Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Phoebe
I didn't know whether to be impressed with myself for no longer caring, or to be disappointed for my lack of willpower since it was obvious my no man rule was flying straight out of the nearest window.
All because of the man-stud who strolled up beside me at the bar a few seconds later.
One look at him, though, and those worries drifted to the back of my mind like he held some kind of spell over all my morals, doubts, and fears.
The simple, black fitted T-shirt he wore hugged every one of his muscles, making me practically salivate, but even that had nothing on the expression he wore as he looked at me like I’d become the only thing to exist in this room.
Like he had no concept of anyone else around us.
As though it was just him and me, side by side, waiting for the perfect time for one of us to make the first move.
“Do you think we pulled that off?” I asked, just for something to say, because this was the first time we'd been alone since his proposition on the beach, and I suddenly became hyperaware of exactly what that proposition consisted of.
Forbidden sex.
With him.
More than once.
“I think you make it easy for them to believe you hate me, yeah,” he answered.
“Good. I mean... not good like that but... you know. Good as in they won't know what's going on. I didn't mean that I actually hate you or?—”
“Phoebe?”
“Hmm?”
“Breathe.”
“Right.” I blew out a nervous breath, trying to remember the last time I'd felt so on edge.
Until now, lying hadn't come too naturally to me.
It wasn't something I'd ever aspired to be good at. But suddenly, with Henry at stake, I kinda wished I’d have practiced a little more throughout my life to make sure I could pull the odd lie off when I needed to. “So, what's the plan?”
“What do you want it to be?”
“I... I don't know. It's not like I do this all the time.”
“Me neither.”
“Are we being stupid here? Is this really worth the risk?”
“Of what?”
“Us, you know, upsetting people. Andy for one.”
“Fuck Andy.”
I blinked up at him, surprised by how relaxed he seemed. Since meeting Henry, his whole persona had been aloof, carefree, and to be frank, arrogant as hell. Now, though, he not only looked but sounded different, as though this was the real Henry Cohen he kept hidden away from the rest of the world.
He slowly trailed his eyes up and down my body, taking his time to soak every inch of me in, and all I could think about as I watched him was just how easily it would be to become addicted to that kind of attention from someone like him.
Someone who didn’t dish it out so freely.
“You really do look incredible tonight,” he said.
I was about to tell him he didn't look so bad himself when the barman came over to take our order, pulling Henry's attention away from me, leaving me standing beside him, my skin hot and flustered, part relieved to not be under his study anymore, part missing the way he made me feel when he’d looked at me that way.
Henry ordered six bottles of beer, and when the barman handed them over to us, we each took three, with Henry paying the entire bill without even asking me if I wanted to chip in.
“Thank you,” I told him, about to turn to take my half of the order back to the guys.
“Wait,” Henry said, stopping me in my tracks.
I looked up to see him checking the crowd to make sure the others weren't looking our way before he dropped his gaze back down to me again and stepped closer.
So close, had it not been for the six bottles of beer between us, I was pretty sure he'd have pressed himself against me just to see if he could get away with it.
“I meant what I said before, Phoebe. You look sensational. Fucking breathtaking, actually. I’m glad you showed up tonight.
What I offered you at the beach... I wasn't sure if I'd scared you off.”
“You didn't. You haven't.”
“Not yet.” He smiled that smile of his. “Give me time.”
“You don’t scare me, Cohen.”
He leaned impossibly closer until his mouth was only an inch away from my ear, his warm breaths washing over my neck. “I'm not trying to scare you, Phoebe. I'm trying to keep that smile on your face I've come to crave far too much. And don’t call me Cohen again. You know what I prefer.”
“Okay… Cohen.” I blew out another breath.
Henry shook his head, his amusement alive. “I’ll make you pay for that later,” he said, making it sound like a gift rather than a threat as he chucked his chin and gestured to our friends across the room. “Are you ready?”
“Wait, what’s the plan?”
“There is no plan. Just follow my lead.”
“Well, that’s reassuring.”
