Because You Want Me (Falling for You, Book One) (3 page)

She ignored my question. “What do you want?”

I could have played the game a few more minutes, charmed a smile out of her. I decided to go with honesty. “I want to take you downstairs and make you forget any and everything but me...and all the ways I’m gonna fuck you.”

I
'd clearly lost my mind.

It must have been the fog of delirium that choked out all rational thought. It turned our surroundings into something ethereal and mysterious. Stripped down, The Red Door Club was just a warehouse, sectioned off into rooms that I wouldn't want to see under a UV light. But the bar was sultry, multicolored and unfortunately, little more than decoration, vases glittering behind the glass. The music that had been annoying from the door had grown on me, pairing well with the stage and a sleek, stripper’s pole that stretched to the ceiling. Stripper’s poles weren't supposed to be sleek. And guys with impossibly good looks and bright eyes that made my world spin off its axis weren’t supposed to choose me over girls that looked like Lara. Girls who filled out their dresses and demanded attention.

But he shot Lara down. And if I didn't know any better, I'd say that he was into me.

And then moans fluttered in from the hallway and I remembered.

Right.

Sex club.

He's not into you. He wants to screw you.

Any other night I'd be able to put aside that voice that wondered why I wasn't enough. I'd be secure in my accomplishments, comfortable in my skin. But this weekend was filled with all the ghosts from my past. Memories of how I'd look at my sister, with her lean legs and arms like mine, but with hips and boobs that I was lacking. How all the features that made people whisper how beautiful my mother and father and sister were ended up being exaggerated on me. All my faults were broadcasted—too skinny, nose almost perfect, lips a shy too big, eyes just a smudge too large. Almost beautiful.

Cute enough to land a couple of dead end boyfriends. Cute enough to screw. Finding someone that wanted more? Not so much.

But this stranger didn't know that I was pretending to be someone that I wasn't. Someone that was confident. Who could take or leave him as a lover. He didn't know that I was the silly girl that was sitting at an alcohol-less bar in a sex club, hoping that the sexiest guy in the place—hell, the sexiest guy I'd ever seen period—would want to wine and dine me before we got to the part where we ripped off each other's clothes.

I felt his gaze devouring me slowly, but I pretended I didn't. I pretended we had all the time in the world, lazily twirling my straw around my glass. His plans for me hung in the air unanswered, and it took everything in me to not clap my hands together with glee before I leapt into his arms and let him take me somewhere. Anywhere really. Right on the bar. On the stage. Or downstairs...

I surrendered and glanced in his direction. Not a good idea. Those eyes were dangerous. They were the kind of green you could get lost in and do all sorts of things you'd regret in the morning. “Let me get this straight. You want me to let you fuck me? Just like that?”

A smile teased its way across his handsome face. “Well, not just like that.” He reached for me and my body weakly, traitorously, leaned toward toward him—but he just fondled one of my tresses, lifting the honey brown strand like it was something delicate.

And after he's done with you, he'll crush your heart beneath his feet.

He broke contact, his gaze flickering over my face and settling on my mouth. “From the moment our eyes met in the hall this began.”

“This?” I said softly, giving in for the briefest moment. Letting my guard down.

“That's right.” His voice filled the air around me, thick and rich. It just heightened my dreamlike state, especially when his touch returned to me, this time his fingertips stroking my jaw. “And then, I made the first move.” In case I wasn't there and didn't remember how he turned a greeting into foreplay, he recounted the moment. “I said hello.”

I barely had any clothes on, but I felt my temperature rising. The heat that radiated from him beat down on me and even though my sense of self preservation told me to scoot off the stool and run for my life, I basked in the warmth. I played with fire. “If I'm remembering correctly, I said ‘Hi yourself’ and walked away.”

“Accuracy is essential.” Before I could comment that he couldn't be drop dead gorgeous and using big words in my fragile state of mind, he pushed me to the edge, leaning in, cheek to cheek. I counted every second. One—he smelled like heaven. A masculine mixture of citrus and the woods just after it rained. Two—how was it possible that just the mere act of him breathing was sexy? That every breath that rippled from his body through mine made me ache? Three—I would compare every other kiss to his, and I knew I'd come up wanting every time.

