“You’ll leave when I say you can. Why are you in here?” He slowly moves forward until my back is flush with a wall of cabinets.
“Ray told me to come in here and borrow a pair of her shoes,” I grunt. “And, seeing as you don’t know me very well, I’ll just tell you now that I’m not a kid. I can make my own decisions, and I don’t have to answer your questions. Are we clear? I’m a grown woman. I got this.” I push on his chest, but he doesn’t move, and as much as I’m trying to get across my message to this guy, I can’t help my thighs from shaking with his proximity.
“Yes, you are,” he says, raking me over with his eyes. “But being in here still isn’t a good idea.”
“Who the hell are you to say that to me? I was invited, and last time I checked, you’re not my keeper. Thanks for saving me from Benny and the Jet in the alley, but I don’t owe you anything. I don’t even know you or anything about you except that your name is Nine, and that you took down those guys in the alley with your fancy necklace that I assume they don’t sell at Tiffany’s.”
“Do you always talk this much?” he asks, his hard stare shifts gears to slightly amused.
I swallow hard. “Yep. I have anxiety. The need to fill the silence with word vomit is one of the sexier side-effects. You don’t like it? I’ll be happy to be on my merry, babbling way.”
“Maybe, I do like it.”
We’re both quiet, save for the loud pounding of my heart beneath my ribs. “I should get back to my friend,” I say, but I don’t move.
“Lenny, you’re not going anywhere,” he growls. He leans in, and his lips brush over mine. My entire body comes alive like a street light buzzing to life.
“Lenny, there you are!” Yuli shouts opening the door to the RV with a loud bang. I jump away from Nine. “Get out here, and have a drink with me. What the hell is taking you so long?”
I’m leaving when a thought occurs to me, “Wait, how do you know my name?”
“Lenny!” Yuli calls again.
He stands there with words on the tip of his tongue, but I decide not to stick around and wait for whatever bullshit answer he’s probably trying to come up with, even though I know the result of not hearing what he might have to say has a high chance of haunting me for the rest of my life and cause me many agonizing nights of sleeplessness.
But then again, so did the ending of Game of Thrones.
Because, anxiety.
Besides, I already have enough material from the past week to keep me awake for ten lifetimes without lumping Nine’s non-answers onto the steaming pile of shit my life has become.
Yuli is barely keeping up with me as I’m practically running to the cooler, praying I’ll find a chilled bottle of vodka hidden beneath the ice and beer.
Go ahead, ignore me. See where that gets you.
I freeze.
The voice of my anxiety has always been a girl, but suddenly, it’s changed. It’s now a man’s voice.
And not just any man.
The voice belongs to Nine.
* * *
NINE
Like all humans, behind my rib cage is an organ that pumps blood to the rest of my body, otherwise known as my heart. I’ve never before paid it much attention.
Until now.
Until the light from the moon through the window exposed the pale smooth skin of her neck. Until I breathed in her smell of some girly scented soap. Suddenly, I am all too aware of my heartbeat. Because one second it speeds up, and the next, it feels like it stops all together. Through all this crazy pumping and sputtering the only place it seems to be sending any blood too is straight to my fucking cock.
I leave my RV and immediately spot Lenny. She’s several yards ahead of me, walking with her friend from the café back toward the bonfire. I follow but keep my distance.
The little jacket she’s wearing over her scrap of a dress doesn’t mask what it really is or what it does for her body. Low cut in the front, it shows off the swell of her high, rounded breasts generously portioned to her tiny frame. With every step she takes, the fabric of her figure-hugging black dress rides up little by little, along with my pulse. Any minute now, the generous, heart-shaped perfection of her ass is going to be on full display to any man who notices, which will be any man with a heartbeat and a cock.
She’s oblivious to the stares. To the fact that every man here is probably imagining the same thing I am. Bending her over the nearest anything and taking her rough and hard. That dress is downright dangerous. A distraction I don’t need. I’m supposed to be a danger to Lenny, not the other way around.