by T. K. Leigh
When his mouth is a whisper from mine, my eyelids flutter closed and I crane my head. My body aches in anticipation of his kiss, desperate to finally know how his lips taste.
“Allow me,” he murmurs in a seductive voice that makes me even more light-headed. Then he removes the blow dryer from my hand. I fling my eyes open as he pulls back, a smirk on his lips.
In an attempt to steady myself, I place my hand on the vanity counter, drawing in several deep breaths as I try to make sense out of what just happened. What did just happen?
“You’re familiar with the story of the tortoise and the hare, correct?” He glances at me before returning his attention to his shirt. Flicking on the blow dryer, he aims the air at the material.
“Yes…,” I answer in a drawn-out voice, confused about this line of questioning.
“My litigation professor in law school often spoke of it in relation to a trial.”
“So you’re a lawyer.” I place a hand on my hip.
I’m not sure what I thought Lincoln did, but I didn’t expect him to say he’s a lawyer. I grew up around lawyers. My father’s chief general counsel for the biggest newspaper in the country, if not the world. None of the lawyers on his staff ever looked like Lincoln. If they did, I might visit him more often, attend more of his work functions.
“Not master of the universe. Master of the courtroom.”
“In a manner of speaking, yes. But that’s beside the point.”
I saunter toward him. “Then what is the point?”
He shuts off the blow dryer, running his hand over the fabric to check for any dampness. Content, he shrugs his shirt back on, much to my disappointment. A shirtless Lincoln Moore truly is a sight to behold. In the shirtless Olympics, he’d wow the judges with a near perfect score.
“Do you know what the hare’s mistake was?”
“Yes.” I smirk. “He was cocky. Thought he’d get what he wanted no matter what.”
He laughs, the sound causing my demeanor to momentarily crack. “That’s true. But his problem was sloppy execution.”
“Sloppy? How so?”
“He went out of the gate at full speed. There was no warm-up…” Fire builds in his gaze. “No buildup. And when he saw he was in the lead, he took a break.”
“You don’t think it’s okay to take a break?”
“I think it’s lazy. Certain aspects of life require a bit more finesse, a bit more planning, a bit more…effort. And let’s not forget the most important part.”
“And what’s that?”
“That the tortoise is the one who crossed the finish line first.” He leans toward me, so close I can taste the sweetness of the beers he’s consumed. “And I am very interested in crossing that finish line.”
A shiver rolls down my spine, the double meaning in his words driving me wild with need.
Then he straightens, buttoning his shirt the rest of the way. “But not until I’ve fully run the race.”
“Well… I guess it’s time for me to fire the starter pistol.”
I start to walk past him, but he grasps my arm and yanks my body against his. It feels like all the air’s been sucked from my lungs as I stare into his striking green eyes.
“Haven’t you figured it out by now?” His lips skim against mine.
“What’s that?”
“I already fired that pistol Saturday night, Chloe. We’ve just been running laps around each other since then.”
“But even when you run laps, you need to stop for a drink of water. You need to quench your thirst.”
“Is that what we’re doing now? Quenching our thirst?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
His grip on me tightens as a groan falls from his throat, heady and sexy, forcing a stirring deep in my core. He licks his lips, yearning covering his expression as he closes the distance. I brace myself for his kiss, mouth tingling, synapses firing, when every light in the room suddenly snaps off, shrouding us in darkness.
We both stiffen, remaining still, waiting for the lights to come back on. When they don’t, he pulls away, releasing me. I look around, but the bathroom is pitch black. Of course, we’d be stuck in the one room with no windows.
“I’ll go see what’s going on,” he states with authority. “The door’s around here somewhere.”
I put my hands out in front of me, reaching for something to tell me exactly where we are in this ridiculously opulent bathroom that’s probably bigger than my entire apartment.
“Why did you close it to begin with?”
“In case we needed a bit of privacy.”
I follow Lincoln’s scent, confident we must be near the door. “And why would we need a bit of pri—”
My leg hits something, the velocity of my strides catapulting me forward. Without being able to see, I wave my arms around, grasping onto the first thing my hand finds, which also happens to be Lincoln, and we land on the floor with a loud thump. At least my fall was cushioned by his body. He, unfortunately, didn’t fare as well and grunts.
“You okay?”
“Great,” he answers in a high-pitched falsetto.
“Did I…” I trail off, noticing my knee’s putting pressure on something. “Shit. I’m sorry.” I adjust my position and hear his exhaled breath.
“I had a feeling you were a ball buster,” he groans. “I didn’t think you’d literally bust my balls.”
“Want me to massage them to make them feel better?” I joke.
He’s silent for a moment, then breaks into a throaty laugh. It echoes against the tile, filling the space. “Thanks for the offer, but right now, I’m pretty sure my dick is shriveled up. It’ll need some coaxing to come out and play again.”
I run my hands up his firm chest, the sensation of being this close sparking a need for even more. To feel more of him. Bringing my mouth toward his, I murmur, “Challenge accepted.” He instantly hardens beneath me, and I crook my mouth into a smile, feeling powerful that I have this kind of effect on him.