He blazed a trail to my ear. Four-

“Hi yourself,” he breathed lustily into my ear.

He pulled back and I nearly jumped his bones right there before I caught myself. I ripped my eyes from him, waving for another soda, clearing my throat to cover the fact that I was having trouble breathing because at the moment, I was wondering why I was fighting so hard to stop what felt so right.

The bartender slid over and refilled my cup with Sprite, giving me a look that said what my vagina had been saying for the past thirty minutes.
Just sleep with him already!
She turned her triple D's in his direction, adding her own P.S.
Or I will
.

I peeked over at him, totally expecting him to be sizing her up. In her leather bustier, it was hard not to stare. But he was just watching me. Studying me. Like he was breaking down the equation, step by step, and any moment he'd get the solution.

When he swept a hand through his dark locks, I bit my lip when I saw the way his forearms moved in the dark, muscular and strong. I wanted him to lift me, throw me over his shoulder and take me to one of those rooms, whether I wanted to or not. Every part of me wanted him, even my head that stubbornly put its foot down. “You can't look at me like that.”

“Like what?” He said with an innocence that was guilty as sin.

“Like it's just a matter of time until you have me.”

I didn't realize that I was clutching my glass until he plucked it from my hands and put it back on the bar. My retort got lost somewhere and I barely had time to sputter, to be offended, before he gave me a look so sure, so confident, so stunning that I just listened.

“Let's be clear. I'm a gentleman. I don't take what I want. And I don't chase women-”

“Then why are you here?” I bit off. It was too easy to glare him down, conjure up broken promises and the hollowness when someone I cared about told me I was great but he didn't like me 'like that'. This guy hadn't done anything more than show interest in me and my side eye was locked and loaded. This time, when I heard moans, felt the room fill with another single woman with a guy in hot pursuit, I wasn't invigorated. It was sobering.

Was he hot? Absolutely. Was I just going to drop my panties because he wanted me? I wanted my answer to be a single word. To be so sure that this time when I walked away I wasn't secretly hoping he'd follow.

I felt the contradiction brewing inside me and instead of just storming off, I gave it to him straight. “This may sound strange considering we're in a sex club, but I'm sick and tired of feeling like I'm disposable. Sure, we can go downstairs and lose ourselves for half an hour.” He cocked an eyebrow and my core throbbed with want. With a single eyebrow, he gave me a look at all the ways he would turn me out. Make me moan. Make me beg...and half an hour wouldn't cut it. “Jesus Christ.”

I reluctantly stole away—finding my reflection in the mirror that stretched behind the bar. I refused to retreat to him, his silhouette alone tripping me up. I didn't see the bartender, using her weapons on a more than willing guy who was practically climbing over the glass top to get to her. The disco ball that glittered above the stage no longer hypnotized me. The music was barely a hum compared to the thunder of my heart. The multicolored couches that held the memories of the countless beautiful, horny people that had cycled in and out of this place was just a jarring reminder of how I didn't belong here.

“I'm going to be more honest with you than I should be. I figure, you're going to realize that I'm not worth the headache and stalk off to find someone that is, but at least I can say that for once, I was real with someone other than my therapist.” I stabbed at my drink, the ice clinking angrily. “I was on my way out the door when I saw you. Running away, because that's what I've done since...well, always.” I really,
really
wanted something alcoholic, but I settled for a chunk of ice, crunching on it and swallowing the shards to fight the heat of ‘Omgomg you're about to tell your sad life story to some hot guy who just wants to give you a night worth remembering—just shut up and screw him!’

“My sister's best friend has read one too many romance novels and thought it would be a hoot to switch it up and hold a bachelorette party at a sex club,” I explained glumly. “My sister's getting married in two days and these precious last days of single-ness are supposed to be all about her, right? Except I've been making myself small and invisible and I'm just exhausted. I don't even know you and you don't know me, but I can tell you if my sister knew me she'd know that my ex cheated on me at places just like this and my reluctance to get my freak on has nothing to do with not being a team player. She never would have even asked it of me.” I couldn't bear to look at him. To look over and see those intense eyes wide with disbelief or disgust. I looked at my eyes instead. No amount of smoke was able to hide the tears that blurred my view. “So, I'm back here, back with a family I avoid because I want to be seen. I want to be me. But I'm right back to hiding; wearing my sister's dress, pretending that we were bonding when she straightened my hair and did my makeup just like hers. And instead of leaving, I let myself pretend that I could have sex with some random, gorgeous man. But these aren't my clothes and I'm not that person, and even though the next few days are going to be torture, one night of bliss with you won't make me whole.”

