by Nella Tyler
Johnny, Hector, and his wife Juanita walked up to us, all three of them grinning like they’d never seen me with a woman before. Lacey hadn’t been well liked by most of the people I knew; I’d found that out from just about everyone in the weeks since we’d broken up, like people had just been waiting for the opportunity to tell me how much she’d rubbed them the wrong way. She could be sweet as sugar, but that turned your stomach after a while. And, Johnny had seen right through her. He’d asked me a few times if I thought she was running around on me. It’d almost ended our friendship at one point and then, come to find out, that was exactly what had been going on. It pissed me off to think I’d almost lost someone close to me over Lacey’s bullshit. It was another good reason for us breaking up and staying that way.
“Hey, Simmers,” Johnny said. His light eyes looked Sami up and down the way he did all women.
“This is Johnny,” I said to Sami, and they shook hands.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, smiling sweetly at him. She looked to Hector next.
“This is Hector and his wife, Juanita.”
Hector’s eyes didn’t wander up and down Sami’s body. He stared her right in the face, smiling warmly. In all the years I’d known him, I’d never seen him look at another girl. He loved Juanita in a way that made other women inconsequential. It was amazing. I wanted that kind of love for myself one day.
“It’s so nice to meet you,” Hector said.
Juanita smiled as she shook Sami’s hand. She was a beautiful woman, with long dark hair, hazel eyes, and a tanned complexion. You’d never be able to tell by looking at her that she’d had two kids. She was as thin and toned as Lacey, who worked out all day for a living. “Good to meet you, Sami,” she said.
“You should be honored,” Johnny said, grinning so we could see his crooked front teeth, his cheeks flushed from the alcohol. He didn’t fuck around when it came to an open bar. “You’re the first girl Simmers has ever picked up on a call.”
We all laughed, even Sami.
“If you want to know the truth,” she said, tucking her grin away, her dark eyes shining. “I was bored that night and set my own tree on fire, hoping some hot fireman would come save me.” That cracked us all up again. The more time I spent with this girl, the more I liked her.
Hector and Juanita said their goodbyes and went back out to the dancefloor. Johnny wandered off to the bar to look for a beer and his date, in that order. We watched him go.
“Your friends seem really nice,” Sami said, looking up at me.
I grinned, turning away from the sight of the back of Johnny’s blond head in line for drinks. “Wait until you get to know them.”
She gave a tinkling laugh, her lips curving and shoulders shifting, her warm grin heating me up. My eyes were drawn down to her cleavage. I was careful not to stare long, but I liked what I saw. I needed a breather or I was going to explode. The hardest thing about tonight was going to be keeping my hands off this girl; I didn’t want to do anything to fuck up my chances with her. I wanted to know everything about her.
I led Sami to a table at the edge of the polished wooden dancefloor. “Do you want something to drink?” I asked. “There’s a full bar with beer, wine, liquor, whatever you want.”
She thought for a moment, chewing her bottom lip in a way I found unbelievably sexy. “A whiskey sour, if they can make it please. A glass of sauvignon blanc if they can’t.”
“You got it.”
I followed in Johnny’s footsteps, leaving Sami behind me at the table. The line at the bar wasn’t long, while I waited, I glanced back at her. She was watching Hector and Juanita rocking out on the dancefloor, a small smile on her face. They’d taken lessons for their wedding reception and had kept at it ever since. They went dancing all the time, even entered competitions. If you turned music on around Hector, you could guarantee it was only a matter of seconds before his feet got moving. I could slow dance, but that was about it — and even that wasn’t great.
Johnny winked as he walked past me with a beer and a glass of wine, but didn’t stop to chat. He went to a table on the opposite side of the ballroom where his date was waiting on him. I ordered the drinks and tucked a few singles in the glass tip jar while they were being poured. The bartender was extremely liberal with the alcohol, pouring much more into the glasses than usual. I returned to our table, setting the whiskey sour in front of Sami before sliding into a seat next to her. She grinned at me.
