AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Even the sound of his voice right behind my ear sends shivers through my body. This isn’t going to be as easy as I envisioned. But I’m not a quitter. Never have been, and never will be. This is a battle I’ll most certainly win.
“Are you speaking to me?” I turn slowly, my eyelids lowered the slightest bit, my lips in a perfect pout. A femme fatale is so not like me. But anyone with a little bit of gumption and a whole lot of will can pull this act off if she tries hard enough. And I’m more than ready to try.
“Would you like to dance?” he asks.
“Do I know you?” I lick my bottom lip so his eyes are drawn there.
“We’ll get to know each other while we dance,” he says, holding out his hand.
“I don’t think so,” I say, leaning against the high table behind me.
His eyes narrow and something predatory leaps into them before he speaks. “I don’t play games.”
With that said, he moves forward, invading my personal space. I want to take a step back — all I can do now is breathe in his scent — but a seductress would never retreat, so I thrust my chin out and move an inch closer to him.
“Neither do I,” I practically purr, hating myself the tiniest bit for doing it.
“Good. Because I’d like to dance with you,” he says before grinning. “And then I’d like to take you home.”
I’m too stunned for a moment to respond. I expected his boldness after my last encounter, but I didn’t expect him to be this upfront about his intentions. What I want to do is slap him across his smug face. I barely restrain myself from doing just that.
“Well, how very subtle of you,” I say with a tinkling laugh. “And what makes you think for even a moment I’m the type of girl who will take you up on an offer like that?”
“We’ve made a connection, even in a room full of other people. Don’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
“Oh, believe me, I feel it,” I say, lifting my hand and tracing a perfectly manicured fingernail down his arm. “But I have standards, sad to say. Here’s one of them — I don’t go home with strangers in the night, particularly ones I meet in a bar.” At least I don’t anymore, I silently add.
“And I told you I don’t play games,” he says, moving another inch closer. My breasts are brushing against his impressively hard chest.
A shudder rushes through me and I know I’m out of my league. I think for a moment to cry mercy and bail out on this impromptu mission, but then he lifts his eyebrow the way he did the last time he rejected me, and I know I’m not going anywhere. But I also know something about gamesmanship. In fact, I have a degree in it.
“Fine. Walk away, then,” I tell him with a careless shrug.
I turn back to the table and lift my drink. If he calls my bluff and leaves, good riddance, but everything inside of me says he isn’t going anywhere. When he brushes up against my back, his hands closing over my shoulders, I know I have him, hook, line, and sinker. I’ve never felt anything quite like this before. The power of knowing for once he’s inmycontrol.
“You’re making me break my rules,” he says, his breath whispering across my ear before he turns me around to face him. “Tell me your name.”
This is an improvement. He isn’t treating me quite like a piece of meat as he did eight years ago when he didn’t bother getting my name. He still doesn’t know who I am, but at least he wants a name this time.
“Do you always talk as if you’re commanding people?”
“I can be laid-back. But not quite yet. And when I want something, I go for it. Tell me your name.”
I smile, this time a real smile, and his eyes dilate, making the butterflies in my stomach take flight. “You tell me your name first,” I say, my voice a little too breathy.
“Tyler.” He doesn’t add a last name. He waits.
“Olivia,” I finally say. There’s no recognition in his eyes. Of course, he always called me Vivi when we were young. But why would I think for even a moment he’d remember me? I’m simply one more castoff in his life, one in a long line of castoffs.
“Got a last name, Olivia?” he asks after a few moments of silence.
“My last name has to be earned,” I tell him.
It takes a moment, then his face transforms. His lips turn up in a wide smile, and he laughs. A deep-in-the-gut happy laugh that makes me smile.
“I think I like you, Olivia. Let me buy you a drink,” he says. Without waiting for a yes or no, he holds up a hand, and a waitress comes over.
“I guarantee you’ll like me, Tyler.”
