Exposed by Fate (Serve #2)(26)

He’d placed two calls to her since coming across her application and held out hope she’d be the first recipient in the program. But even as important as the project was to him, his thoughts had been on a gorgeous blonde and her apparent lack of urgency to see him again. Finally, last night he’d given in and gone to one of his regular night clubs. His goal had been to distract himself, remind himself of the options available to him. Before he’d taken a sip of his first drink, he’d been sent three from various corners of the bar and asked to dance by a redhead who bore a vague resemblance to Emma Stone.

He’d felt claustrophobic, like he’d woken up in a carnival fun house without any memory of how he’d gotten there. Everyone had looked distorted, their voices too loud. He’d started noticing that the lyrics in the loud, pumping music didn’t even make sense. His clothes felt itchy along with the back of his neck. He’d mumbled some excuse about finding a friend and walked out of the club without a backward glance. Now, as he climbed out of the backseat of the town car that had driven him uptown to the venue, he found himself scanning the sidewalk for sight of her. Which was ridiculous, since she would be inside, right? He just wanted to be sure. He was that desperate to get eyes on her.

Fuck that, he wanted everything on her. Eyes, hands, mouth. The poor girl had no idea what was coming through those doors. She’d left him to roast for four days and now he was overcooked. If he made it an hour at this goddamn gala without dragging her to the nearest dark corner to screw her into a stupor, he’d be shocked. He was already hard just thinking about gripping those mouthwatering curves and telling her in vivid detail what a cock tease she was. Giving him a taste, then vanishing for the better part of a week. Honestly, it was outright torture.

He declined the coat check with a smile and walked toward the opulent ballroom. The girl working the door in a headset didn’t ask him for an invitation or check his name against the list she was holding, she simply waved him through with a nervous laugh. All right, this is what I’m talking about. Guys who could rock a tux well enough to forgo security measures didn’t get possible crushes. They walked in like they owned the joint and let the girl come to him. Much better. No more un-Oliver.

Confidence intact, he breezed into the opulent ballroom, immediately being swallowed by buzzing conversation, semi-darkness, elegant music being played by a ten piece band in the corner of the room. Taller than most, he could see over the top of the milling crowd, his gaze landing on Eliza as if she’d called his name.

Good Lord. His breath felt trapped in his lungs, feet glued to the floor. Like that dream where you see something you want but have no way of reaching it. Eliza stood in the room’s center, near the dance floor, talking to an older woman over a champagne flute. She had to be the only person in the room wearing white. It made her stand out, like someone had trained a spot light on her. The dress was short, but the material loose, making it modest and an ungodly degree of sexy at the same time. Her front was covered entirely, but a sequined strap went down the middle of her almost completely bared back, connecting to the material just above her ass. It showed off two dimples he hadn’t yet had the chance to explore and it pissed him off mightily to know that. To know other men were seeing the perfection of her back for the first time, same as him. He tore his attention away from her back and traveled the long length of her legs, accentuated by silver stiletto heels. Remembering how tight those legs had squeezed his bucking hips, he had to look away or his below the belt predicament would become obvious to everyone around him. Especially if he took an eye out.

A passing waiter offered him a glass of champagne. He drained it in one shot.

Okay, maybe he had a little more than just a crush on Eliza. Did they call it a crush because it made you want to crush objects with your fists until every man with a pair of eyeballs stopped looking at her? He tugged on his collar. This tuxedo didn’t feel so good anymore. It felt restricting, like its sole mission in being created was to choke the air out of him. Would it be weird if he ripped one of these thousand dollar tablecloths off a table and wrapped her up in it? Just until he could get her into another room and completely naked, of course. Where only he could see her.

“Oliver?”

That wasn’t Eliza’s voice. She was too far away. Who was talking to him and forcing him to stop staring at her? He turned toward the source of his name and found a black-haired girl in an electric-blue dress beaming back at him. Shit. His mind flipped around like a Rolodex. Name…name…name… “Hey, look at you. You look great.”

“Thank you!” She launched herself at him, and he had no choice but to hug her back. Even though he couldn’t for the life of him remember how he knew her. She could have been his dental assistant and he’d have no idea. Even as he hoped for that outcome, he knew the chances were slim. He’d probably slept with her. “What are you doing here?”

He shot a glance toward the dance floor and saw Eliza watching him, looking a little sad. She seemed to bolster herself with a smile, shrugging at him as if to say: What’re you gonna do? Can’t take you anywhere, playboy. Then she turned her back on him and went back to her conversation.

Frustration clawed at him. If he didn’t think security would drag him out, regardless of how he wore a tux, he would have grabbed the nearest oversized centerpiece and dropkicked it through the picture window overlooking the dance floor. Eliza was right. This was the life he’d created for himself. He couldn’t go anywhere without a one night stand crawling out of the woodwork. Why would she want to spend more than three nights with him? She saw him as a joke and nothing more.