One Night with Sole Regret 01 Try Me Read Free Page B

took her by one shoulder to steady
her.
    Nikki swayed toward him and pressed the back of her
hand to her mouth. “I don’t feel so good.”
    The only thing worse than having Nikki miss her
chance at talking to Shade would be Nikki throwing up all over
him.
    “Are you gonna be sick?” Shade asked, setting his
beer down on the table he was leaning against and taking her by
both shoulders.
    “I think . . . ” Nikki swallowed
queasily. “I think I need to lie down for a bit.”
    “I’ll take her home,” Melanie said. She should have
cut her off from the alcohol earlier.
    “No,” Nikki said and stomped on Melanie’s foot.
“I’ll be okay. It’s just a little loud in here.” She glanced up at
Shade, her long lashes obscuring her eyes, her body in a completely
submissive stance. “Is there a place where I can lie down for a
bit?” she asked. “With you on top of me?”
    Melanie blinked and turned her head to mouth, Wow .
    “If you bring your friend with you,” Shade said.
    Melanie’s head snapped up. Was he serious ?
“Having kinky sex with my best friend and some freak I don’t even
know is not my idea of a good time,” she blurted.
    A guy behind her burst out laughing.
    Nikki elbowed her in the ribs.
    Shade just smirked. One eyebrow appeared above the
rim of his dark sunglasses. “Then what is your idea of a good
time?”
    She didn’t think watching tear-jerkers in her
jammies would convince him of her fun-loving nature, so she settled
for making a sound of incredulous frustration, turned in the
opposite direction, and stalked off. Or tried to. She took
precisely one angry step before crashing head-on into a hard
body.
    The man steadied her with both hands on her upper
arms, his cold beer bottle pressing into the flesh of her biceps.
She didn’t lift her gaze to look at him, but stared at his green
T-shirt, feeling like a complete tool.
    “Where’s the fire, baby?” he asked.
    “In my pants,” Shade said and laughed.
    Melanie shoved away from the man and headed for a
nice safe corner to collect her thoughts. She half-expected Nikki
to come after her—to either berate her for calling Shade a freak to
his face or because she’d ruined Nikki’s chances with the
egomaniac—but several minutes of staring at the wall convinced her
that Nikki had deserted her for a guy she didn’t even know. Again . A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed her
suspicions. Nikki was laughing and hanging all over Mr. Rock Star
Jerk, who seemed to have his gaze trained on Melanie as he suckled
a spot right behind Nikki’s ear. When Melanie narrowed her eyes at
him, he took Nikki’s hand and led her out a back door.
    Melanie scrubbed her forehead with two fingers and
turned to stare at the wall again. She considered leaving, but she
couldn’t desert Nikki without backup. They’d arrived together,
they’d leave together. Besides, the woman’s love life was a
disaster. What if she needed Melanie’s help? Considering who she’d
left with, the chances that she would need Melanie to bail her out
of trouble were all but guaranteed. Melanie supposed attending an
after-party alone with a crowd of tattooed metal-heads was better
than waiting for Nikki in the car by herself, but not by much.
Resigned to her fate, Melanie found the free end of a sofa and sat
to wait, keeping her eyes diverted from the people milling about
the room.
    Her gaze trained on the door that Nikki had just
exited, she didn’t notice the man sitting next to her until he
spoke. “I’m surprised you didn’t go with them.”
    She tore her gaze from the door to look at him. His
striking green eyes captured her attention from the shadow beneath
the bill of his baseball cap. He was quite possibly the most
attractive man who’d ever spoken to her without Nikki at her side.
She recognized his T-shirt as the one belonging to the guy she’d
careened into a few moments earlier. “Huh?”
    “Jacob and your friend.” He pointed the neck of his
beer