by April Lust
As we rounded the corner, I caught a particularly bad crack and starting falling. Unable to regain my balance, I felt myself falling and braced for the impact that would come momentarily.
Except that it never did.
Saber had caught me, wrapping his arm with its thick, ropey muscles around my middle. He pulled me back up in a way that forced me against his body. I shivered at the contact, unable to deny how good his heat felt as it filtered through my dress and soaked into my skin.
I swallowed. “Thank you.”
I heard the smirk in his voice as he answered, “No problem, princess. Though I kind of thought you were supposed to be graceful or something.”
Narrowing my eyes at him, I shoved at his chest—hard and unyielding—to push him away. He let me and I straightened up, smoothing out invisible wrinkles in my skintight dress. I didn’t look at him again as I marched purposefully towards the club, more mindful of the ground beneath my stiletto heels.
I met the bouncer at the door; he gushed. Although sometimes it still weirded me out when people recognized me and had one of those “moments” where they just sort of freaked out, it was also really nice to have someone know who you were.
I had been a no one not so very long ago and I hadn’t cared for that. Now, I mattered.
“I know I shouldn’t and you’re just here to have fun and all,” continued the bouncer, who was adorable because he was the size of a sumo wrestler but was gushing like a thirteen-year-old girl over some young adult vampire franchise. It was sweet. “But would you be willing to give me an autograph? I just love your movies! All of them!”
I smiled at him, then sent a scathing look towards my temporary bodyguard. He frowned at me, making my smile widen. I turned back to the bouncer. “Of course! I’m so glad that someone likes my movies.” I flashed him my pearly white teeth.
The bouncer quickly dug into his pockets for a pen and some paper, ending up with a scrap of a receipt or something like that for me to sign. “Sorry, it’s all I have,” he apologized sincerely, looking truly disgusted with himself.
I felt like laughing. He looked so heartbroken over it! But I didn’t laugh and I didn’t care that a receipt was the only thing he could find for me to sign. It was the thought that counted, and right then I honestly believed that.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, taking the pen and paper from him. “I’m just glad you like my movies so much. It means the world to me.”
His smile was surprisingly brilliant given his size. He had clearly been chosen because he had a generally menacing scowl, but I wouldn’t have guessed that beneath that he was a total teddy bear.
I signed my name with a flourish, then added Keep up the good work, Big Boy! XOXO When I gave it back to him, he was so thrilled that he looked like he wanted to do a happy dance. It was all the funnier to me because he was ready to usher me in on his own personal red carpet, then immediately went back to intimidating bouncer when Saber approached him.
“Hold up there,” he said, holding out a hand palm flat. “You’re not on the list.”
Saber made an irritated sound low in his throat and I wanted to laugh. “I’m with her,” he said gruffly, pointing at me.
The bouncer frowned. “You’re not on the list.”
Saber looked like his head was ready to explode. I was fairly certain that of all the things that went wrong that night, this was not the one he had predicted. Looking around the bouncer to me, he asked, “A little help please?”
I tapped a finger on my shoulder, pretending to think really hard about the whole thing. Inside, I felt like giggling. I might have even left him outside the club just to teach him a lesson after the whole high heels and graceful thing, but as I considered it, the truth hit me like a ton of bricks. If he stayed outside, I’d be in here alone. With a bunch of strangers, in shoes I couldn’t run in, with dark lighting or strobe lights, people lost in a crowd…
Fear flashed through me and it made me feel awful inside, but it had me putting a hand on the bouncer’s shoulder and carefully telling him, “It’s okay, really. He is with me. He’s my new bodyguard.”
The bouncer considered Saber one last time before looking at me. “If you’re sure, Miss Teana.”
I smiled. “I am. Thank you for looking out for me.”
He beamed, then shot Saber a warning look before letting him in after me. I made sure Saber was inside and following me before venturing too far into the club. I hated that I was afraid, but there was nothing I could do about it.
The party inside was about what I expected it to be. There was a huge throng of bodies pressing against each other, dancing wildly and without worry or a single care. They were dressed not unlike me. The women were in skintight dresses of varying lengths and colors. Most bore extreme cleavage when they had it and long expanses of back if they didn’t. Their legs were like milky white towers spiraling upwards into forever and their arms were bedazzled with bangles and glitter both. Hair came in all shades, many of them not found in nature, and their faces were painted in every which way possible. Some of the guys, too. Some wore intense makeup meant to shock, while others were very muted, looking as though maybe they weren’t wearing makeup at all. And each and every one of them looked as though they had styled their hair with enough gel to start their own beauty supply shop.
Along the edges of the dancing starlets and their impressive, equally vain beaus, were people with a little more decorum. These were the people who had been raised to have money and act like it. They sipped at their drinks as they talked about politics or agents or whatever else they thought was important to talk about so that they could look as fancy as they thought they should. Though they were boring and often so stuck up that my smile had to be screwed into place, they were the ones I searched out tonight.
