and panic was blooming in my chest.
I cleared my throat. “Maybe you should take me home.”
He stopped at the top of a long driveway. At its end stood a house I could only assume was his.
“It’s wearing off, isn’t it?”
I shot him a furtive glance and nodded. “I should go home.”
His fingers tapped against the wheel. “You said your roommate will be mad at you. Trust me, you don’t want to have an argument when you’re coming down off Molly.”
The thought of having a confrontation with Zoey made bile rise in my throat. But was going to a stranger’s house more advisable? I mean, I knew who he was, but we weren’t friends. This seemed like a very bad idea.
“I have a guest room with a private bath,” he continued. “You can use it to try to get some sleep and leave tomorrow morning.”
That sounded innocent enough, but this was Jamie Berg.
He must have been able to read my thoughts from the expression on my face, because he sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ve been in your position more times than I can count. I’m just trying to help.”
What he said was obviously true. He must have done every single drug under the sun, and I wasn’t quite sure what the hell was happening to me now that the euphoria of the previous few hours was gone. If I started to freak out or something, he would probably know what to do with me, unlike my roommate.
Despite everything that had happened between us, I doubted he would physically harm me. If he’d wanted to take advantage of me, I had given him plenty of chances to do so at the club.
Memories of us on the dance floor flooded my mind, and I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Okay,” I said in a hoarse voice. “Thank you.”
He started the car back up and drove us up to the house—a two-story Spanish-style home that I might have examined with more care if I didn’t feel like curling under a blanket in a fetal position.
I climbed out of the car and followed him up the three steps leading to the main entrance. He unlocked the door by putting in a code on a fancy touchpad and waved me inside.
I shrugged off my boots in the lobby while he stood a few feet away, waiting to escort me to my room. I refused to meet his eyes when I straightened back up, my entire body burning with embarrassment. The fact that I was currently in Jamie’s house didn’t seem quite real.
He led me down the hall and stopped in front of the first door on the right. “It’s just right here,” he said, pointing inside. I was relieved that the guest bedroom was so close to the main door. It would make my escape in the morning easier.
After I walked inside the room, I turned to him. He was leaning against the doorframe, giving me a thoughtful look. I shuddered to guess what he was thinking about me.
