Loaded: A Bad Boy Romance (3 page)

T
able eight only has two
seats left, on opposite sides, and I have no idea how I feel about that. It’s some kind of way, for sure, but I’m half relieved and half disappointed.

On one hand, the hottest man I’ve ever met can’t keep teasing me about my sex life, at least for another hour or so.

But on the other hand, the hottest man I’ve ever met can’t keep teasing me about my sex life for another hour.

It’s complicated, is what I’m saying.

I sit down and say hello to the people next to me. They look very,
very
vaguely familiar, so we chat until we figure out that we took the same art history class sophomore year.

In the middle of the table is a massive flower arrangement. Even standing in four-inch heels, it’s taller than me.

Brent’s exactly opposite, and all I can see of him is the tips of his shoulders and sometimes his hands. He’s sitting next to a girl I don’t know, so I’m surreptitiously watching
her
instead.

Trying to figure out if the guy next to her is her boyfriend or what.

Wondering if
she’s
the kind of girl who’d be down for a quick elevator fuck. I’m managing to make polite conversation with Brittany, the woman next to me, but I’m distracted as hell.

I wasn’t lying when I said I was a missionary-in-the-dark kind of girl — but Brent wasn’t exactly wrong, either. Nick, my ex, had his bright spots but he sure as
hell
wasn’t lighting anything on fire in the bedroom.

Honestly, I didn’t think I minded. I figured I wasn’t that sexual of a person anyway.

I’m starting to think I may have been wrong about that.

I try to sneak another glance at Brent, but he’s behind the flowers, so I nod at Brittany again, wishing like hell I could hear what he’s talking about across the table.

It seems like ages before the band leader steps up to the microphone and announces Mr. and Mrs. Hazeltine, and finally Karen and Eddie come in through the huge double doors. She looks so happy and utterly
radiant
that I instantly forget her awkward vows and the lost veil, and in that moment, I’m
so
glad I came to her wedding.

She and Eddie head onto the dance floor. Karen’s gone starry-eyed and she’s walking like she’s in a dream. Everyone stands from their tables and gathers around the floor as the band starts playing.

“For their first dance,” the band leader says over the opening chords, “The brand new Mr. and Mrs. Hazeltine will dance to
Crash Into Me
, by the Dave Matthews Band.”

I frown, just a little. I don’t know the song that well, but I wasn’t sure it was a
love
song.

The guitar starts, and then Karen and Eddie are swirling around the dance floor, looking at each other like the rest of the world doesn’t even exist.

I tear up. It’s only a little, but I do.

It’s for Karen, and because deep down I’m really kind of a sap, and because I really thought I’d be doing this with Nick someday, at least before he turned out to be a douche.

It’s a sweet moment. My friend got married to the love of her life. I can fucking shed a tear.

Then someone steps close to me, and before I can move away,
he’s
whispering in my ear.

“Your tag’s out,” Brent says.

His lips
almost
brush my ear and a shiver sweeps down my spine.

“Want me to fix it?”

“Thanks,” I say, and then his hand is on my bare skin. Apparently the tag is very complicated, because his hand lingers there, his fingers hot against my back.

Not that I mind.

I lean back and turn my head, and he bends down so he can hear me.

“This song’s a little racy for a wedding,” I murmur.

“Tied up and twisted?” he says, every word another spike to my core. “That’s more your style, tiger.”

“Don’t call me tiger,” I say.

“But you’re
feisty
,” he says. Karen and Eddie are still on the dance floor and my eyes are glued to them.

My
mind
is somewhere else entirely. Somewhere dirty and getting dirtier.

“It’s a nickname you’d give a little kid,” I say. People around us are starting to glance over, and I’m rigidly pretending that I don’t notice.

“I disagree,” he says.

Then he leans even closer and I swear to God I can feel other people
staring
.

“Grrrrrr,” he growls, right into my ear.

It’s totally ludicrous, and worse, it
works
.

I’m heated up like lava is flowing through me. I can’t think of a single thing except what it would feel like to be pressed face-first against the wall of an elevator, Brent’s hands up my skirt, his mouth on my neck...

The song ends. Thank Christ, the song ends. People clap, and I clap along, doing my best to pretend that a super sexy total stranger didn’t just
growl
into my ear.

I also try to ignore him and pretend I didn’t like it.

Maybe I did. A little.

I turn around and drift back toward my table. Brent got separated in the crowd, somewhere, but just before I take my seat I feel his hand on my bare shoulder.

“Save me a dance if you’re still on your feet by then,” he says.

“You won’t be balls-deep in an elevator?” I ask.

My grin matches his and I know I’m
taunting
him, which is not a thing that nice girls do to men they’ve just met.

It’s not like
he’s
nice, though, so I don’t care.

“You make it sound like I’m going to fuck the elevator,” he says.

“I don’t know your life,” I shoot back. “People are into all kinds of things.”

“You’d know, tiger,” he says.