“Thank you.” She stirred her drink before taking a sip, wincing a little at the strength of it. “This is really strong.” But she took another sip. “What’ve you got there?” She nodded to my glass.
“Scotch on the rocks.” I didn’t drink liquor too often, but they’d had the good stuff behind the bar, a twenty-year-old blend that I didn’t get to taste too often. At home, I mostly drank beers from a local brewery a friend of mine from college owned. It was a pretty nice setup. Whenever he had something new — which was often; he was quite the innovator — he brought by a six pack.
“I’m glad you invited me tonight,” she said, dark eyes on mine. They were a deep chocolatey brown, as soft and open as her expression. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d seen her somewhere else before. I felt warm and comfortable around her. There was an openness in her posture and the way she looked at me.
“I’m glad you said yes,” I replied.
“I almost backed out.” She smiled guiltily as I grabbed my heart and put on a dramatically tragic expression. “I was raised not to speak to strangers.”
“I saved your life,” I said, and she laughed. “Okay, well, maybe not your life. But your apartment.”
“That’s true,” she agreed. “That damned tree. I’ve never had that happen before.”
“It happens more often than you’d think,” I told her. “Just get a string of LED lights for next year.”
“I bought some a few days after the holiday for fifty percent off.” Her dark eyes gleamed brighter as her grin widened and she lifted her drink to toast her savings. I clinked my glass with hers, unable to stop looking at the gentle curve of her long neck, starting at her hairline and traveling all the way down to the plunging neckline of her dress.
I took a sip of my drink and tugged my eyes away from her for a second to regroup. It was weird feeling so off my game, but I liked it at the same time. Sami seemed full of surprises, and I wanted to discover each one.
I could only hope she wanted the same thing where I was concerned. Lacey used to say I was too moody and secretive — funny, considering she’d been the one carrying on multiple affairs at once. I had to reassess every part of the 18 months we spent together, staring hard at it through the lens I possessed now, in light of the cheating and lying. The more I did that, the easier it was to keep putting her behind me.
I’d spent some time wallowing in a booze-soaked hole, sure I’d never find another woman who wanted anything to do with me. I even considered getting back together with Lacey after a few lonely nights spent stranded in my apartment. But then I ran across Sami, and everything changed. Hector said it was fate. I didn’t really believe in that shit, but it sure felt out of my control.
The music changed, slowing considerably, and the couples on the dancefloor moved closer, their hips swaying and eyes locked on one another. I looked over at Sami to find her staring at me, her sweet brown eyes wide open and cherry lips parted. I fought the urge to touch her cheek or press my mouth onto hers. Instead, I smiled.
“Would you like to dance?”
Her dark eyebrows twitched closer together, but she nodded, the color burning high in her cheeks. “More than anything.”
That gave me a thrill to hear. We both finished the last of our drinks quickly, and then I stood to help her out of her chair. I kept hold of her small hand and led her out onto the floor, people clearing out of our way as we went along, her jewelry flashing in the dim light of the ballroom.
Chapter Ten – Sami – The New Year’s Eve Ball<
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Blaze held my hand the entire way from the table to the dancefloor, and I managed to get out there gracefully without tripping over Lisa’s three inch heels. They were pretty, but dangerous. The night felt different on the dancefloor, magical even, with the low light and the couples pressed in closely to us. My chest felt full of beating wings, my stomach full of angry, twisting knots. It was all from having Blaze so close to me, his cologne tickling my nose, the muscly bulk of him towering over me.
He brought me around on the floor, smiling down at me as I smiled up at him. He put his hands on my waist, curling them slightly, and I inhaled deeply, my skin coming alive. I could feel the heat of him through the fabric of my dress. I lifted my arms and rested my hands around his neck. I giggled a little because this felt so much like senior prom, which was the last time I remembered slow dancing with someone. The girls and I went dancing sometimes, but never like this.
