The former brothel was a cascade of shadows. Reds and grays and blacks decorated the room, shading the black leather booths in darkness and revealing the brown lacquered bar. We passed the booths, only getting eclipsed views of the people within. They could have been as devious or innocuous as possible, but everything felt charged with energy and awareness.
“This is your room,” the attendant said, stopping before a frosted sliding glass door.
He tapped twice, and the door slid open. Inside, there was a floor-level sunken tub and a dozen people that I’d never met. Half of them had dropped down to their unmentionables and were submerged in the bath. The rest were drinking fancy concoctions.
Chester entered first, and everyone cheered at his presence. “I brought my sister and her boyfriend.”
“The more, the merrier,” a guy said, tugging on Chester’s collar and dragging him toward the bar to choose a drink.
“What am I seeing?” I whispered to Julian.
He laughed. “A bar.”
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“A fancy bar, but that’s all,” he added.
“Do you think they clean this place?”
He snorted and covered his mouth as he walked us around the room to look at the drink menu. “I’m sure it’s been scrubbed clean.”
“I’m glad there aren’t black lights.”
He stopped and turned to face me. “What? Prudish?”
“In public? Yes!”
“This is mostly private,” he offered.
I shook my head and then checked out the drink list. There were amazingly bubbly and elaborate concoctions that I’d never heard of before. Most of the ingredients didn’t even look familiar.
I shrugged. “Just pick one out for me.”
Julian nodded and wrote down our orders, stuffing the slip of paper into a slot that must have taken it back to the bar. Only a matter of minutes later, our drinks were rolled in on a gold trolley by a man in the shortest shorts I’d ever seen and nothing else.
I blinked and tried not to stare. Everything about him was exposed. Though not much more than Chester’s friends lounging in the sunken tub with soaked boxers or thin lace panties and bras, revealing practically everything underneath.
I thankfully took my drink and downed most of it in one long gulp. I needed to be drunker for this.
“Whoa there,” Julian said with a laugh.
“It’s delicious. I’ll take another.”
He shrugged. “Okay, but do you normally drink this much?”
“She doesn’t normally drink. Isn’t that right, sis?” Chester asked, appearing at our sides. His shirt had been removed, and he was surprisingly built with long, lean muscles. The last time I’d seen him, he’d still been the scrawny chess player I had known.
“I drink,” I countered. “Just…not a lot.”
“What do you think of the Lounge?”
“It’s…different.”
Chester snorted. “In the best way.”
“Do you come here a lot?”
He shrugged. “Sometimes. We’re celebrating.”
“Where’s Margaret?”
His face soured at the mention of his girlfriend. “Not here.”
“Are you all right?”
“Peachy,” Chester said with a sigh.
I opened my mouth to ask more, but Julian touched my elbow. I was pushing Chester’s buttons the way he pushed mine. But I should let it go for now. It clearly wasn’t helping anything.
“Is that a number seven?” Chester asked, looking at the yellow drink in my hand.
“Yes,” Julian said. He held his drink up. “And a number five.”
“Good choices. Try a number twelve,” he said, his smile returning. “It’ll loosen you right up.”
“Chester, get in here!” the same guy who had pulled him into the room called. He was sitting in the tub in nothing at all.
My cheeks heated, and I quickly averted my gaze. I guzzled the rest of my drink. Yep. More alcohol.
I dropped the drink down. “I’ll take a twelve.”
Julian looked at the menu and frowned. “There’s eight shots in that. You’ll die.”
“Oh, wow. Eight?”
“Why don’t we go somewhere else?”
“What? Why?” I asked, suddenly self-conscious.
“You’re not comfortable here. I’m starting to think Chess brought you here, knowing you’d be uncomfortable.”
I met his dark gaze. “You don’t seem uncomfortable.”
Julian smiled, the look he gave me was licentious and inviting. “I can’t say that I mind being here with you, Jen.”
“Oh?” I whispered as the drink I’d finished buzzed around in my brain, slowing my response time.
“Can you honestly say you don’t feel it?”
“Feel what?”
He sighed. “Anything.”
I blinked at him. What was he asking? Whether or not I felt something for him? Wasn’t it the most obvious thing in the world? Could I be any more obvious about my feelings for Julian Wright? I didn’t think anyone in all of Lubbock was unaware that I’d been into him since the day I’d met him. That couldn’t be what he was asking.
“What do you mean?”
He shook his head, disappointment clouding his handsome features. “Nothing. Do you still want the twelve?”
“Share it with me?”
“All right.”
He wrote it down on another slip of paper, and our drinks appeared again. He’d gotten me the twelve, as promised. Another number five sat on the tray for him as well.
That last drink must have been stronger than I’d thought because, suddenly, everything felt very warm. Very heady. My legs wobbled, and I could feel every one of my fingers, like little pins were pricking them. I blinked slowly and picked up the twelve.
When was the last time I’d been this drunk? I had no idea. I wasn’t really supposed to drink on my anxiety medication. They interacted in some way, so I avoided it. But it was a celebration, and then there were the naked people in a brothel bathtub. I’d needed the drink. Now, I was floating. And the eight-shot drink in front of me only helped along the feeling.
“How does this taste like a Dreamsicle?” I asked Julian, leaning into his broad chest.
His arm snaked around my waist. “You should go easy on it.”
“Mmhmm,” I purred, taking another sip.
Julian reached out and took the drink from my hand. He took a sip. “It does taste like a Dreamsicle. What even?”
I giggled and nodded. “Right?”
“Fuck, it’s good.”
My head tilted up toward him. His gaze swept to mine and held, intent and lustful. The space between us disappeared. Something passed between us. And I was drunk enough not to question it.
“Let me taste,” I whispered.
“You want a taste?”
I nodded. He slowly took another drink. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I listed into him as I traced the movement.
Then his head dipped down, finishing the descent. A pause, and everything stalled and went dark and heated. Those beautiful lips pressed against mine, soft and hard, all at the same time. His tongue flicked out, brushing against mine. The taste of Dreamsicle exploded in my mouth just from the barest touch of him.
I moaned, a deep, throaty thing that, any other time, I would be embarrassed by, but right now, I had no other thoughts than this: Julian Wright was kissing me. Really kissing me.
No stolen moments in his office to make his ex jealous. There was no one here for him to impress. No one, except me.
My fingers fisted into the front of his shirt as I came onto my tiptoes to try to get closer to that perfect mouth. He set the number twelve down before dragging me tight against him. His hands splayed wide against my back before sliding to my hips. My pelvis pushed forward an inch until I was tight against him, could feel exactly how he felt about me.
Our lips moved like a synchronized dance, as if we’d been doing this all our lives. He kept one hand on my hip while his other moved along my side and up to my stomach. My skin heated at every brush of him against my body. Then he was running fingers under my breast, along the underwire.
I gasped at the contact, and he broke free of my lips, trailing kisses down my neck and across my collarbone. My core was on fire, and I was set to combust at the slightest touch.
“Jennifer,” he groaned and tugged me closer.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
A hand slid to the hem of my dress, caressing the soft skin of my thigh. I moaned again unabashedly. It was hard to think straight with him here, touching me like that.
His mouth moved to my ear. His tongue darted out to flick against the lobe. “We should get you home.”
“N-now?” I stammered out.
“I can’t do what I want with you here.”
I shivered at the words. “What-what do you want to do with me?”
His laughter was rough and gravelly. “Everything.”