It’ll do, I guess. My feet slip into the black strappy sandals I had packed to go with the dress and then I walk from the locker rooms and out into the evening. The light of day clings to the skyline, the sky a dusty indigo colour with slashes of pink and orange. My Audi lights blink when I press the button and then I climb into the drivers seat, shoving my gym bag into the back where it’ll likely stay for a week. Music blasts from the stereo when I turn the key in the ignition and press on the gas, peeling out of the near empty lot of the gym, heading towards the bar. It’s where we’re starting but not where we’re finishing according to Aurora. It’s been far too long since I hit the clubs with my best friend, after the last time it had become almost impossible to plan anything with her, until I put my foot down with my father.
I was twenty-three, far too young to spend every weekend locked up in the apartment I rented downtown, but with the security personnel my father hired it had become impossible to escape.
I had managed, somehow, to convince my dad to let it go. What happened a few months back was something that could have happened to anyone. The guys that cornered me after a night out were thugs, criminals and whilst I had tried to handle them myself, I still ended up in the hospital with several broken ribs and a face that looked like I had gone ten rounds in the ring with a professional MMA fighter. I took out at least three of them, a point my dad overlooks. Ever since then he’s hired bodyguards to see me everywhere. Not tonight though. Tonight I’m free.
A little bubble of excitement works its way through my system, and I press on the gas, heading down the street to my apartment building where I’m planning on leaving my car. I park in the underground garage and then take the elevator up to street level. There are still enough people and traffic out that I don’t have to worry about being in trouble and wander down the sidewalk towards the glowing blue sign for the cocktail bar I was meeting Rory at.
I find her perched at a high-top table, her black dress tight and revealing, her blonde hair dead straight and hanging around her face like a curtain. She’s not like me in the sense of the word, where I grew up in a huge mansion at the edge of the city, she grew up down at the trailer park with an alcoholic father and a mother who walked out on her when she was only three.
Not that you would know it by looking at her now. She was finishing up college and will go on to become a teacher at Brookeshill elementary school.
She waves enthusiastically and I cross the room, the clip of my heels loud in the quiet space. The music is on low, a gentle hum rather than blasting, and groups of people laugh and converse all around me.
Fuck, I hadn’t realized how long it had been since I felt normal.
I try to ignore all the shit with my family, the dodgy dealings, the late-night phone calls and the odd blood stains on my father’s sleeves but that shit isn’t easy to forget. I know,I know, that my family is far from clean, I just hope he didn’t expect me to follow in his footsteps.
I had no idea what exactly he was involved in, and I don’t want to know.
“Damn,” Rory grins, “you look great.”
I flick my hair and flutter my lashes dramatically, with a laugh I say, “Thanks.”
With her manicured fingers, she pushes the pornstar martini towards me and takes a sip of her own, “To freedom!”
I chuckle, tipping my head back, “To freedom!”
The first sip of the cocktail goes down far too smoothly, “So where to after this?”
She wiggles her brow, “Club Silver.”
I quirk a brow, “Wow, how’d you secure that?”
Club Silver opened in downtown a little over four months ago and has been in popular demand ever since. The city was alive at night, with hundreds of clubs thriving, but since that one opened, it’s where everyone wants to go, to the point you now have to book in advance and pay a premium booking fee to secure a space.
She purses her lips with a frown, “I’m not really sure, actually,” she laughs, “I ran into some guy the other day, a bit scary looking but he was handing out personal invites to the club and I just so happened to be in the right place at the right time.”
I shrug, “Seems like fate to me.”
Rory giggles and tips back the remaining dregs of her cocktail before she hops from the stool and heads to the bar to order a few more. I sit there, the alcohol I’ve consumed warming my veins, settling into my empty stomach. Shit I didn’t have time to eat after training and by the end of the night I’m sure I’ll be feeling it. I glance towards the front of the bar, looking behind the servers running back and forth to accompany the heaving crowd to see if they do food or even small appetizers, just to line my stomach and yet what I find, is anything but food.
Well I mean, I suppose he could be classed as a snack, I guess.
A tailored suit, the fit not too tight yet tight enough to tease at the muscles he has concealed underneath. The white shirt is tucked into black pants, the buckle of his belt gleaming in the dim lighting. Silver cufflinks, no tie, the top two buttons undone to reveal tanned, olive toned skin. Dark stubble lines the sharp edge of his jaw, high, defined cheek bones and low set brows, low enough to cast shadows over his steel eyes. A mop of dark hair falls over his forehead, too long to be deemed professional and I should know having been around the stuffy suits working at my father’s offices every day, none of them would dare let their hair grow that long. Always short, always tamed, like the good little robots they are.
He’s staring right at me. I’ve never been one to flirt or even hook up, I’m no virgin but the look he’s levelling me with can only be classed ashot.
Though it’s not quite there, like something is missing but I just can’t figure out what.
Sure, from the way his eyes travel over my body, his gaze moving over my bare legs, stopping a little at the black ink peeking out from the hem of my dress but then moving on quickly over my hips, to the curve of my waist and then further up, following the deep V of my dress where my breasts push together – thank you body tape – and then down my right arm where the ink is etched into my skin. Flowers and mandalas, intricate and delicate, feminine, though my family hate them. It’s probably why I did it. I knew they wouldn’t like the art, just like the nose ring, just like the piercing in my naval. I was young when I did them, a little naïve and yet I don’t regret it at all.
A frown mars his brow, as if confused but it happens so quickly I wonder if I imagined it and then his eyes travel the rest of the way up my body, over my collar and neck before finally levelling his stare with my own.
He tips a short crystal glass to his lips, a small amount of amber liquid pouring into his mouth, keeping his eyes on me over the rim of the glass.
When I finally allow myself to concentrate my eyes on his and truly look, all I find is heat, an intense burn but it’s mingled with a ruthlessness I’m sad to recognize. A coldness, a brutality I’ve seen in the guys that visit my father. His is harder, deeper, colder, like that side of him isn’t something that comes out every now and then, it is what makes him the man he is. A shiver runs its way down my spine, a warning signal and natural survival instinct to let me know I’m in the company of a predator.
My father made damn sure I’d never be a damsel, even the attack a few months back I stood my ground, but I can’t help feeling less than and weaker here. He isn’t the type of guy I’d want to encounter in the dark. Though you’ll be damn sure I’d give it a good go.