Three Hot Wishes (Fantasy Come to Life - Magic in the Real World Novel) (19 page)

Ringside

By Elodie Chase

Copyright 2015

To the men who get into the ring

For the women who stand beside them

ANGEL

I'm not going to lie. When I saw her serving drinks behind the bar, the first thing I could think of was having her here. The place catered to the college, which meant it had certainly seen its share of shadowy sexcapades and blowjobs under booths. Sure, it wouldn't be anything glamorous, but so what?

I didn't really care if I had to have it down and dirty. All that mattered to me was getting into that hottie's tight jeans, making her moan on my cock for a couple of minutes before giving her what she wanted.

And after that, I'd ditch her just like the rest.

That was the plan, at least. God knows it had gone down like that countless times before with dozens of other girls. Everybody on campus knew me as the badass you didn't want to cross, and that sort of image had a way of attracting the women.

Maybe not all of the women, sure, but enough of them.

I wondered if the shy redhead I'd set my sights on was that sort of girl. I doubted it, but that didn't mean she and I weren't going to happen.

After all, I'm nothing if not charming.

Or so I've been told by woman after woman as they left my bedroom and began their walk of shame back to their dorms.

The bar in front of her was crowded, and instead of elbowing the guys in my way aside like I normally would, I took my time drinking in the redhead.

She was gorgeous, though I got the feeling that she was one of those girls who either didn't know it or resented it, which was even worse.

If a girl knows she's hot, seducing her is as simple as feeding her ego and stroking her own image of herself. Baby, you're so fine, and You make me want to throw you down right here and Come back to my place and I'll give you what we both need.

And it worked more than it should. Sure, it didn't hurt that most people knew who I was. The girls all wanted to be able to tell their friends they'd fucked Dino Angelino, and I'd spent the last couple of years making sure a lot of them had the privilege.

This redhead was different than those other chicks. I could tell that already.

Red hair with wild curls that I couldn't wait to pull as I sunk my cock into her tight little box. Tits a size or two larger than her frame demanded, though you won't hear me complaining. The t-shirts the bar made the waitresses and bartenders wear were way too tight, and I could clearly see her nipples standing out in the spinning lights from the dance floor.

Christ. My cock was hard just looking at her, and I was more than twenty feet away! How the hell was I going to walk straight after this?

"Hot, huh?" the guy next to me asked, giving me a gentle elbow to the ribs as he inclined his chin at my prize.

"Yeah," I said, glancing at him. He was nothing more than a typical trust fund pretty boy. These guys were a dime a dozen around here, but try telling that to him.

"She's new," he told me. "Probably eager to please."

I didn't answer. The last thing I wanted was to engage this asshole in conversation.

Not that he seemed to care. "You can almost smell her little pussy from here, can't you?" he asked, grinning like an idiot.

I smiled at him and leaned in, making it clear I had something to tell him.

He bowed his head, getting closer so he could hear me over the pounding rhythm of the music.

"She's mine," I said into his ear, grabbing his shoulder and squeezing hard enough that I could feel his collarbone grind beneath my palm. His knees went to water, but I held him up so he didn't fall.

"Fuck, man..." he whined.

I pointed at a couple of his friends in one of the booths, no doubt waiting for him to bring back their drinks. "Tell them that, you hear? This new girl belongs to me. If any of your shitheads try anything with her, you're going to have to answer to me. You get it?"

"Yeah, man. Shit!"

I let him go, watching him long enough to make sure he was happy to limp back to his buddies and not do something stupid like take a swing at me. When he hurried off, I went back to ignoring him.

Besides, a couple of other people had taken notice and decided they had somewhere else to be other than in my way, which was fine by me.

I stepped up to the bar and put a hundred dollar bill down on the wood in front of me.

"Hey baby," I said when my little fox looked up at me. "How much do you cost?"

Sloane

"Really?" I asked him, wiping a sweaty curl of hair out of my face with the back of one hand. "Are you for real with that crap?"

The guy shrugged. "I'm just after a little bit of your time, that's all."

I rolled my eyes at him. Guys like this were always hitting on me. Yeah, this one was handsome, in a rough sort of way, but that didn't matter one way or the other to me.

"Just tell me what you want to drink," I said, tapping the hundred dollar bill he'd put on the bar. "I'll get you your change and you can be on your way."

He gave me a sly little grin and held up two thick fingers.

His hands held my attention for a split second. They were the hands of a fighter, complete with scars both old and new, not to mention bruised knuckles. "Two beers," he said.

I nodded and grabbed a couple of tall glasses from the stack beside me before pouring the beers and plunking them down in front of him. "Here you go."

He picked one up and gave me a wink. "That one's for you, baby."

I ignored that and swapped the hundred dollar bill into the cash register for ninety bucks. "Beers are five dollars each," I told him, "so here's your change."

The DJ was on a break, so at least the music had died down enough that I didn't have to make myself go hoarse by shouting over it.

He was staring at my breasts hard enough to make me blush, which around here took some doing. I'd heard every cheesy pickup line, been grabbed and pawed and fondled more times than I cared to count. Seemed like every night I had to put up with some new level of bullshit just to pour beers and keep my shitty job.

