Chapter 3 #2
His dimple gets deeper. “It’s fine. I just wanted to talk to you.”
Bullshit. Someone probably dared him to mess with me. But that is a matter that will soon be resolved with a bunch of doctored condoms.
“That’s so sweet. So you’re still mates with Henry?”
He shrugs his massive shoulders. “Not really, but you know how it is with the old school gang.”
I don’t, Jake Graves-Holland, but therein lies the difference between us.
“Totally. So where are the guys now?”
He looks off to the side, and my stomach sinks. “Strippers?”
He gives me a rueful smile, and my gut drops lower. Of the many places I could follow drunk men into, the strippers aren’t one of them. As a lone, scantily-clad female, I’ll probably be mistaken for a sex worker trying to drum up business. Although with Captain Popular at my side…
I bat my lashes at him. “Are you meeting everyone there?”
His gaze fastens on mine. “Why would I when I can look at you?”
Everything in my shorts flutters. I haven’t been with anyone since Name Forever Redacted, and I haven’t come close to wanting to, but maybe I should have paid more attention to my non-alcohol needs because they’re clearly plotting their own revenge.
“I’m not getting on the pole,” I say, draining the last of my tequila.
Jake grins. “Night’s still young.”
I’m not, though. I’m almost thirty-three, and I’m not ending my celibate streak with some asshole I went to high school with.
So much for my Snow White persona. It might as well be in the toilet along with my fake-jizz condoms. I glance around for Krissy and an emergency drink to calm my pussy, but she and everyone else behind the bar is busy, because of course they are.
It’s never my lucky night, just another stumbling block on the path to failure.
“How long have you been back in New Zealand?” Jake asks. “You’re living in Europe, now, right?”
Oh God, small talk. Lord above, please save me from small talk?
He doesn’t, and Jake Graves-Holland keeps looking at me all expectantly.
“Luxembourg,” I lie, scrabbling around my bag for my vape. “I’m just back for a bit. Seeing Cece and such.”
“Right. It’s cool you guys are still friends.”
“Always,” I say, trying to distinguish ElfBar from pen. “She’s the best.”
“She is. Can I ask you something?”
I resist the urge to say, ‘You just did, and that’s the limit.’ “Sure.”
“How come you never played the flute at school? At assembly or graduation or anything?”
I squint, hoping he’s fucking with me, but his expression is choir-boy sincere. Holy shit, the one thing I want to discuss less than where I’m living these days—playing the fucking flute. I successfully locate my vape and reward myself with a drag. “You can’t possibly want to know that.”
Jake Graves-Holland grins like I’m being charming instead of a dick, and it strikes me how handsome he is. Properly good-looking. It’s rare anywhere, but especially in New Zealand, where every white person seems to wear a different version of the same face.
“I do want to know. You must have been amazing at it to get into Jullia—”
I cut him off before he can actually say my alma mater’s name. “I didn’t perform at school because I told anyone who asked that if they made me, I’d take my own life.”
Jake’s grey eyes expand. “Seriously?”
Krissy and the bar staff are still busy, so I take another quick hit off my vape. “I wouldn’t have actually done it.”
He grins, cocking his head at me. “You always get what you want?”
I feel another surge of hatred toward this massive, gorgeous, rich celebrity acting like I’m a spoiled baby. He’s the one who’s gotten everything handed to him. Who was born on third base and still gets to pretend he hits home runs.
“Not so much. And if I may ask you a question, what the hell are you still doing in this bar?”
He looks at me, his bright grey gaze moving from my eyes to my lips. “Thought it was kind of obvious.”
I really don’t like the way my heart stutters against my rib cage. As much as I want to believe it’s an alcohol-based stroke, I’m not that lucky.
“You’re hoping to be mobbed by rugby enthusiasts?”
He grins at the ceiling like he’s got a friend up there. “Cece filled you in, huh?”
“She did. Congrats on the All Blacks… And being one, and all that.”
“Thanks, but you’re the real celebrity around here. I hear your song about forty thousand times every Christmas.”
“Lemme guess, your mum loves it?
His smile-dimple gets deeper. “My nan.”
“Well, everything about that tracks…”
The tequila is really kicking now, mellowing my anger and making my lady-parts shimmer like a mirage. Goddamn Jake Graves-Holland. I’m supposed to be ruining lives, and instead I’m all hot and bothered. Worse still, messing with him feels akin to messing with a leukemia patient. He’s too nice.
“You look so great,” he says, further cementing his boy-next-door status. “Your hair long like that is… It really suits you.”
God, what is this guy’s problem? Why can’t he fuck off and be all over Cece or something? She’s tall, gorgeous, and she knows what rugby is.