Cautiously raising myself back to my feet, I step around the room, extending my arms in front of me. When my hand brushes against a metal object, I stop, wrapping my fingers around it. I turn the knob and open the door, the light of the moon illuminating the bedroom through the windows.
“There you are!” Izzy says breathlessly as she rounds the corner into the room. Asher follows, carrying a flashlight. When Lincoln steps into the bedroom, she halts. “Both of you,” she adds, her tone not quite a statement. Not exactly a question, either.
“Did we blow a fuse?” I ask in an attempt to steer the conversation away from the curiosity in her gaze.
“I don’t know,” she responds slyly. “Did you?”
“I don’t think it was a fuse,” Lincoln interrupts.
I look in his direction to see him staring out the back window that displayed a beautiful view of the Strip earlier. Now the only lights visible are those of cars snaking up Las Vegas Boulevard. No green glow from the MGM Grand. No Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel beckoning people to have their photo taken. No gigantic Ferris wheel spinning a slow circle. It’s all dark, the sky black, apart from the moon and stars.
“Like I said,” Lincoln continues when we all remain silent, congregating around him and staring into the darkness. “I don’t think it was a fuse.”
Chapter Seven
“Wait a minute. Wait a minute,” I say, struggling to capture a breath, my stomach aching from laughing so much over the past hour as we played a toned-down version of Never Have I Ever on the back patio under the light of the moon.
After realizing there was nothing to do but wait for the electricity to come back on, we decided to continue on with our game night. What else could we do? It took our minds off what could have happened to cause all of Las Vegas to lose power.
“You were cursed by a…cat?”
“Fluffy was not a normal cat.” Lincoln sips on his beer, but keeps his eyes focused on me.
“The cat’s name was Fl
uffy?”
“Should have been Satan,” he mumbled.
“What did the cat do to make you so terrified of it?”
“Existed.”
“One of his girlfriends adopted the dang thing from the shelter,” Asher pipes in, sharing the story of Fluffy, the devil cat.
“She was nuts,” Lincoln adds. “Certifiable.”
“Are we talking about Fluffy or the girlfriend?” I ask.
“The girlfriend,” he answers, then pauses. “Well, both. I’m pretty sure Mia’s psychosis rubbed off on Fluffy.”
“What could a cat do that’s so bad to make you think it cursed you? I love cats,” I offer. “They’re the perfect pet. They shit in a box and clean up after themselves.”
“They’re nature’s little serial killers. You cannot trust a cat. Or a cat person.”
“Well then…” I settle into the couch. “I guess you can’t trust me. Because I’m a cat person.”
“Were any of your cats cockblockers?” he presses.
“Umm…no. But I never bring guys to my place to begin with.”
This piques Lincoln’s interest and he tilts his head. “Ever?”
“It’s one of her rules,” Izzy states. “Don’t shit where you eat or something.”
His brow furrows. “Doesn’t that phrase refer to sleeping with a coworker?”
“To some, but I expand it to mean not wanting to ruin anything that’s important to me.”
“And not bringing a date home is important.”
“It complicates things. And I like…uncomplicated. The rest of my life is difficult enough. So rule number one is never let them into my home.”
“After all…,” Lincoln begins, “home is where the heart is.”
I peer at him, my mouth falling open. People I’ve known most of my life don’t fully understand why I refuse to invite a guy to my apartment. But Lincoln gets it. Maybe we’re not as different as I originally believed.
“This isn’t about me,” I say quickly. “This is about Fluffy.”
“Right. Fluffy. Like Asher pointed out, my ex adopted him. Referred to him as our ‘baby’. When I ended things, she went a little crazy.”
“How crazy? On a scale of one to Single White Female.”
“She would have been more than happy to pin some murders on me,” he replies, understanding my movie reference. “At least she never attempted to adopt my appearance. Suffice it to say, she didn’t deal with the breakup well. One day, I got home from work to find she left the cat on my front stoop with a note saying she couldn’t handle being a single parent and I needed to step up my game.”
I choke on my beer at the ridiculousness of it all. I’ve done some crazy things in my life, but nothing like this.
“Sounds like you found yourself a clinger.”
“I think she was just lonely and looking for attention,” he responds thoughtfully. “Because once she started dating someone new, she forgot about me…and Fluffy.”
I can certainly understand that. My mother’s the same way.
“At first, I couldn’t believe she’d leave the cat outside for what could have been hours in the middle of winter in Manhattan.”
“Wait a minute.” I shoot my eyes to his. “You live in New York?”
There’s a sparkle in his gaze as he nods, brushing the pad of his thumb against his bottom lip. “Chelsea.”
“I’m in the Village.”
“Hmm… What are the odds?”
I sip on my beer, hiding my smile. “I’m thinking I really need to play the lottery now.”
He smirks before continuing his story. “So I took the cat in. As much as I’m more of a dog person, I wouldn’t abandon an animal. He was a pretty easy-going cat. Like you said, he shit in a box and took care of himself. But that first night…” He trails off.
“Yes?”
“I woke up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. That’s when I noticed him sitting on the opposite side of the bed, staring at me.”
“He was probably curious,” Izzy offers.
