Bar Crawl(26)

“Beautiful room,” he managed when I opened my door.

I walked us over to my bed and stood with the backs of my legs against the mattress. Lifting his shirt up his body, I gasped at the sight. I externally, out loud, gasped. His skin looked as hard as it felt, and his chest was covered with a few large and ornate tattoos. I didn’t take much time to examine the tattoos that resided on his arms; it was his chest I chose to study.

Running my fingers across a large and ornately illustrated drum set on his left pec, I grinned.

“I know,” he said in a soft, mocking tone. “Obvious, right?”

I shrugged. “Who cares? It’s awesome.” It calmed my nerves to see that CJ was clearly struggling with nerves and insecurities himself. “What’s this?” I asked, moving my fingers to script on the right side of his chest. It read, “And he finally loved her back.”

CJ seemed to hesitate, chewing his words as he softly gripped my wrist. “I usually tell people they’re song lyrics from a song I wrote in high school.”

“What is it, really?” I lifted his shirt up, and he pulled it over his head, casting it to the floor.

“From a story I wrote in high school. A book, really. It was the longest thing I’d written at that point in my life. That was the last line of the story.” CJ slipped his hands up my shirt, taking his time to move over the indent of my waist and the curve of my breasts.

Once my shirt was on the floor, I eyed him intensely. “You really haven’t told anyone about your writing, have you?”

He shook his head slowly.

“Why the f*ck not? It’s so hot.” I kissed his chest and brought my hands to the waistband of his pants.

He shrugged, seeming to grow impatient as we pawed at each other’s clothes. “I’ve always been CJ, the drummer, the big dude everyone wanted to play football.”

“Did you? Play football?”

“Fuck no.” Slowly glided his hands up my sides. After a few more wordless kisses and touches, we were both left in our underwear, and I still had my bra on. Lace. Because even though I hadn’t intended on this day ending like this, it’s never a bad idea to wear kickass lingerie. “Haven’t you ever just…taken on your role? Not asked any questions?”

CJ’s direct and astute question stopped me in my tracks. I sat on the edge of the bed, still tracing the ridges in his shoulders and back with the tips of my fingers.



“That’s the story of my life, CJ,” I whispered as I kissed his shoulder, neck, and then his jaw. “The good girl,” I continued, pressing him back against the cool satin of my comforter, “always in step and doing it perfectly. No veering. No mistakes.”



A flame seemed to ignite behind CJ’s eyes. “Yeah? And what is it that you want?”

The words were out of my mouth before I could filter them. “I want to be bad.”

Since the first night I’d noticed CJ in Finnegan’s a few months ago, I’d wanted him. On a deep, primal and biological level, I saw him and my body begged, please. That had been the exact reason I’d avoided him. I knew if a perfectly practical woman like myself found herself struggling to keep her panties on around him, then it was no wonder he was never low on options for the evening. I hadn’t wanted to give him what he’d clearly come to expect, all the while depriving myself of what I so desperately wanted from him. The exact thing he could give me.

Evidently, though, my words were misplaced, or poorly timed, or simply completely wrong. I’d barely had time to take a breath after finishing my sentence before CJ had sat up, his large hands wrapped firmly around my shoulders.

“I can’t do this,” he panted, squeezing his eyes shut.

“What?” I was as breathless as he was, and my heart hadn’t found a normal rhythm since he’d kissed me on the sidewalk several hours prior.

CJ edged his way off the bed and began redressing. I sat in stunned silence, not knowing what the hell had just happened.

“What are you doing?” I asked, instinctively bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around my legs. It was, perhaps, an unnecessarily protective stance, but I was emotionally overexposed. My worst fear was playing out in front of me: a man was leaving in the middle of fooling around. What the f*cking hell?

“I’m sorry,” CJ blurted out as he roughly tugged his t-shirt over his head and jammed his feet into his shoes. “We want different things from each other, clearly.”

“Clearly?” I questioned, standing and redressing myself.

He held out his hands as if he were exasperated. “I’ve spent the last several days telling you shit about me that no one else knows…telling you I feel different with you.”

“I feel different with you, too, CJ.” I pulled my shirt on and rested my hands on my hips, swallowing back some rejection-flavored tears.

“That’s just it,” he snapped. “We want to be different with each other, and it makes us still different from each other. And,” he pointed at me, seeming flustered and aggravated, “you said the reason you avoided me for so long was that you didn’t want to be just another girl in my bed. But, here, that’s exactly what you want. Only we’re in your bed.”

My jaw swung loose as I watched him walk through my bedroom door. I followed him down the stairs. “So you’re mad at me for being attracted to you? What the f*ck?”