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“Man, I love fashion week,” I say when we walk to the bar. I love Valentine’s Day, too. And the effort everyone makes. I used to think love was sex and that was the end of it, but I don’t see it that way anymore.
We walk to the bar where a bartender in a black waistcoat and bow tie looks eager to serve. Rooster gets the first round and orders us whiskey.
“How is this a thing I didn’t know about?” Rooster asks.
“You have your nose in playbooks day in and day out,” I say with a laugh. “Fashion week comes twice a year. February and September. I don’t always do this, though.” I wave my hand around us. “This is amazing.”
“Nice,” Rooster says. “The Valentine’s shit adds to the ambiance. Women go gaga over romance. Ripe for the picking.”
I laugh. “Yeah, that’s why I brought you here.” I didn’t know they would make such a thing of the holiday of love, but the place is tastefully decorated. It doesn’t look tacky, like someone threw up a bunch of decorations in the room.
I glance at a groups of models standing making small talk and drinking champagne. They’re not quite my type—I like a woman with a bit more curve. I love having something to hold onto.
Rooster nudges me. “Come on, let’s go mingle.” He gestures to three women who stand at the bar. They’re dressed to the nines, with skin-tight dresses and slits that run up their legs, open backs that beg me to touch the bare skin they’re showing. I nod. Rooster puts on his charming fuck-me smile and we walk over.
“Ladies,” he says with a smile. “You must be models.”
The girls all giggle. They’re not; that’s plain as day. But that Rooster thinks they are has them blushing and fluttering their eyelashes at him between glances at each other.
We look good in tuxedos—we clean up well, and the muscle we both have fills out a suit pretty damn nicely.
The girls don’t really do it for me. They’re all beautiful; there’s no doubt about that. Two blondes and one brunette. And I’m sure they’re lovely ladies, all with interesting lives. They’re just not what I’m looking for.
They’re not…Raven.
“This is my friend, Noah,” Rooster says. “We work together.”
I smile politely when he introduces me, but I’m not into the conversation. Rooster buys them all drinks, and it doesn’t take long before they start flirting, bantering back and forth. It’s a careful dance where they’re feeling each other out, seeing which of them will win the prize and go home with him tonight.
When I glance across the room and take in the rest of the party, I freeze. Black hair, dark eyes, and skin like porcelain. She looks like a rare doll, perfects and…here.
I frown. It can’t be her, can it? Raven told me she was leaving after we slept together that night. She said she was flying out the next morning. Did she come back?
Or maybe, she didn’t leave at all.
She’s talking to her friend, dressed in a black dress that shows off her figure, with a low neckline that leaves just enough up to the imagination. And God, I can come up with somereallygood scenes in my mind. Scenes where I peel that dress off her, taste her bare skin underneath, trail my hands higher up the slit of her dress. I stare at her, the rest of the room falling away. She’s completely oblivious to the fact that my whole world just stopped when I saw her.
I have to talk to her.
“I’ll be back,” I say to Rooster, who nods without looking at me.
When I approach the women, Raven glances up. She does a double-take when she recognizes me and her cheeks burn bright red.
Definitely a lie that she was leaving, then.
“Hello, ladies,” I say.
The friend looks up at me, and she’s a stunner, too. Her red dress is only a few shades lighter than her hair and her eyes twinkle. She glances at Raven. Something passes between them, which causes her friend to study me a little more closely.
“Mind if I join you?” I ask.
“Actually, this is a closed party,” Raven says tightly.
I sit down at the table, anyway. When Raven doesn’t introduce me—I think she’s in shock—I do the work.
“I’m Noah,” I say and hold out my hand to the friend.
“Really?” she says, and her eyes sparkle. “I’m Michelle.”