Then again, that would be too easy for Cece. Not enough like banging your head against a wall and praying it’ll learn to love and respect you.
“Cheers,” I say. “But I don’t fuck fans.”
He grins at the roof again. “I didn’t stay back to try and fuck you.”
“Sure. And my name isn’t incomprehensibly hard to spell.”
He laughs, and I hate the way my heart flips over. Men rarely find me funny, because they suck, but making a hot man laugh still turns the dork in me all starry-eyed. Still, I’m not gonna let that dork validation-bang Captain Popular. I got that humiliation kink out of my system a long time ago.
“Problem is,” Jake tilts his undrunk glass of scotch at me. “I can spell your name. A-D-A-L-A-S-I-A. Then a gap. R-E-N-A—”
I clap my hand to his face. I don’t mean to, it just happens. It’s too much, too sweet, too… I don’t even fucking know. Lightning shoots from Jake Graves-Holland’s lips, through my palm and slams into my chest. But, I don’t let go.
Jake’s eyes crinkle, his smile moving against my fingertips. Still, I don’t let go. We’re locked in place, eyes fused, my heart racing like it’s about to burst.
Fuck this, I think. Fuck this, I need to leave before—
“Can I get you something else?” Krissy asks.
I let go of Jake’s face like it’s radioactive. “Tequila, please. Thank you. Please? Thanks.”
“No problem.”
I can feel Jake looking at me. I keep my gaze fixed on Cece’s bar shelf. “So are you… Do you still live in Pukekohe or…?”
“Not anymore,” he says, and the warmth in his voice makes me want to yak.
“Auckland?”
“Ah, yeah. I’ve got a place in Herne Bay—”
Of course you do, bud.
“—but I’m staying at an Airbnb in town tonight. The bachelor party, y’know?”
It takes all my willpower not to gasp. An Airbnb? All the stags in one house?
The pitch-black clouds in my brain roll apart as sunshine pierces my soul.
The only thing better than screwing with my ex-bullies would be screwing with their stuff while they’re not there. Only certain things will have to transpire in order to enact said shenanigans. Not that it’ll be a chore. Jake from Pukekohe is pretty sexy.
And sure, it’s kind of shady, screwing a guy just to gain access to a bachelor Airbnb, but it’s not like he doesn’t want to. And it’s not like I won’t be screwing him. I just need to confirm…
I glance at Captain Popular, who is indeed still staring at me. I look him full in the face, parting my lips and lowering my lashes in the ‘come fuck me’ stare to end all ‘come fuck me’ stares.
Jake Graves-Holland swallows so hard his whole throat moves. “I… Have I already said you look amazing? Not that you didn’t look amazing at school, you were so—”
I push my hand to his mouth, intentionally this time.
I don’t know if he’s lying about thinking I looked good at school, or if he developed the same ‘poke the nerd’ thing his buddies got once we graduated.
It doesn’t matter. My emotions are already flattening as my most impenetrable mask slides up and over me, coating my soul in invisible armour.
“Jake,” I whisper. “Will you take me back to your Airbnb and fuck me until I scream?”
His friendly face hardens, his upper lip curving against my palm as his eyes go black. It’s such a one hundred and eighty degree transformation, it would be scary if it wasn’t so fucking hot.
Without breaking eye contact, he takes my hand from his face, weaving his huge, rough fingers through mine. Then he lifts his glass of scotch and drains the whole thing in one. “Let’s go.”
I ignore the electricity buzzing up my arm, and I look around for Krissy. “My drink…?”
Jake pulls a hundred-dollar note from nowhere and slaps it onto the bar. “Got drinks back at the place. We’re leaving.”
Yes, sir, I think, and only hate myself a little bit as I allow him to lead me out of the bar as he orders an Uber with his free hand.
He kisses me the second we’re outside, cupping my cheek and pulling our bodies flush together.
I hoped it would be okay, but kissing him is so good the top of my head feels like it’s going to blow off.
It’s been a while since I’ve touched a man, but it’s something else, kissing Jake Graves-Holland.
The barely restrained strength of him. The ease with which he slides his tongue into my mouth.
He hoists me into the air, and I grip his shoulders for support, making him grunt as I wrap my legs around him.
My mind blurs as he kisses me harder. If this is an act and he does this to all the rugby groupies who come after him, then that’s just another thing I don’t want to know.
A car arrives in record time. He stops kissing me just long enough to open the door one-handed and guide me inside. For a hazy second, I think maybe he’ll stop touching me once we’re in the back seat. Then he’s beside me, hand in my hair, mouth on mine, all heat and hunger.