He slowly shakes his head. “No, because he would have eventually gotten bored. But he just sat there, watching my every move. And it happened night after night after night. Then, about a month later, I started seeing this new girl. Things were going pretty good, so I brought her back to my place.”
I ignore the pang of jealousy at the idea of Lincoln bringing a girl home. I have no stake over him. Hell, we haven’t even kissed. There’s no reason for me to be jealous of any women in his life, past or present.
“Things started heating up and we were about to…”
“Cross the finish line,” I say, completing his thought, giving him a knowing look.
“Precisely. And that’s when they waved the red flag.”
“On what grounds?”
“Due to the cat staring at us. It was creepy, and I couldn’t…”
“What?” Asher laughs. “You couldn’t get it up?”
“It’s not that I couldn’t get it up, but knowing that cat was looking at us with his beady eyes… Nothing helped. It’s almost like Mia knew that would happen. Like the cat had some mystical powers and she purposefully left him to live at my place so I’d never have sex again.”
We all burst out laughing, and I swipe the tears forming in my eyes.
“Well, I hope you found a way to get rid of the curse.” I look at Lincoln beside me on the couch.
“I sure did. About three months later, my boss was going through a tough time because the family cat was hit by a car and his kids were distraught over it. I said I had a cat I could part with if he thought it would help. He refused at first, but I insisted. So now I’m free to… Ya know.”
“See the checkered flag.”
“Precisely.”
“But what about your boss and his wife?” Izzy asks. “Don’t they—”
“That’s the thing!” Lincoln interrupts excitedly. “I asked him about it.”
“You asked him? How does that even come up in conversation? I’m not quite sure a cockblocking cat is a normal topic.”
He waves me off. “He invited me over for a dinner party. We both had a bit to drink, so I asked. He was convinced I was messing with him. Which leads me to the only possible conclusion. My ex tried to curse me with her cat.”
We all roar with laughter once more, and it’s a remarkable sound, particularly against the emptiness. It’s strange how silent everything becomes when there’s no power or cell service. No constant pings or vibrations from phone alerts. No hum of electricity. We’ve been forced back to simpler times when we actually have to communicate face-to-face, our only source of light and heat the fire pit we’re sitting around.
“Okay. Who’s next?” Izzy returns her attention to the coffee table, then frowns. “We’re out of cards.”
I chew on my bottom lip. “Maybe it’s time we go off script. We stopped with the board game part of this a while back.” I gesture to the game board where all the pieces were abandoned long ago in favor of just going through the stack of cards containing different scenarios. “Maybe it’s time to make things more interesting and ask different kinds of questions.”
“What kinds of questions did you have in mind?” Izzy waggles her brows, grinning mischievously.
“I don’t know. Something deeper. A little more…personal.”
“Therapist personal or sexy personal?”
“Therapist personal,” I answer confidently. Then I catch Lincoln’s gaze. “And sexy personal.”
There’s an instant shift in the atmosphere. Until now, we’ve all been relaxed, just a bunch of people getting to know each other, or catching up with old friends. But with those two words, we’re about to change the rules.
“I’m okay with that.” Asher takes a swig of his beer, his demeanor giving off the impression that he has nothing to hide. “We’re all adults. Not much makes me uncomfortable.”
“We are all adults, aren’t we?” Izzy comments, her mouth a tig
ht line as she taps a fingernail against her upper lip.
“What’s going through that brain of yours?” I ask guardedly.
Instead of sharing, she jumps up, grabbing one of the flashlights off the table, then proceeds into the house.
“What is she doing?” Asher floats his gaze to me.
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
We sit in silence, apart from the music coming from Asher’s phone, all of us curious as to what Izzy’s up to. Finally, she reappears, a wide smile on her face.
“What’s going on?” I ask as she approaches.
“Like Asher said…,” she begins with authority, “we’re all adults, correct?”
“Yes…,” we mumble, more or less at the same time.
“I’m declaring a circle of trust…a bubble, so to speak.” She waves her arms in a circle through the air around us, enclosing us in an invisible dome. “I submit for your consideration a new take on Never Have I Ever.”
“I’m not sure I want to know what this new take is,” Asher jokes.
“You probably don’t, considering it’s how I met your brother, but…” She holds out her arms, wavering slightly, physical proof of how much she’s had to drink. “Circle of trust.” She pauses, waiting for us to agree, which we all do with a quick nod.
“We’ll go around in a circle, saying something we’ve never done. If someone says they’ve never done something and you have, you drink. The changed rules apply to the person speaking. For example, if I say ‘Never have I ever shot Abraham Lincoln’, obviously, no one here will drink. In that case, we go to the penalty round.”
She opens her palm, revealing a pair of dice I recognize from the goody bags we received this weekend. But they’re not your traditional dice. Instead of little dots indicating a number, they have words. One is an action, the other a body part.
“How do we know whose…” Squinting, I read off the first words I spy on the dice, “thigh we have to bite?”
She grabs her nearly empty beer and drains it before waving it in front of us. “That’s what this is for. Whoever the bottle lands on is the lucky winner… Or perhaps unlucky.”
“I am not biting Asher’s thigh,” Lincoln says in a voice that sounds even deeper than his usual one.