"Every morning. What about you?" I like the way we flow right into conversation, not the surface level stuff like weather or the song playing overhead, but real stuff like our lives and our habits. It makes me like her even more.
"I work with my brothers," she says. "Mostly, I do paperwork and budget stuff, consulting… It's boring."
"You don't look boring," I tell her, and her cheeks flush. She picks up her glass and takes a sip to give herself a second, and I file that reaction away because I want to see it again. The real humility behind her good looks only makes her that much more appealing.
The music shifts—something with a heavier bassline that vibrates through the bar top under my forearms—and she glances at the dance floor and then back at me and tilts her head.
"You dance?" she asks.
"When the company's right."
"Get up, then," she says and slides off her stool. When she holds her hand out to me, I take it because there's absolutely no version of tonight where I say no to this woman about anything. If she wants to dance, we dance. If she wants more, we do whatever the hell keeps that gorgeous smile on her face.
The floor is packed and the music is loud, and she pulls me in by the front of my shirt until we're chest to chest in the middle of the crowd. Then she turns and puts her back against me, and my hands find her hips and she starts moving with a slow, rolling rhythm that fits the bass perfectly and sends heat climbing up through my stomach.
Her head tips back against my shoulder, and I can feel her breathing—the rise and fall of her ribs against my chest. Her pulse flutters along the line of her neck, tempting me to lean down and nip at it, but I restrain myself for the moment, focusing on her hips pumping against my pelvis.
When I pull her tighter, she presses back into me, arching her spine until there's nothing between us except fabric and body heat. My thumbs press into her hipbones and her breathing hitches, fingers wrapping around my wrists. Every brush of her body on mine is making me swell, and she knows it. The quick, flirty glances over her shoulder tell me she's doing it on purpose.
I drop my mouth close to her ear. "You're trouble," I tell her, and I feel her laugh more than I hear it.
"You have no idea," she says.
She turns in my arms and faces me. Her hands slide up my chest to my shoulders and her fingers curl into my shirt. Her eyes are dark, the green barely there behind her blown pupils. Her mouth is only inches from mine, so tempting, and still I maintain my self-control as I bring my hand up and run my thumb along the line of her jaw, tilting her chin toward me. Her pulse jumps hard under my fingertips when I brush the edge of her throat.
"Come home with me," I say against her ear, low enough that the words belong to her alone, though I know she hears it over the din of music.
Zora rubs her body all over mine as she hooks her fingers around my neck and pulls me down. Her lips brush over mine gently, then she trails them along my stubbled jawline to my ear where she whispers, "I'm not an easy girl, Kazimir."
It sends a hot flush through my chest as her breath dusts my ear. I pull her hard against my body and grind, letting her feel what she's done to me. We've been on this date less than thirty minutes and I already know I want to take her to my bed and ravish her.
"See what you're doing, Zora?" I grind again, swaying my hips in beat to the music. "Either you're gonna have to stop doing that, or you're gonna have to help me fix this problem I have."
Zora snickers and lets her hands slide across my shoulders and down my arms where she hooks her fingers around mine and starts pulling me toward the exit. We haven't paid our tab. We haven't even exchanged last names, and my cock is throbbing at the way she's looking at me.
When we burst through the front door into the crisp evening air, she's all over me, pulling me in, kissing me hard, crushing her tits against my chest. I grab a handful of her ass and squeeze it, grinding on her more, but the excitement stops cold when my phone rings.
The timing is so brutal, I keep my eyes closed for a full ten seconds before I reach for it. She catches the shift in me before I even pull it out. The whole mood between us cracks down the middle as I lift my phone and look at it. Roman's name is on the screen and I already know the night is over.
"I have to take this," I tell her, and she steps back to give me room while I press the phone to my ear and turn away from the building. I don't dare ignore him, not even for a second, but God, would I love to. I look up at her from a few strides away.
"Kaz." He sounds irritated, which isn't a good sign. We had a few practice sessions going on and he planned to sit in and watch. "One of the heavyweights went down in a sparring session and he's at the hospital. I need you to meet him there and make sure he's taken care of. I can't leave the gym right now."
"Which one?" I ask him, scowling. A trip to the hospital means no taking Zora with me. Questions would be asked and I wouldn't have answers for her. God, this is infuriating.
"Rostik… Have the doc check his knee out good, but he's been favoring that right shoulder too. And he's too damn stubborn to get it looked at. We'll pin him down while he's there."
I exhale through my teeth and pinch the bridge of my nose. This is the last thing I wanted to hear tonight and there's only one answer I can give. "I'm on my way, Boss."
I hang up and turn back to Zora. She's standing there watching me with her arms loose at her sides, and I can tell from her face that she already knows what I'm about to say. The disappointment is evident on her whole frame, from her drooping shoulders to her pouting lip.
"Work emergency," I tell her. "I have to go and I can't get around it."
"Yeah, that's okay," she says, and she smiles at me easily. The way she transitions from disappointed to accepting makes my head spin. I don't want her to be okay with it. I want her to be sad, but maybe I've been reading too much into this.
"It's not really okay that we're getting interrupted, but I can't do much about it," I tell her. I walk back over to her and cup both of her cheeks, pulling her in for another kiss to savor and remember all night as I sit in some damn emergency room.
When I pull back, her mouth curves into a smile. "Raincheck," she says.