He felt so good, so solid, under my hands. And, the smell of him kept trying to make my eyes roll back in my head. I felt drunk, and I’d only had one drink, not counting the bottle of wine the girls and I had split around two o’clock during my all day preparations. I hadn’t eaten much today, though, and that whiskey sour was much stronger than I was used to, almost like having three in one. The booze had shot straight to my head. I could feel it loosening my muscles and numbing my good judgment.
I gazed up into Blaze’s dark green eyes, basking in the heat of them. His last name was Simmers, and that was seriously what it felt like he was doing right now. His skin was so hot under my fingers and at my waist.
I couldn’t help but think of what it would be like to go to bed with him. It’d been months since I’d last had sex. I wanted more than anything for him to sling me over his shoulder and take me right to my bedroom, tossing me onto the mattress before climbing on top of me. My cheeks blazed red at the thought of it, but I could tell by the way he was holding my waist that he knew exactly how to handle himself. His swaying hips and the sizzling look in his eyes as he stared down at me kept bringing me back to thoughts of him pressing his long, toned body on top of mine, his hips fitting neatly between my legs.
Tonight was way too soon — even if Lisa had slipped a condom into my purse, just in case. But maybe a kiss at the end of the date? I wondered. I wanted to taste him, to see if he was as sweet and masculine as he smelled. I loved the feeling of his hands on me and our bodies so close together. I wanted so much more than this, but there could be other dates. Tonight wasn’t our only chance.
“This is nice,” I whispered.
He smiled, his grin as hot as the look in his eyes. I’d never been this close to a man who so effortlessly turned me on. My body was burning up. My insides were on fire. It was everything about him…the steamy look in his eyes, his strong hands resting on my hips, the muscly bulk of him pressed in close to me, his lusciously sweet smell. The way we moved around the dancefloor, our bodies swaying together in a rhythm that would perfectly translate to the bedroom. I didn’t even know this man, but I wanted him.
I needed to get something to eat before I drank anything else. If I let things go much further, I was going to lose complete control of my good judgment. I could already tell it was going to be hard to end tonight with just a kiss, especially if things continued like this. I didn’t need to make it worse by getting drunk. But I couldn’t deny how much I liked this feeling of losing myself to whatever this was, at least for tonight. I was levelheaded enough to put a stop to it when I needed to, but I wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.
“I’ve got the prettiest date in the room,” Blaze said, his low voice staying between us, the words setting off pleasurable little explosions inside of me. “You should see the way everyone is looking at you.”
I grinned wider. But I couldn’t care less about how everyone else was looking at me. I only cared about him right now. I never wanted to look away from his eyes, the green so stunning next to his dark auburn lashes. I couldn’t believe how worried I’d been all week about this date. Things were perfect. What a happy accident that tree fire had ended up being. I never thought I could be so excited over my house nearly burning to the ground.
We glided around the dancefloor, our bodies pressing a little closer. I took the liberty of touching as much of him as I could under the pretense of dancing — running my fingers along the back of his thick neck, reaching to feel the ends of his soft red hair, and adjusting my palms so they laid flat on his broad, muscular shoulders. I wanted to run my hands up and down his arms. I wanted to feel the curve of the perfect ass I’d glimpsed when he bent to pick up his keys after dropping them in the parking lot.
What was more, I wanted to feel him doing all those same things to me. It wasn’t just physical — okay, a lot of it was physical because, come on, he was hotter than the fires he spent his days and nights fighting. I saw something when I stared into his eyes, an openness that called to a similar openness in me that I hadn’t even realized was there.
The next song was much faster, breaking the lingering spell between us. I smiled up at him shyly as we reluctantly broke apart. His hands slid away from my hips, but reached to take hold of my fingers, making me blush a little. I didn’t want to let go of him yet and it tickled me to see that he seemed to feel the same way.
“Can I get you another drink?” he asked as we turned to leave the dancefloor. He let go of my fingers, but put a hand flat against my back. I trembled from the heat of him.