“Have faith, angel eyes. I want this to go smoothly as much as you do. If not more.” Henry's responding wink shouldn't have had as much power over me as it did, but then again, I wasn't even sure if it was him and the wink at all anymore.
Part of me wondered if all of this was just the thrill of the forbidden tearing through me, waking me up after feeling half asleep for so long. For once, I was doing something solely for me. Not for my family, not for Rob, and not for my beloved friends.
Whatever happened or didn't happen next, a certain rush came from going after the one thing I knew I shouldn't have more than anything else. Him.
So, I followed Henry as though I'd known him my whole life, putting my trust in to the promises he'd made.
Even if he broke them.
Even if everything went to hell in one night.
At least after ten days I'd never see the man again, right?
“You know, I hate to admit it, but they do look cute together,” Rhea said as we all focused on the way Andy and Bailey held each other, their eyes locked as they slow danced to a dance tune meant for far more enthusiastic movements than they were performing.
Jace sighed. “I’m guessing tonight’s the night he finally gets lucky.”
Rhea’s side-eye made Jace’s cheeky grin light up, but instead of elbowing him or scolding him in some way, she rolled her eyes, making her look like the wife of an old, married couple.
Meanwhile, trying to keep myself involved in conversation proved almost impossible, considering Henry’s close proximity and him ‘accidentally’ bumping into me from behind whenever someone pushed through the crowd, making his body brush against mine.
At first, I’d panicked, thinking Rhea and Jace would notice, but they were too focused on each other to pay any attention to us.
To them, we were just two people who were supposed to despise each other.
“Wanna dance?” Jace asked Rhea, tilting his head towards the makeshift dance floor, where Bailey and Andy were currently gyrating against one another.
“You want a dance partner, Jace? Why don’t you ask Phoebe. She’s the professional,” Rhea hit back.
Jace’s head snapped my way. “A professional, huh? I swear, it’s always the quiet ones. Want to show me how it’s done?”
I didn’t have to see Henry to know he’d tensed behind me.
“I’d hardly call myself a professional,” I said with a small laugh.
“Can you do the splits?”
“Jace!” Rhea wasted no time in nudging him.
“Get your mind out of the gutter, Rhea.” He laughed. “I just admire a dancer’s… flexibility, that’s all. Call it a special interest of mine.”
“I bet you do,” she grumbled, but even she knew her faux grumpiness towards him grew weaker and weaker by the second.
“ Can you do the splits?” Henry asked behind me, his voice taking on an edge that made me half-turn to take him in and note how the light in his eyes matched the intrigue in his voice.
“And you want to know because…?” I raised a brow.
He shrugged like he didn’t care, playing his part. “Just interested to know if you were a little looser than your stiff personality implies.”
That was a good one. I had to give him that.
I stared up at Henry, half turned on, half infuriated that we had to play this game at all. “If I told you what I was capable of, Cohen, you’re the one who’d be stiff.”
“You thinking about my dick again, Phoebe?”
“Kinda hard to miss when you’ve got one on your forehead for everyone to see.”
Jace laughed out loud while Henry’s forearm brushed over my arse cheek in approval, his small smirk forcing me to turn back to Rhea and Jace before we gave ourselves up.
“It’s such a shame you two aren’t into each other.” Jace shook his head. “I can see real potential here.”
“Give it a rest, Jace,” Rhea told him, but she gave me the same look she’d given me at the beach.
I had to look away from her, too. For all this secretive pact I’d made with Henry excited me, lying to my best friends sure had a way of making me feel like a shitty human being, even if I knew, deep down, they wouldn’t have a problem with me going after something I wanted.
Some one I wanted.
After all, Bailey had been trying to get me to look at any man with a pulse from the moment we’d stepped off the plane and into the suffocating heat.
I could feel that heat creeping up my neck now, especially when someone walked past Henry, making him rock forward again, and his hand dropped to the top of my arse cheek.
Instead of removing it quickly, he let it linger there, as though he wanted to see just how long he could get away with being that close to me without anyone knowing.
Was the risk of all this what he was in it for? Or was he actually interested in me?
