She said, “Hey, Golden Boy,” on an exhale, smoke curling from between those ruby red lips.
“Hey, Max.”
She walked away from the bouncer, and leaned up against the brick of the building. My eyes snagged on her leg as she propped a heel up on the wall behind her. I forced myself to look away. She was sexy as hell, but I was sure she got enough guys ogling her here.
“Are you stalking me, Golden Boy?”
I stayed where I was, careful to keep distance between us, so that I didn’t do something stupid in my drunken state.
“Only a little.”
She laughed. That was good. I’d made her laugh.
“What are you really doing here? I’ve never seen you at Trestle before, and I’m here more than I’m home.”
I filed away that information for later.
“I’ve never been here. I came with a friend.”
“The Hispanic guy?”
I nodded. “His name is Milo.” I searched for something else to say, but my mind was moving too slowly. God, could I be any more boring? No wonder she called me Golden Boy.
This was a terrible idea. The silence between us stretched into awkward territory, and I was too drunk to hold a decent conversation. The longer I stayed, the harder it became to fight off the urge to touch her.
Time for a tactical retreat.
“I should probably go find him.” She frowned and stared at me as I took a step back. “I only came to say hi.” She looked at me for a second longer, and her eyes widened in shock. Then her lips turned downward, and I saw her disappointment seconds before she swept the emotion from her expression.
I looked behind me expecting to see a mugger or a UFO or a zombie. We were alone on the street except for the bouncer, who stayed silent and still outside the door.
“What?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
My curiosity was too strong to turn around again.
“No, tell me. What was that look for?”
She took a deep inhale, and lowered her heel to the ground.
“It’s nothing. I just realized something is all.”
“And what did you realize?”
Her eyes were still wide, and she sputtered slightly. “I, well, I just realized that you’re in theatre.”
I was drunk, but I could tell that when she’d said “theatre,” she meant something else. “Yeah, I told you I was an actor this morning.”
Her heel scraped at the concrete sidewalk.
“You could have told me the rest, too.”
The alcohol must have been preventing some of the synapses in my brain from firing because I had no idea what she was talking about.
“The rest?”
“You know, your friend, Milo. You could have told me about him. I wouldn’t have judged.”
The pieces were coming together, but I wished they weren’t. This was one puzzle that I did not want to solve.
“I’ve had a lot of alcohol,” I admitted. “But if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, you’re wrong.”
She pushed off from the wall and took a step closer to me.
“It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone, Golden Boy.”
I winced. She patted me on the shoulder, and I grabbed her hand and held it between us. “No, Max, I’m not gay.”
She held her other hand up and said, “Jesus, I get it. You love boobs.” She said this loudly, and then leaned close to me to whisper, “But really, Golden Boy, it’s the twenty-first century. The world won’t end if you come out of the closet.”
Two thoughts crossed my mind—one involved a lot of yelling.
I chose the other, and used the hand I was holding to tug her forward into my arms. Her chest pressed into mine, and her lips were millimeters from my own. She exhaled sharply, and I could taste the sweetness of her breath on the air. I saw in her eyes the moment she knew she was wrong, but I wasn’t done proving it to her.
I crushed my mouth to hers.
She gasped, and I slipped my tongue past her lips. She stayed there for a few seconds, her hands still at her sides, then I felt the tentative touch of her hand against my hip, and that was all the permission I needed to continue. I threaded a hand through her hair and wrapped the other around her waist. I walked her backward until she hit the wall. Her other hand came to my waist, and her fingers pressed deeper into my skin. Her lips were soft and full underneath mine, and I eased up enough to taste them. I tried to kiss her softly. I did, but there was something about her that made me desperate, and I kissed her harder.
Her hands slid around to my lower back. Her fingernails dug into me, and I groaned. I used my hand in her hair to turn her head to the side, so that I could kiss her deeper. Up until now she’d allowed me to kiss her, but as I pressed her harder against the wall, she came fully alive. Her tongue tangled with mine, and her mouth pushed harder against my own. My blood rushed south so fast that I felt dizzy. The only thing keeping me steady was my hand propped on the wall behind her, but even so I fell farther into her, until every part of my body was aligned with hers.
It still wasn’t close enough. My winter clothes kept too much space between us. I wanted to conquer every piece of her. The way her h*ps pressed up into mine made me believe she felt the same way. The kiss was even better than I could have imagined. Her mouth tasted as exotic as she looked, and my every nerve ending seemed to be standing at attention. Her fingers dug harder into my lower back, and I was on the verge of losing my mind. Her teeth grazed my bottom lip, and I used the hand in her hair to tug her head back just enough that I could move my lips to her neck. Her skin was just as smooth as I’d dreamed. I could spend eternity tasting her.
What was that saying—I could die happy? This was so beyond that. I could never be satisfied. I would always want to kiss her again. She was addictive.