“Yes, please,” I said, not taking my eyes from him. “But I think I should eat something, too. That first drink was really strong.”
His face changed suddenly the closer we got to our table, his auburn eyebrows tightening as he clenched his jaw. The color rushed out of the already light skin of his face and his emerald eyes narrowed as they focused on a single point.
I turned to see what he was staring at that had bothered him enough to stiffen his shoulders and completely wipe the gentle smile from his face.
A woman was sitting at our table, casually sipping on a mixed drink. She was pretty, with dark brown hair she wore pulled back from her temples and forehead and dark brown eyes that watched with interest as we approached, an amused light burning in them. Her toned, athletic body was on full display in the clingy dress she wore, the hem of it riding up well past the middle of her thighs and plunging so low, it was a surprise her breasts simply didn’t tumble into the open. She kept her eyes on Blaze as her full lips curled into a cutting smile, her teeth very white against the tanned skin of her face.
“Do you know this woman?” I asked Blaze, not able to take my eyes from her.
He didn’t answer me, just kept staring at the woman coolly sipping her drink, her long legs crossed. “You need to leave,” he said to her.
“Who is that?” I asked, frowning a little. I didn’t care who answered — Blaze, this woman, anyone at a neighboring table who knew what the hell was going on and wanted to help me out.
The woman lifted her left hand, the impressive diamond on her ring finger glittering in the low light.
“I’m Lacey Germaine. Maybe Blaze has mentioned me?” She raised her eyebrows, her already cutting smile getting razor sharp at the confusion growing on my face. “I’m his fiancée.”
Chapter Eleven – Blaze – The New Year’s Eve Ball
I’d never understood exactly what people meant when they said they were seeing red. I still didn’t because I wasn’t seeing red at all. I was seeing black. My vision blinked, just for a second, and then came back even harsher than before at the sound of Sami’s sharp gasp next to me.
She pulled her soft hand from mine, and Lacey grinned wider, that shark smile I knew well. It meant she was about to start some serious shit right here in front of everybody. She didn’t care that I worked with these people and had a reputation to uphold. That was part of the fun in doing this out in the open. It was how she operated.
I was too furious to speak, that blackness creeping into the edges of my vision,
everything seeming to happen more quickly than I could handle, the seconds blurring as they sped past me. And that drink was hitting me harder than I’d expected, knocking my thoughts into disarray every time I tried to get them into proper order.
I hadn’t eaten much all day, opting for a liquid lunch of two beers on my living room couch while I tried to keep my mind off how nervous I was about taking Sami out tonight. That scotch had been way more than a single shot. I’d finished it much too quickly, and on an empty stomach. All of that was working furiously inside me, heating me up from the inside. I wanted to shout at Lacey, to call her right out on her bullshit, but not in front of Sami or the other guests in the ballroom. She knew that, which was why she was grinning up at me and biding her goddamned time.
I looked at Sami, who was glancing from me to Lacey, her pretty mouth hanging open in shock, still so lovely to look at in her dress, with her hair pulled on top of her head so her long, graceful neck was completely exposed. I reached to touch her shoulder, and she moved away from me, shaking her head as her eyes locked onto mine. The hurt in them stabbed me right in the chest and twisted my guts so hard I felt sick, like I might bring up the drink I’d just had.
“Your fiancée?” she asked, her eyebrows pulling together. Her entire posture seemed to hang in the balance, completely dependent on the words I chose to respond. She wavered like a woman standing on a high cliff, ready to topple over the edge at the slightest change in the wind.
Some great blockage inside me loosened, and I found I could talk. I stuttered at first, too many words struggling to get out at once, a verbal logjam that made her frown at me harder before I got it together.
“I can explain everything, Sami,” I said, pushing the words out as quickly as I could. I needed to get her away from Lacey before she dropped anymore bombs, but when I reached to take her by the arm, Sami took another step away from me, her body tense, like she might bolt or scream bloody murder if I tried that again.