Beautiful Stranger Read Free

it.
    “I’m so glad you’re here!” she yelled over the music.
    I started to reply with some similar screaming drunken oath of friendship, but just behind Chloe, set into the shadows off the dance floor, stood my stranger. Our eyes met, and neither of us looked away. He was sipping his three fingers of scotch with a friend, but I could tell by how unsurprised he seemed to be caught staring that he’d been watching every move I made.
    The effect of this realization was more potent than the alcohol. It heated every inch of my skin, burned a hole directly through my chest and lower: down past my ribs, and deep into my belly. He lifted his glass, took a sip, and smiled. I felt my eyes rolling closed.
    I wanted to dance for him.
    Never in my life had I felt so sexy, so completely in control of what I wanted. I’d made it through my master’s degree, found a well-paying job, and even redecorated my house on a budget. But I’d never felt like a grown woman the way I did right now, dancing like crazy with a beautiful stranger standing in the shadows, watching me.
    This— this moment was exactly how I wanted to start fresh.
    What would it mean to be devoured? Did he mean that as explicitly as it sounded—his head between my thighs, arms wrapped to my hips, holding me open? Or did he mean over me, inside me, sucking my mouth and my neck and my breasts?
    A smile spread across my face, my arms stretched up to the ceiling. I could feel the hem of my dress inching up my thighs and didn’t care. I wondered if he noticed. I hoped he noticed.
    If I thought he’d walked away, it would have deflated the moment, so I didn’t look over his way again.I was unaccustomed to bar flirtation protocol; maybe his attention lasted all of five seconds, maybe it lasted all night. It didn’t matter. I could pretend he was there in the darkness for as long as I was here in the strobing lights on the floor. I’d grown to never expect much of Andy’s attention, but with this stranger, I wanted his eyes burning 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