"I can't drink while I'm working," I told him.

His face fell, and for an instant I let myself think that maybe this one was different. Yeah, he'd ogled my chest, but every guy in the joint had done that. He seemed genuinely saddened that I couldn't share a drink with him.

"Can't," he said at last, "or won't?"

I shrugged. "I'm not risking my job just to drink the beer I should be selling. Now do me a favor and move along, huh?"

"People call me Angel," he said, as if I hadn't even spoken.

Now it was my turn to frown. Angel, huh? Was I really supposed to believe that?

"They do," he reassured me, which meant that he must have seen my disbelief written all over my face.

"Whatever."

"Hey," he said to the girl beside him. It didn't take much to get her to pay attention. She'd been standing there since this bruiser walked up and started hitting on me, staring at him with stars in her eyes like she was witnessing the second coming.

"Yeah?" the girl said.

"You know who I am?"

"Sure! You're Angel, right? I think you maybe banged my BFF a couple of months ago! She said it was the best fuck of her life. Said she'd do anything to -"

He held up his hand and shushed her, then looked from her to me, his eyebrow cocked. "See? People know me."

I rolled my eyes. "I don't know you, and I don't care who you are who or who you've slept with. Take your beer, take your change and go, okay?"

"Okay, okay," Angel said, holding his hands up in a 'don't shoot' gesture as old as time itself. "It's a free country. Just trying to have a conversation with a pretty girl. No harm in that, right?"

The girl next to him reached out and put a hand on his big bicep. "Hey, if she ain't interested, I am. We can go back to your place and fool around as much as you want, if you're interested."

Angel stared at me for a long second. I felt that flush creep up my throat again, and when I looked down at the cleavage the bar's management insisted I put on display I saw that I was brushing furiously.

Pissed off at myself for letting myself react to this man, I turned away and fled, feeling like a fool as I retreated into the backroom. There were dozens of customers waiting for drinks, and here I was running away like a scared little girl.

Just like always.

Angel

And that was it. I waited around for a while, grabbing both my beer and the one that she refused to let me buy her and retreating to a table in the corner.

The music started back up and I drank both glasses dry, pacing myself, going slow as I waited for her to reappear from whatever back room she'd run off into.

An hour later and still nothing. When one of the waitresses came to clear the table of the empty glasses I'd lined up in my quest to see the redhead again, I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"Hey honey," I said to the girl with the tray as she tried not to stare. "You know the redhead that was behind the bar a while ago? Real wild hair and an attitude to match?"

"Sloane?"

"Sloane." I repeated it back at the waitress, liking the way the name felt in my mouth. It was odd, sure, but in a good way. Exotic. Not something you got to say every day, unless you were lucky enough to know her. "Yeah, that's her," I said. "Do you know where she went? Is her shift over, or something?"

The girl rolled her eyes at me and glanced at the crowded bar, then flicked her eyes to the people jostling for space on the dance floor against the far wall. "You nuts? When it's packed like this, shifts don't end. No, she should be here until closing. In fact, she should be behind the bar, pouring drinks as fast as she can so that I don't have to hear shit from angry customers all night, but she isn't, is she?"

I shook my head, hoping for more information, but the waitress must have realized that she was putting herself even further behind the eight ball by talking to me and so she spun on her heel and hurried off into the crowd, headed back in the direction of the bar to get rid of her load of empty glasses and deliver more booze to whoever was next on her list.

"Sloane." I couldn't help but feel a smile on my face as I said her name out loud again. I wanted her bad, bad enough to have sent the half dozen or so willing women who'd approached me over the past hour away with little more than a glance.

Any other night I'd have been happy to take my pick from those that were around, but tonight was different.

Tonight I'd met Sloane...

It was getting late. The bar would probably keep its doors open another hour or so, especially with the sort of crowd gathered that they'd managed to pull in tonight. I was supposed to be places tomorrow, though I couldn't remember where right now. Training? Maybe a fight? Shit, did I have a fight scheduled tomorrow?

I didn't know. I sat there for a second, trying hard to decide how drunk I was. It's one of those things, you know? You're never really sure if you're able to make it home until you try, just like you're never sure if you're going to fall flat on your face until you push your ass up out of the booth and head for the door.

Wherever I was supposed to be tomorrow and whatever I had planned, I decided that sitting here wasn't going to bring Sloane out of hiding. Better to head out and try again tomorrow or the day after.

Probably tomorrow though. I didn't think I could put her out of my head for forty eight hours. That girl's body ached for my touch, and my cock twitched in anticipation of all the things I was going to talk her into letting me do to her.

I stood up and the room spun. I took a careful step, knocking away some guys hands when I lurched too close to his booth and he made a grab for me before he realized what the hell he was doing, trying to touch me. "Get the fuck away," I growled.

He mumbled some sort of apology and I ignored him.

I'd had way more to drink than I'd thought. The door seemed far away, but I made it, supporting myself on the backs of chairs and the edges of tables when I felt most likely to go down for the count.

The bouncer gave me a nod and stepped out of my way, and I headed down the street toward where I'd parked the Jag, fishing for the keys and slurring one word over and over.

"Sloane. Sloane. Sloane."

And that was when I had an idea.

A good one...