I didn’t want to get caught in the throng of undulating people. I couldn’t handle it, not right now in my current freaked out state.
So instead I went to the bar first to order a drink. I got something with a lot of vodka in it and a little bit of flavoring, then thanked the bartender with a large bill and a flirtatious smile. He seemed pleased and even blushed, though I was sure I wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last to treat him just like that.
As I turned around with my drink in hand, planning to immerse myself amidst the rich and snobby while condemning myself to a night of boredom, I ran smack into Saber.
“Hey!” I cried as a little of my pinkish colored drink sloshed over the side and onto the floor. I hopped back just in time for it to miss my shoes. “Watch where you’re going!”
He snatched the drink out of my hand so quickly that I had to blink to make sure that it wasn’t still there. “Should you really be drinking right now?” he asked in the best imitation of Ryder I had ever seen.
I scowled at him. “Excuse me? I’m twenty-three. I’ve been drinking for three years now.” Legally, I didn’t add, because I felt as though it would not add to my case.
“I don’t care about whether or not you’re legal,” he told me in irritation, though I thought I saw a flash of heat and wondered if he hadn’t considered the other meaning of the term legal. “I’m talking about being sober enough to be aware of your surroundings.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. There was a small part of my brain that told me he was right, that I should make smart decisions and be more careful. Then there was the rest of me which was outraged at being told what to do by some biker dude who didn’t know the first thing about me. Like he was my parent or guardian or something.
“I’ll do what I want,” I told him, not caring if I sounded childish or bratty. I jabbed a finger into his rock hard chest. “It’s your job to make sure I’m safe, not mine. So do your job.”
He scowled at me and looked like he was going to argue with me some more, but before he could, I snatched my drink back and downed it in a single gulp. It burned all the way down, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t been planning on doing a lot of drinking tonigh
t for the very same reasons that Saber had just listed, but now that he was challenging my right to make decisions for myself, well, it would be a free for all.
I wouldn’t let anyone tell me what to do and I was already starting to feel like too many people were doing just that.
First Uncle Ryder and now the man he sent?
Shoving the empty glass back into his hand, I spun around and marched back to the bar, flagging down the same bartender. I ordered a double this time and downed that, too. I knew I should slow down, but now that I’d started, I wasn’t about to let it go.
But as I let the second drink settle in my stomach, aware that I hadn’t eaten much since breakfast and it was hitting me hard and fast already, I tried to come up with other ways to annoy Saber. Other ways to get back at him and Ryder both for making me feel like a child. For making me feel like I wasn’t capable of taking care of myself. Just like that guy last night, thinking he could just attack me.
Now that I’d made the connection, I was even more furious. I was a grown woman. I could take care of myself. I could make my own choices!
And that was when I spotted him.
He wasn’t anyone I recognized, though he had to be someone if only because Maureen had chosen the guest list for tonight very specifically. She was picky, too. He was probably a model or something, maybe someone up and coming. Really, in that moment, it didn’t matter. He was sexy in a well-kempt, overly made up sort of way. His dark hair was slicked back just so and his eyelashes were so dark and long that I was pretty sure he was wearing mascara. His lips were full, maybe falsely so, and his skin was that perfect tan that told me he went to a really good salon. Add that to the couple thousand dollars’ worth of suit, and it was pretty safe to assume that this pretty boy was as vain as the day was long.
But he was pretty. And that was all I was after tonight.
Grinning like a cat, I slunk towards him, keeping one hand on the bar as I did so because I was already beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol on my system. Sliding as gracefully as I could into the seat next to him, I asked after the fact, “Is this seat taken?”
He grinned back at me, showing rows of pearly white teeth that might have been fake or at least partially manufactured. “I hope it is now.” He winked at me.
I forced a laugh from my throat, making it loud in the hopes that it might travel far enough for Saber to hear it. Take that, I thought spitefully, willing him to react to the sound. Maybe he would see me and Mr. Pretty Boy together. Maybe he’d get angry, jealous even. “Aren’t you charming?” I told him flirtatiously, batting my eyelashes at him and running a slender hand down his arm.
His smile widened and under normal circumstances I might have noticed something a little off, might have sensed that something was wrong. But alcohol flooded my system and I was swaying already. My judgement was off and worse still than that, I was so focused on Saber that I really didn’t care that this guy was kind of slimy and maybe rubbed me the wrong way. I didn’t care so long as it got to Saber.
My gaze flashed over to where I’d left him. He was standing nearby, leaning against the wall. His arms were crossed and his face was tense in what was probably anger. And he was staring right at me.
I felt a rush of satisfaction and upped my flirting with Mr. Pretty Boy.
