Bait: The Wake Series, Book One(63)

What was it about that guy? He was like a bad penny. Always popping up. If he were a penny, I would have put him in my pocket and called him lucky.

It was only five or so, but I wanted my bed and I didn't want to go alone. I asked him warily, “Can we go to my room?”

He pulled away from my lips, but what I'd just asked him didn't seem to register. He looked distracted by his own thoughts.

“Hmmm?” He queried running his nose up the side of my neck audibly smelling me. “You smell the same. You taste the same,” he said into my hair and he kissed my head.

“So do you. Did you hear what I said?”

He pulled away to look at my face, now that whatever he was thinking wasn't distracting him anymore.

His curly hair was longer than when I'd last seen him. His big fat curls messy and playful. They suited him. On anyone else they would have looked silly.

“Come up stairs with me,” I repeated, but I didn't ask the second time. I was past requesting what I wanted.

A fire lit in his bright eyes and all humor left his features. “You know what will happen up there, Blake. I thought you only wanted to be friends.”

“We just kissed in public. I think it's a little late for that. Let's call this what it is and not beat around the bush. I want you. You want me. We have some unexplainable attraction to each other. So, are you coming upstairs to f*ck me or are we staying down here and getting shitfaced? It's your call.” I wasn't planning on laying it all out there like that, but we didn't have time to be shy. It was like the universe was handing me my favorite drug. And I was past pleasantries.

It had been months since I felt him inside me. Months since my body felt like it did. Months since I wanted to touch more than be touched.

I explained, “This doesn't have to be some romantic thing. It's anatomical. You're body wants my body and mine wants yours.”

“Is that all that wants me? What about your ring finger, honeybee? Who does that want?”

Shit. My engagement ring. Wasn't that twisted? I felt ashamed of my engagement ring. Shouldn't I feel guilty about the thing I’d just said and the invitation I’d given to a man who wasn't my fiancé? But still, it was this ring that caused me to feel wrong and for all the wrong reasons.

“Don't do that,” I told him.

“Do what? I thought we were telling it like it is?” The hard set of his face wouldn't crack and I couldn't tell if he was teasing me or if he was serious. He looked serious.

“Maybe you're right. I shouldn't have asked. Forget it, friend.” I shrugged his arm off my shoulders and took a drink of my beer. I was irritated. I felt petulant. I felt like throwing a tantrum.

He grabbed my chin and held it front and center, his voice was low when he said, “First, don't call me friend like it's a swear word. It's mean. Second, we're going up stairs and we might miss the whole f*cking party. Third, you're going to take the ring off. It isn't fair to the guy to f*ck me while you're wearing it and I don't want it scratching up my back. Aly will see it. Get your purse.”

He pulled away from the bar, pulled a few twenties from his pocket and started for the lobby.

He had just said so many raw things that left my mind scrambled, but the one word I heard loud and clear was “Aly.”



I met him at the elevators where he waited for me. Casey stood facing the stainless steel doors and didn't even look at me when I came to be by his side. He knew I was there, though, because as soon as I stopped on his left, he reached his long muscular arm out to press the up button and the door immediately opened.

We stepped inside.

“What floor, Blake?” he asked, but it didn't have even the slightest hint of sweetness that I was so used to.

“Eleven,” I said on an exhale.

He pressed the button when I didn't make a move to do it myself, being that I was closer to the panel of numbers.

The joking fun Casey from earlier was gone. The Casey that wrote on mugs and sent me pictures of animals getting it on and crazy random facts, wasn't there anymore.

In place of him was a man who seemed taller, more rigid than my friend Casey from San Francisco. His posture changed from relaxed to guarded. His tone was one of a man about to take what he wanted. The change happened instantly at the bar after I called him friend. And I felt a little sick that my frustrated and shameful mouth was to blame for the switch.