I wince, lifting a shoulder in a half shrug. “I hate to break this to you, but…”
“Noooo,” she howls, drawing several stares our way and cluing me in that my friend might be a bit tipsy. “You two are so perfect for each other,” she whines, throwing her hands up in the air. “Are you sure?”
“Yep.” I nod, biting the inside of my cheek to keep from grinning at her antics. “Sorry. He’s a nice guy, though.”
She huffs, dropping her fists on her hips. “Fine. Well, I guess it’s my mission to find him some solace tonight.”
“And by ‘solace’ you mean…”
“Ass.” Bending, she flips open the top of a red and white cooler under the table and plucks free two beers. “Here.” She shoves one into my hand and heads off in the direction Roman disappeared.
Chuckling under my breath, I twist off the top of my bottle and tip it to my lips. The ice-cold alcohol slides over my tongue, and though the red wine at dinner was nice, this isgood.
I lean back against the wall, content to be on the periphery of all the revelry rather than in the thick of it. Connor was always the one who’d been the center of attention even before he’d joined the BFC. At first, he’d tried to draw me in with him but soon realized I preferred standing just on the outside, observing, letting him bask in the limelight. Back then, I’d just been happy knowing his light cast on me, warmed me.
On the Bose speakers, BlocBoy JB and Drake switched to Camila Cabello’s gritty, sultry voice. Taking another sip of beer, I let my lashes drift down, allowing the beer and the two martinis I had at dinner to do their thing. Swaying to the slow, sexy beat, I lose myself in the music and the sweet call of the alcohol in my veins.
Until I can’t.
Because something…someone…won’t let me.
It’s almost physical, the touch of the gaze on my exposed skin. When I’d entered the house, I’d shed my sweater because of the heat from all the people in one space. But now, I’m glad I removed the clothing for another reason. For the phantom stroke of that electric stare. The charge it leaves behind that dances and sizzles across my flesh, lighting me up. Tightening my nipples into beaded tips. Sliding over my quivering belly. Slipping between my legs, leaving me aching and empty.
Only one man has the power to drag this reaction out of me.
For a second, I squeeze my eyes shut tighter, but I can’tnotlook. Can’t not see.
Surrendering to the feverish need that’s igniting my blood, I lift my lashes.
And my gaze clashes with a deep, shadowed, emerald one.
I’m unable to move. Unable to glance away. Unable to do anything but be owned by Knox’s stare.
The lyrics of the song narrate this…this clawing, ravenous thing inside me whenever I breathe the same air as Knox. He is a chemical in my veins, giving me highs and, God yes, lows. I’m the worst kind of addict when it comes to him, a fiend, and I need his brand of dizzying, raze-me-to-the-ground, mind-numbing pleasure. And yes, even that sweet bite of pain.
It’s been a week since I last saw him, and my scrutiny of him is probably hungry, and even though my mind is screaming to hide it, to deny it, I don’t have the strength to. Because that would require not burning in the flames of that gaze. Not visually tasting the almost-too-full curves of his carnal mouth or tracing the sharp edges of his cheekbones. Not imagining the tangled length of his gold-streaked brown hair and coarse-but-soft beard whispering across my skin.
Not feeling the imprint of that big, hard body against mine. Holding me down. Filling me up.
I suck in a breath, curling my fingers tighter around the bottle, anchoring myself to this spot across the room. Either that or barrel across the room and demand he finish what he started—what we started—two weeks ago on my couch.
Then I see her. The woman with her back to his chest, dancing on him. Grinding on him. Touching him like I shouldn’t want to. Like I will never be able to do in a roomful of people, including our family and friends.
She, this random woman, has something of him I can never, and will never, have.
As she spins around and loops her arms around his neck, I turn, too, unable to continue standing there as she uses him like a stripper pole.
Blindly pushing through the thick throng, I move toward the hallway, my only intention to put as much distance as possible between Knox and myself. Grabbing the knob of the first closed door I come to, I twist it and enter the dimly lit bedroom, not even looking to make sure it’s empty. But the pale light pouring into the window from the streetlamp reveals I’m alone. Relief shoots through me. The last thing I need is—
The door swings open, and Knox fills the doorway.
I freeze, breath trapped in my lungs, a trembling animal caught in the sights of a prowling predator. And that’s what he is. Massive, silent, menacing. The soft but faintly threatening click of the door closing snaps me out of my shock, but it’s him slowly, deliberately turning the lock on the door that has me inching backward a couple of steps. Until I realize what I’m doing—retreating. Revealing he is my vulnerability.
Because I can no longer deny it. At least not to myself. Knox is the sexual chink in my armor. My erotic Achilles Heel. Every cliché that describes how he destroys my resolve, my will, my strength. From the moment he first put his mouth on me in that tattoo chair, I’ve been his to mold, shape…break.
“Who’s the guy?” His rough growl vibrates in the room like a souped-up engine, and as he stalks forward, I again have to check the urge to shift backward. But as he invades my personal space, I’m damning my pride. Ceding ground is preferable to inhaling his intoxicating cedar and cinnamon scent. To counting how many centimeters separate his rock-hard, T-shirt-covered chest from my breasts. To remembering how far those wide shoulders stretched my thighs. “Eden.”
“A friend of V’s,” I say, cursing my hurried explanation. As if he deserved one. And why did he sound so pissy? When not seconds ago some chick had been air-reverse-cowgirling him.