“Okay.” Her voice was thick, raspy, and it only made me want her more. “Point proven.”
I laughed into her neck and nipped the curve of her collarbone. Her back arched, and her br**sts pressed deliciously against my chest. She was so responsive. Every time I did something she liked, her nails pressed deeper, and her breath caught in her throat. I wanted to make her do that again and again.
“We have to stop,” she said.
Stopping was about as appealing as a bat to the kneecaps, but I did it. I lifted my head from her neck and looked into her dilated eyes. They were wide with shock or fear or something. Whatever it was . . . it wasn’t what I’d hoped to see in her expression. I stepped backward to give her some space.
Then she slapped me.
The sound of it echoed through the empty street, and it took me a few seconds to feel the sting through my buzz. I’d been slapped twice in my entire life, both of them by this gorgeous, maddening girl. Unlike the last one, this one I deserved.
She was taken. When I wasn’t looking at her, that thought was easier to remember.
I blinked, and turned back to her. She had her hands folded over her mouth in shock. She took a deep breath and said, “I am so sorry. I—I shouldn’t have done that.”
I swallowed and put a few more feet between us. “Don’t be sorry. I deserved it.” Logically, I knew that. But all my body knew was that it wanted to be connected to hers again. I could barely think straight for how badly I wanted her.
“I should go.” I returned to the bar door, feeling like all the good of the day had been knocked loose by her slap.
You’re not that guy, Cade. You practically forced yourself on her.
As I pulled open the door, I heard her ask the bouncer for another cigarette. I forced myself to walk inside the bar, to leave her alone. My track record with girls and alcohol was terrible. But one thought kept plaguing my mind.
She kissed me back.
10
Max
My cheeks burned from the cold, and my lips burned from something else as I lit up my next cigarette.
I hadn’t meant to kiss him back.
I think I’d known before he’d ever touched me that he wasn’t gay, but a small part of me wanted the easy out that that would have provided. I wanted him to walk away because I wasn’t sure I would have the willpower to do it myself.
Then he’d kissed me, and I thought . . . a few seconds wouldn’t hurt. Just to kill the curiosity. Just long enough to blame on the alcohol, then we could pretend like it didn’t happen, and I could stop being fascinated by him.
That had been the plan.
But then his hand had tightened in my hair, and I was swept away by my weakness for kisses with a little edge.
It was why I didn’t normally date nice guys. They were just too tame.
This kiss, though, was a paradox. It was sweet and soft, like I would expect a kiss from Golden Boy to be. But every time I’d thought of pushing him away, there had been something—a pull on my hair, a graze of teeth, a press of his hips—that had frayed my thoughts and kept me kissing him. I don’t know how he managed to be soft and rough at the same time, but I had to hand it to him, it was kind of mind-blowing.
It was also the worst idea since Crocs.
I was with Mace. Or I was supposed to be.
God, I was such a screwup.
Mace made sense for me, and I for him. I just had to remember that.
The slap was an overreaction, but there had been a hurricane of emotion wreaking havoc in my chest—lust and fear and guilt—and I had just snapped.
I fumbled with the new cigarette Benny gave me. If I weren’t careful, it would end up on the ground like my last one.
“Should I be going after that guy?” he asked. “I’m a little unclear on your feelings at the moment.”
Join the club.
“No, Benny. But thank you. He’s just a friend. We’re both a little drunk. Nothing to worry about.”
Except I wasn’t drunk. Not really. I had no excuse other than stupidity for my own behavior. Well, that and how hot Cade was. Yep, we should definitely lay the blame on his hotness.
I looked at my watch and balked, I only had about a minute left in my break. I must have kissed him for longer than I thought. Cade joined the very short list of things in life that had that kind of time-bending effect on me. Or more correctly, kissing Cade joined that list.
Benny said, “I’m going to hit the head. You want me to walk you in?”
I took a deep drag and shook my head. “No, I’m good Benny. I’ll go inside in about a minute. Go ahead, I’ll be fine.”
I stayed by the door, finishing my cigarette. It was a pointless exercise. The slow inhale and exhale was doing absolutely nothing to calm me down. I used my heel to dig at a weed that had sprouted up between slabs of concrete. It was amazing how even in the middle of a city—a world of hard stone and cold metal—something living could overcome the obstacles and emerge to see the light of day.
The heavy metal door swung open again, and I was standing too close. It clipped me in the shoulder, and I dropped my second cigarette of the night as I pitched forward.
An arm caught me around the waist before I hit pavement.
“I gotcha, babe.”
The guy reeked of alcohol. He pulled me up and close to his body. His head was shaved, and he had a few tattoos. He might have been my type on the surface, but his arm was tight around my waist in a way that didn’t feel at all appealing or comforting.