His blue eyes are
glinting
and he walks around the table and takes his seat where I can’t see his face any more. I can only see his hands as he talks to the woman next to him.

Somehow, I make conversation with Brittany and her husband, as well as the middle-aged couple on my other side. It feels like the world’s slowest dinner: first there’s salad for about twelve hours, then a day of an amuse-bouche, then a week-long main course.

Brittany tells me about decorating her living room. The middle-aged man on my other side is talking about his consulting business, and I’m being polite as hell, using the right fork, sitting up straight, and not paying them the tiniest bit of attention.

I’m just watching his hands. Sometimes his shoulders. Every so often I can hear his
laugh
from across the table, and one time it stops me mid-sentence as I wonder who he’s laughing
with
.

I don’t touch my glass of wine. I think I’m going to need my wits about me.

What’s left of them, anyway.

I
think
I’m losing my mind. Tessa’s on the other side of the huge fucking flower vase, and all I can see are glimpses of auburn hair and her white shoulders. Every so often she laughs, sometimes politely and sometimes not.

I’ve been in La Carretera for almost ten years. I’ve killed and hurt more people than I can count. I’ve exchanged dope for guns in abandoned lots, outnumbered ten to one. I’ve carted pounds of blow to Las Vegas all by myself, the stuff hidden in a spare tire. I’ve seen friends and family die in front of me, but I’ve always gotten my shit
done
.

Manny sends me to do something, and no matter what, I
deliver
.

Except now, apparently. Because of some accountant’s daughter from the valley.

I don’t have a plan anymore. I’m supposed to be drugging her, but that ship has sailed.

“My ex did Krav Maga,” the girl next to me says. She’s pretty and decked out in ice that
looks
real. “You look like you do Krav Maga.”

I’m pretty sure that’s a martial art, but it could also be some kind of bongo drum I’ve never heard of.

“I used to,” I hazard. “I’ve been too busy lately, though, so it’s just the gym for now.”

“At least your firm is doing well,” she says. “My ex was a money manager, but then he got caught trading...”

She keeps talking but I’m not paying attention. The band is back on the stage, talking and laughing and picking up their instruments, and I’m wondering if they’re going to start playing again.

I lift my whiskey glass to my mouth again, but it’s empty, and then I realize the girl next to me is looking at me like she expects an answer.

“Really,” I say, the most neutral word I can think of.

She giggles.

“Yeah, he was a real winner,” she says. She purses her lips and looks up at me sideways, through her eyelashes. I hold up my glass.

“I need a refill,” I say. “I’ll be back in a jiff.”

Jiff
seems like a thing Brent would say.

I order another Scotch, and as the bartender is handing it to me, I hear her voice.

“You sure you should be going that hard?”

I turn and there she is.

“You know what sneaks up on people?” I ask her.

“Are you going to say tigers?” she asks. The bartender puts a napkin on the bar as if to remind her what she’s doing, and she orders a club soda with lime.

I raise my eyebrows at her.

“I’m a responsible adult,” she says. “I’m taking a break.”

“It’s because I’m here, isn’t it?” I ask. “Now you feel like a lush when I’m around.”

“There’s no winning with you, is there?” she asks.

We both step away from the bar, and now we’re the only ones standing on this side of the room. Everyone else is finishing dinner, the servers clearing away plates. The band is warming up.

Across the room, the bride and groom are going from table to table, hugging people and shaking hands. I wish I could remember their names. Brent probably knows their names.

“You never did tell me how you know Karen and Eddie,” she says. Her lips close around the straw in her drink and she takes a sip.

Then she licks a droplet from her top lip, and
fuck
it’s distracting. All I can think about are those lips sliding over the shaft of my cock, that pink tongue flicking the underside.

“I worked with Eddie at his first job out of college,” I say. It seems safe. There’s no way she knows all his coworkers from his boring office job, right?

Instead, she tilts her head to one side.

“When he was a wilderness ranger?” she asks.

I look over at Eddie again. He’s slightly pudgy and barely taller than his wife.

“That’s right,” I say.

“You were a ranger too?” she asks.

“I was his boss,” I say. I’ve had plenty of Scotch by now, so why the fuck not. “I was in charge of all the wilderness rangers in his, uh, division, actually.”

I try to remember everything I know about forest rangers. There’s not much.

My family went camping once before my dad left us, probably when I was seven or eight. I hardly remember it.

“What was your favorite part of being a wilderness ranger?” she asks, her eyes dancing. She takes another sip, and I force myself to look away this time.

“The wilderness,” I say. “I fought a bear once.”

“Did you?” she asks.

“It was pretty dire, but I kicked his ass,” I say. “Bears learned not to come at me
that
day.”

“So he told all his bear friends not to fuck with Brent,” she says. “Brent, the bear fighter. I forgot your last name already.”

Me too.

“I’m just saying, no more bears picked fights with me.”

“Undoubtedly,” she says. “How do you
really
know them?”

I glance over my shoulder at the bartender, but he’s ten feet away and not paying us any attention.