I had no time to ponder on that before Henry flexed his fingers into my flesh, letting me know he was there, as though I couldn’t feel his touch taking over every part of my body.
His hand was huge, and all I could focus on as I watched the others were thoughts of those fingers grazing my naked skin.
“Will someone just dance with me?” Jace moaned.
Henry’s fingers flexed into my arse once more. “Go on, Phoebe. Show Jace how it’s done,” he said, making me half turn to him again only to see his dark brow raised as he looked down at me. “I’ll even hold your beer for you, because I’m nice like that.” He grinned.
He’d just thrown me under the bus, and he knew it, but before I could think of a good comeback or a way to put him in his place, he slid my beer bottle out of my grip, and the next second, Jace was dragging me over to the dance floor, where Bailey and Andy were all over each other.
I glanced back at Rhea and Henry, who were grinning at me like they both knew how uncomfortable I felt, and they were relishing it.
Who needed enemies with friends like that?
With a grace and ease I hadn’t expected from Jace, he lifted his arm and spun me around under it, making me twirl effortlessly as though he, too, had done this before. When he pulled me back to him, my body now flush with his, he gazed down at me with a mischievous grin. “Surprise!”
“You dance?” I asked, wide-eyed. Of all the things I’d expected from Jace, this had to be the very last on the list.
“I did five years of classic ballroom as a kid. Shh, don’t tell Andy or Cohen. It’s a secret I’ve managed to keep from them for years. They’d rib me to death if they found out I used to wear sequined shirts and heeled shoes. They’d ruin my reputation even more if they knew I actually enjoyed it.”
“You little dark horse.” I chuckled, just as he let me go, putting some distance between us. “I wonder what other secrets you keep from them.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I cast a glance at Henry who wore a look of amusement as he watched me.
If he wanted a show, I’d give him one.
When I turned back to Jace, all I had to do was nod at him for us both to start moving as though we’d danced together for years.
We didn’t make contact again, but we spun around each other, moving in time to Calvin Harris’s “How Deep Is Your Love”.
I made my little silver dress work with me, moving my hips in a way I knew would make my body look the best it could, and Jace seemed to enjoy the challenge of keeping up with me.
Before long, my arms were in the air, my head moving from side to side as I lost myself to the rhythm and the lyrics.
Mainly the lyrics.
I’d heard this song a thousand times before, but I’d never really understood the words until now when the vocalist begged for her guy to open up her eyes and tell her who she is. She begged him to let her in on all his secrets, no inhibitions, no sin.
She was asking everything of him I wanted to ask of Henry.
This stranger I barely knew.
This man who’d sparked something inside me I’ve never felt before: desire, rage, intensity, heat, desperation for just one touch, the fantasy I’d never allowed myself to think of before now.
When I looked over at him, his eyes locked on mine, it felt as though so many unspoken things passed between us. Another silent conversation. A language we were both becoming skilled in without ever having taken a lesson. It felt right doing this with him.
It felt…
I stumbled forward as a pair of rough, sloppy, unfamiliar hands slapped my backside hard and squeezed with a sickening strength that made me lose my balance until I froze in place, my body no longer my own.
“If you’re gonna dance and tease the crowd like that, baby, you can’t blame a guy for wanting to know what it feels like,” came a strange voice in my ear as the stranger’s face rubbed against mine.
I forgot how to breathe. Forgot how to move. Forgot where I was.
“What the fuck, man?” Jace cried, racing back towards me and looking over my head at the man who still had my arse in his grip.
For just a few seconds, the world around me stopped… until Jace charged forward with a look of murder in his eyes.
I’d always thought I’d have the courage and strength to remove myself from any situation like that and put the guy responsible in his place, but before I had chance to even think about any sort of plan, a rush of bodies moved around me, and somewhere, somehow, a fist came flying towards my face.
Without thinking, I ducked just in time before I heard flesh meeting flesh.
A sound so nauseating, it immediately made my head spin.
Everything seemed to happen around me in slow motion, and just as I thought I was about to fall to the floor covered in drinks and stampeding feet, I was pulled into someone’s arms and yanked against them while a fight broke out all around me, because of me.