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The chair toppled over, slamming against the floor as I threw my weight back and away from the invasion. From the feeling of lips on mine, of warm breath on my face and the feeling of a heartbeat too close to my chest.
My butterfly vaulted to her feet as I grabbed the edge of the bar, shock on the breathtakingly beautiful face that belonged on a runway and not drinking in the middle of the day, with so much sadness that it looked like life had chewed her up and spit her out.
The red on her lips was smudged at one side?—the side that had touched mine. Those vivid green and yellow eyes were wide with shock, and I felt a moment of shame for scaring her before the racing in my chest sent me hurrying to the door.
“Scar!” she called, following after me as I charged through the mostly empty club. “Wait, I’m sorry! I must have misread that. Fuck,” she cursed, and the word sounded so wrong coming from her perfectly pouty lips that I was tempted to turn back.
Tempted to bend her over and fuck her until she really understood the meaning of the word.
But the panic in my chest wouldn’t ease, the walls closing in until breath seemed impossible. I could never touch her the way I wanted.
Because I couldn’t even tolerate her lips on my skin.
I shoved the club doors open, stepping out into the cold of late February in Chicago. Wind whipped down the street outside, and it was just warm enough that the rain hadn’t quite turned to snow.
The sleet poured down in buckets outside, drenching me immediately when I stepped out from under the awning. I ignored my butterfly calling from behind me, taking large, quick steps until I rounded the corner and moved into the mouth of the alley.
Memories assaulted me, the image of Cesca fresh in my mind after the woman with the green butterfly eyes had sent me spiraling back in time.
I touched a hand to the brick exterior once the wind stopped carrying her voice, as if it was meant just for me. Leaning toward it and tilting my head forward, I sucked in greedy lungfuls of frigid air as the sleet poured off my head when it melted and dripped onto my face.
My hands trembled against the brick, the sharp edges offering a hint of pain to ground me in reality.
For a moment, I’d let myself believe I was capable of more. That I could have a conversation with a beautiful woman and take her home. Like I wasn’t so broken that I was reduced to quick fucks with random women who weren’t allowed to touch me.
“Fuck!” I roared, cocking my fist back from the wall and punching it with all the force I would use to break an opponent’s face in The Underground. Pain exploded through it as the bricks split the skin, the bones within bruising and crunching to bring me back to my reality.
I was nothing to her, and she could never be anything to me.
I lifted my head when a shadow moved through the parking lot, watching as my butterfly made her way toward an Audi in the middle of the lot. She clicked the button on her keys, pulling the door open and lowering herself inside quickly to avoid being quite as drenched as me.
I watched from the shadows as she lifted her phone to her ear, hanging her head over the steering wheel and rubbing her free hand over her face. She seemed...worried.
All I cared about was that she didn’t put herself in danger by driving off when she’d been drinking. She might not have consumed that much in the end, and I shouldn’t have cared. She wasn’t, and never would be, mine to worry about.
I leaned my shoulder against the bricks, noting the license plate on her car even though it wasn’t reasonable for me to go anywhere near her ever again. Women who drove Audis didn’t associate with men like me. They wanted stockbrokers and attorneys. Professional men who didn’t look like a thug in a suit.
You could take the man off the streets, but you’d never get the streets out of me. No matter how many beef Wellingtons Ivory shoved in my face.
My butterfly glanced toward the alley briefly, and for a single moment I thought maybe she saw me watching her. That she could see where I hid, and knew why I hid. But she continued to wait until her ride home came to get her, turning her face away when she didn’t see me hiding in the shadows.
They never did.
* * *