I finally took a breath. A deep one that filled my lungs and calmed my shaky nerves. I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them, I fully expected to be alone. Who wouldn't flee? He didn't even know my name and I'd just given him my unsolicited life story. He came here with one goal in mind, and it wasn't to listen to me complain about my childhood, ex and family woes.

I opened them and slowly, painstakingly tilted my head in his direction. The tilt wasn't sufficient when I realized he was actually still beside me. It was like someone had plucked me out of the real world and dropped me into a movie. He was the lead with the face that launched a thousand sighs, every female audience member memorizing every line, every angle, all the shades of brown in his hair and the spectrum of green in his eyes. And somehow I was in the frame too, sitting beside a man that looked at me like I wasn't completely ridiculous. He actually looked intrigued.

I hadn't scared him away.

It was the sweetest and most terrifying thing. I knew what was wrong with me...what was wrong with him?

He pulled out his wallet and thumbed through a jarringly thick wad of cash. Either he was wealthy, or there was a strip club looming in his crystal ball. I pretended that I didn't notice him leave a startling amount of money as a tip, and waited for him to extricate himself from our awkward encounter.

“How about you and I get a real drink?”

I was too shocked to pick my jaw off the floor. “You want to get a drink with me? You don't even know my na-”

“I'm Xander.” He said smoothly.

I could have guessed that was his name. Something exciting and a little edgy. He held out his hand.

This could all be some elaborate ruse to get in my pants. And even if it was, why wasn't I more bothered by it?

I shook his hand while I still had the nerve. “Penny.” I did a quick sweep of my body with my free one, like that explained everything.

“It’s a beautiful name.” He cracked a grin that made me weak in the knees, his thumb stroking my skin. It sent a longing through me that confirmed my new worst fear—I was already addicted to his touch.

I decided I'd stay on the ride for a little while longer, slipping off the stool with a grace that surprised me. “I'd love to have a drink.”

I
knew a handful of bars in the area that would have made a drink that scratched the itch we both so clearly needed scratched. I passed by each one, telling myself it was because they also offered a side of history that we did not need. Bartenders that would plunk our drinks down on coasters with smiles a little too obvious. Smiles that said, ‘What number did this one grab?’ and ‘Poor girl—she better leave the stars in the sky because next week, he'll have someone new beside him, twirling her straw in her drink’. Or worst, that she'd look at me with those golden flecked eyes, asking me what was good when she really wanted to know how many girls sat in her seat, asking the exact same question.

Those thoughts were enough to make me awkwardly pause, tempted to just plow through the door. But I wasn't the kind of man that did awkward. Or plowed through anything. Or cared what thoughts or judgments that fluttered around in the bartender’s heads.

But I cared what Penny thought.

And not just of me. I cared what she thought, period. Usually the only words I cared about from women I desired were yes and how soon they could get to whatever suite I'd arranged for the night. Yet every word Penny had uttered seemed to draw me closer. It was an unraveling of sorts, the ribbon unfurling into the darkness, the bottom unseen. The loss of control, the out of character need to see where this led, to get to know her, was unsettling. Yet, it was compelling in a way that kept me moving. That kept me glancing over at her, loving the flashes of her taut jaw and the curve of her sexy ass.

That was the balancing act. I'd think up something sweet, like the way she growled, ‘no thank you’ when I offered her my jacket, even though I saw the way she shivered in her cropped leather one. Then, I'd drop my gaze to familiar territory, like the way the jacket accentuated every delicious line of her body. It was a subconscious reminder that my goal, to fuck, hadn't changed just because I liked the way she smiled and refused to let her guard down with me. But I'd yet to do the same. My guard was still up and in full effect.