What I’m about to do is fucking
stupid
, not to mention reckless as hell.

And yet, I feel like I’m careening downhill with no brakes, straight toward this girl.

“You want to know a secret?” I ask, dropping my voice.

“What kind of secret?” she asks. “Is it about your predilection for fucking elevators?”

“It’s for fucking
in
elevators,” I say. “And that’s not a secret.”

“Well, not anymore,” she says.

“I’m not really Brent,” I say.

Her eyes go wide, and she glances from side to side, making sure there’s no one around us.

Then she puts one hand on my arm, and I can feel the heat of her skin even through my jacket and shirt.

“Are you a spy?” she whispers.

For another moment, she looks up at me with those wide green eyes, admiration and fascination in them.

Then she dissolves into giggles.

She leaves her hand on my arm, though, so it’s impossible to get mad.

I take another drink and wait for her to stop laughing, remaining as cool and calm as I can.

“I’d be a terrible spy,” I say, when her laughter starts to die down. “I lasted, what, two hours with my fake identity?”

“True,” she said. “Though you look very James Bond in a tuxedo.”

“I thought so too,” I say, and she rolls her eyes again, even though she’s smiling.

“Okay, so who are you?” she asks. “And how did you bust into the society event of the year?”

I shrug and come up with something on the spot.

“Brent’s a friend of a friend,” I say. “And he got the flu yesterday, and told my buddy to come in his place. But then my friend had a family emergency, gave me the invite, and now here I am.”

“So you just came to some stranger’s wedding,” she says.

I hold up my Scotch glass.

“I’ve drunk about seventy dollars worth of Scotch so far tonight,” I say. “I’m never getting invited to another wedding at the Beverly Hills Resort. Why wouldn’t I come and see how the other half lives?”

She considers this for a moment as I hold my breath. There’s no way she’ll guess what I’m actually there to do, but she could have me kicked out if she wanted.

“I’d probably come too,” she said. “Just to see what kind of wedding five hundred grand gets you.”

I let out a low whistle.

“Really?” I ask.

“Oh, at least,” she says.

I know how many guns or cars that much can buy you, or how much blow.

Weddings? Not so much.

“You’re telling me this wedding cost more than the house I grew up in,” I say.

“Probably,” she says, then shrugs. “I guess, if you’ve got the money, you can spend it on what you like.”

I open my mouth but then the band all starts playing at once, some oldie that I half-recognize. The other guests all get up and head to the dance floor, finally liquored up enough to get their grooves on.

“You save me that dance?” I ask.

“You gonna tell me your real name?” she asks.

“You gonna dance with me?”

“I see we’re at an impasse,” she says, and finishes her club soda. She sets it on a table behind her, and she’s giving me that little smile again. The one that just
dares
me to do something.

“You said you’d dance with me if I wasn’t already balls-deep in someone else, if I recall correctly,” I say.

I take a step closer to her, and now we’re only a couple inches apart. She’s looking up at me and not backing down, that same challenge in her eyes.

Any other girl would be bent over the sink in my hotel room by now. I’m not bragging, it’s just true.

But Tessa’s standing here, fully clothed, and it fucking
unleashes
something inside me.

“I just asked whether you
would
be balls-deep,” she says. “I didn’t make any promises.”

She takes a tiny step forward.

“Elevator-fucker,” she says, her body only a couple inches from mine.

I am not about to fucking let her
win
this... whatever this is.

“I always make sure the elevator comes first,” I murmur.

Her cheeks turn faintly pink but she doesn’t back down. I’m starting to get hard.

“So you’re a
gentleman
elevator-fucker,” she says.

I drain the final sip of scotch, and then reach around her to put the empty glass on the table behind her.

She still doesn’t move, and I’m starting to wish she would. I try
desperately
to think about something else, but it isn’t working, and my dick is just getting harder by the second.

“I’m wearing a tuxedo,” I say. “Of course I’m a gentleman. I always call the elevator the next day.”

That part’s just a lie.

I don’t fuck elevators, but I never call women the next day. Hell, I never even get their numbers. Usually I don’t get their
names
.

“Liar,” she says.

“Yeah, you got me,” I say. “I’m an elevator virgin.”

“You don’t call, either,” she says, narrowing her eyes and tilting her head to one side. “I can
tell
.”

“Then we’re even,” I say. “I don’t call the next day and you’re a cocktease who’s keeping me from getting lucky with some trust fund girl. Are you going to dance with me or what?”

“I still don’t know your name,” she says.

God
damn
, her spine is made of steel.

Kind of like my dick.

I break first. I walk around behind her and take her shoulders, one bare and one with a strap on it, and lean down, my lips almost touching the shell of her ear. She smells like flowers and cinnamon.

“My name,” I say, “Is Alejandro Felipe Paolo Velasquez de Monteca.”

Mostly not true.

“But you can call me Alex,” I growl. “Now, are we going to
fucking
dance, or what?”