Beautiful Stranger

through my skin to where my heart thrashed against my ribs.
    I lost myself to the music, and memories of his hand on my elbow, his dark eyes and the word devour .
    Devour.
    One song bled into another, and then another, and before I could come up for air, Chloe’s arms were around my shoulders and she was laughing into my ear, jumping up and down with me.
    “You’ve attracted an audience!” she yelled so loud above the music that I winced, pulling back.
    She nodded to the side, and only then did I notice we were surrounded by a group of men wearing tight, dark clothes and grinding suggestively at the air near them. Looking back at Chloe, I saw that her eyes were bright and so familiar, this take-no-prisoners woman who had worked her way to the top of what was now one of the world’s largest media firms and who knew exactly what this night meant to me. Suddenly cool air spread over my skin from the fans overhead and Iblinked back into consciousness, still giddy that I was actually in New York City, actually starting over. Actually enjoying myself.
    But behind Chloe, the shadows were dark and empty; no stranger stood there watching me.
    My stomach dropped a little. “I need to hit the ladies’,” I told her.
    I wormed my way through the circle of men, off the dance floor, and followed the signs to the second floor, which was essentially a balcony overlooking the entire club. I walked down a narrow hallway and into the bathroom, which was so bright that a pulse of pain spiked from my eyes to the back of my head. The room was eerily empty, and the music downstairs felt like it was coming up from underwater.
    On my way out, I fixed my hair, mentally high-fived myself for putting on a rumple-free dress, and touched up my lipstick.
    I walked out of the door and right into a wall of man.
    We’d been close at the bar, but not this close. Not my face to his throat, the smell of him surrounding me. He didn’t smell like the men on the dance floor, awash in cologne. He just smelled clean, and like a man who did his laundry, and who also had a touch of scotch on his lips.
    “Hello, Petal.”
    “Hi, stranger.”
    “I was watching you dance, you tiny, wild thing.”
    “I saw you.” I could barely catch my breath. My legs felt wobbly, like they weren’t sure if they should collapse or go back to rhythmically bouncing across the floor. I chewed my bottom lip, suppressing a smile. “You’re such a creepster. Why didn’t you come out and dance with me?”
    “Because I think you rather liked being watched instead.”
    I swallowed, gaping up at him and unable to look away. I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. At the bar I’d assumed brown. But there was something lighter gleaming here in this part of the club, just above the strobes. Greenish, yellow, something mesmerizing. Not only had I known he was watching me—and liked it—but I’d danced entirely to the fantasy of him devouring me.
    “Did you imagine I was getting hard?”
    I blinked. I could barely keep up with his bluntness. Had men like this always existed, who said exactly what they—and I—were thinking without sounding scary, or rude, or pushy? How did he manage it?
    “Wow,” I gasped. “ Were you . . . ?”
    He reached down, took my hand, and pressed it firmly to where he was erect, already arching into my palm. Without thinking, I curled my fingers around him. “This is from watching me dance?”
    “Are you always such a performer?”
    If I hadn’t been so thunderstruck, I would have laughed. “Never.”
    He studied me, the smile still in his eyes but his lips fixed into something more thoughtful. “Come home with me.”
    This time I did laugh. “No.”
    “Come to my car.”
    “ No . There is no way I’m leaving this club with you.”
    He bent and pressed a small, careful kiss to my shoulder before telling me, “But I want to touch you.”
    I couldn’t pretend that I didn’t want it, too. It was dark, with flashing arrhythmic lights, and music so loud it felt like it hijacked my pulse. What harm could come from one wild night? After all, Andy had so many.
    I led him past the restrooms, farther down the narrow hallway, to a tiny abandoned alcove overlooking the DJ station. We were trapped at a dead end, secluded around a corner but by no means hidden. Other than the wall forming the back of the club, the rest of the space around us was open, and only a waist-high glass wall kept us from falling to the dance floor below.