“Can I get you another drink?” he asked, his eyes flashing.
There was some little voice in the very back of my mind that whispered a quiet no, but I shoved it aside. I was tipsy already and the whole point was that I could make my own decisions. Which meant I should totally take the drink offered to me, right?
It sounded reasonable to me in that moment and that was enough for me.
“Yes, please,” I told him, giggling softly as I leaned towards him, knowing that my breasts were half spilling out of my dress as I did so. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” he told me, his eyes darting down to my breasts.
I didn’t necessarily care for him staring at me and felt the sudden urge to cover my chest, but this was all just part of the game. I wouldn’t go home with him tonight, wouldn’t sleep with him, but I could flirt and do all the things that flirting entailed. And that would piss Saber off and prove my point all at once.
Yes, this was a good plan.
The new drink came over and the guy, whose name I had yet to catch and didn’t really care to know anyway, shoved it towards me. “Here you go,” he said, still smiling.
He watched eagerly as I downed it, which only made me about half as uncomfortable as it should have. What little discomfort I did know, I shoved aside. I don’t know if he called for another drink or not, but it seemed like a new drink appeared before me almost instantly. By this time, I was pretty hazy and I wasn’t really interested in having any more, but it was there and my hand was already around it before I could even think about what I was doing.
When yet another drink appeared, I shook my head. “I think I’ve had enough,” I told my new suitor, thinking that something felt off. Maybe it was just my stomach that wasn’t feeling great right now.
I thought I saw a flicker of a frown on his perfectly sculpted and painted face, but it was there and gone so quickly that I thought maybe I’d just imagined the whole thing.
“Sure, no worries,” he said in answer to me. There was a pause where I felt like the whole room was swaying. “You okay? Maybe you should go outside, get some fresh air?”
I nodded. That was the best idea anyone had ever had in the whole history of the universe. I managed to get to my feet, though I swayed unsteadily as I did so. I thought I told him something to the effect of “I’ll be right back,” but I couldn’t be sure. I was so unsteady that I wasn’t positive what I had actually said out loud and what was in my head, but the guy must have been okay with my leaving because I stumbled through the pulsing crowd alone, staggering towards the back door.
Probably, I should have waited for Saber so that I wasn’t alone, but I didn’t want to be around anyone right then. I just needed some air and some space. I needed a moment where I could just breathe. And possibly puke.
Ew, I don’t want him to see that, I thought as I reached the door and shoved it open.
The cool night air hit me like ice cubes in the middle of summer. It felt so good that for a moment, I thought maybe I was sober again. Of course, I wasn’t. I was still so drunk that I was swaying and dizzy and in no way likely to be getting much farther than the door on my own.
Using one hand on the wall to steady myself, I took a few steps into the alley and just sucked in huge lungfuls of fresh air. Thankfully it didn’t smell like rotting garbage or urine, so I didn’t have to suppress the urge to gag.
Because if I started puking, it was all coming up tonight.
As I let the cool air calm me down and settle my uncertain stomach, I didn’t notice the door creaking open or the sudden burst of music, nor the way it died out a second later to be followed by the slamming of that same door. I didn’t hear the footsteps behind me or the dangerous purr in his voice as he asked, “Hey, baby, you okay?”
I swirled around to face the man who had joined me outside, my body seeming to move in slow motion even as I tried to urge it faster.
The man was Mr. Pretty Boy from the bar.
He was leaning against the wall casually, but looked sort of predatory, like a cat with a swishing tail just waiting to strike. His eyes almost seemed reflective like a cat’s, too, his whole body suddenly long and sleek and maybe a little more powerful than I had initially given him credit for.
I took an involuntary step back.
“What’re you…” My words slurred and I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to ask him. What are you doing here? Maybe.
He smiled at me and suddenly it didn’t look sweet or charming or boyishly stupid or anything of the sort. Instead, I was left with an impression of danger that must have been purely instinctual. I had the urge to run, but didn’t think I’d get very far.
Stop b
eing such a pansy! I ordered myself. Hadn’t this all been about proving that I could take care of myself?
I decided quickly that if I could get to the door and go back inside, I would be fine. A trickle of fear snaked down my spine, but I shoved it aside. I reminded myself that Saber was inside. He would protect me. All I had to do was get to the door.
Forcing a weak smile onto my lips, I managed to get out sloppy, “Not feeling so good. I’m going to go back inside.”
The man nodded and stepped back from the wall, motioning with his arm that I was welcome to make my way to the door. I did so unsteadily, still using the wall for support, but did my best to appear like I didn’t need it. I doubt he bought it.
Just as it looked like I was going to reach the door without incident, he grabbed me. I let out a quick yell as his hand wrapped firmly around my upper arm and he shoved me. My back hit the brick wall of the building harshly, jarring me and making my vision swim again.