Un, deux, trois…
Oh holy merde. He’s four feet away from me.
He smells amazing—like a spicy misty forest that I want to run through in a white silk nightgown while singing.
“You look like you could use a little help.”
Oh God, that sexy voice. I can feel that voice in my panties. I glance over at him. He’s grinning at me. Oh God, that grin. His whiskey-brown eyes are making me feel all warm and tingly through my center, and they should come with a warning label. But I bet every single woman he looks at the way he’s looking at me right now would ignore the warning anyway.
“Me?”
He laughs. “You.”
Do not say anything about him helping you by getting naked or putting his penis inside of you.
“Do you work here?”
“No, but I do know my way around liquor. Professionally. I used to be a bartender. You looking for anything in particular?”
“Yes. A bottle of something with a lot of alcohol in it.” I barely recognize my own voice. It’s husky. Maybe I’m coming down with a summer cold.
“Well, you’ve come to the right store.” He was probably born with a husky voice. I bet he was a sexy baby. What is wrong with me?
“I usually drink wine, but I wanted to try something with a little more of an…edge?” I smirk.
I smirk?
I don’t smirk.
I am definitely smirking.
He crosses his arms in front of his chest, nodding. This seems to please him. He leans toward me and looks kind of like a doctor diagnosing a patient and then says, “Okay. You want something you can mix with something else or straight up?”
“I should probably mix something with something else first. Nothing too girly or fruity though.”
“Got it.” He passes behind me and stands to my left, scanning the shelves. The nearness of him is electrifying. Some people have that kind of energy—especially in New York City. I’ve been around it. Never touched it on purpose. People like that are the third rail, and I’ve always stood as far away as possible from the yellow lines at the subway station. But something in this guy’s eyes tells me he has no interest in hurting me. “Mind if I ask what kind of mood you’re in?”
“Does it matter?”
“Oh yeah. It matters.”
Oh Schmidt—he has tattoos. He has a sleeve of tattoos on his right arm.
“Um. I think I’ll just get gin and tonic. Thanks, though.” The alarm that’s going off in my brain is cautioning my feet to step away from him, but they are not listening. They’re concentrating too hard on not letting me fall over while I squeeze my things together.
“Oh hell no. G and T?” He wrinkles his brow and steps a little closer to me. “At eight o’clock in Brooklyn? Alone on a Monday night? I don’t think so. Gin and tonics are for sipping on your yacht at the Hamptons while you’re watching the sunset like an asshole.”
“Oh, well, I guess that’s what I’ll be drinking tomorrow, then.” I cross my arms in front of my chest and face him, wrinkling my brow, mirroring him. “I’ve never watched a sunset like an asshole before. What exactly does that entail?”
He shrugs. “Loafers, no socks, if you’re a guy. Staring at your phone the whole time and twirling your hair if you’re a girl. You don’t seem like a gin and tonic type to me. Not right now, anyway. You look like you need something with a little more personality and muscle.”
I finally take a step away from him. “Uh-huh. You know what… I think I’ll just grab a bottle of merlot and call it a night.” I start to wander toward the wine section.
He follows me, not too close. “Oh God, not merlot.”
“Why? Is that what assholes drink in Miami at midnight?” Now I’ve said “asshole” out loud twice in one night. Who am I?
He releases a quick, surprisingly boyish laugh—so unexpected from a guy like him. “Not even close. What’s your name? I’m Vince.” He holds his hand out.
“Hi, Vince. I’m…Susan.” I shake his hand. It’s strong and a little bit rough, and he could do a lot of fantastic filthy things to me with that hand. Wait—what?
He lets me pull my hand away and shoves his hands casually into his front pockets as his gaze travels slowly down to my shoes and back up to my glossy, pursed lips. “Hi, Susan. What’s your real name?”
Oh, what the heck. “It’s Nina.”
“Nina.” He nods, accepting that answer. “Hey… How about this? There’s a bar two blocks down, called Bitters. You know it?”
“Yeah, I walk by there all the time.”
“I used to work there. Why don’t you let me make you a drink? I think I know what you need…”
I bark out a laugh. “Well, thank you for the offer, Vince, but I’m not in the mood to get raped or murdered tonight, so… No thank you.”
Judging from the look on this guy’s freakishly sexy face, no one has ever foregone the opportunity to get roofied by him before. Hey, I get it. He’s very attractive. I would love to stare at his face and other parts of him all night. But I also don’t want to get raped or murdered.
A smile slowly spreads across his face. “Good call, Nina. You don’t know me. Let’s be clear about this—you can watch my hands the whole time.” He holds his hands up. His strong, slightly rough, very capable hands. “I’ll make sure you can see exactly what’s going to be going in you before you decide if you want it or not. Sound good?”
Gulp.
“Hey, Stan!” He calls out to the man behind the counter, hands still raised in front of his chest, eyes still fixed on me. “Tell Nina here that I’m a good guy.”
“Enh. He’s a pretty good guy.”
“Thanks a lot, Stan.”
I can’t help but smile. Charisma. That’s what this guy’s got.
He turns his head toward Stan, body still angled toward me. “If anything happens to Nina tonight, you can tell the cops where to find me. Right?”
“Leave me outta this, you.”
“You got it.” He smiles at me. He’s got one beautiful smile, this guy, and it fades so fast I have a feeling not many people get to see it. “What do you say, Nina? Two blocks. Neighborhood bar. One drink?”
I wrinkle my nose. “So…people do this? Meet in a store for the first time and then go get a drink?”
He laughs, that brief, surprised laugh of a boy being tickled, before going back to being seriously hot. “Some people. Sometimes.”
I mean…I guess that sounds like more fun than drinking vodka from a bottle alone in my apartment while belting out Patsy Cline songs.
2
Nina
“I have some conditions,” I say as I follow him toward the door, past Stan at the cash register.
If Stan is wondering where the tall, serious man I’m usually with is, he certainly doesn’t show it. And at the moment, I genuinely do not care.
“I’m all ears,” says Vince. I assume that’s his real name.
“I need to take a picture of you. To send to my friend. So she can identify you, in case you do rape and murder me.”