One Night With You: A Fatal Series Prequel Novella (The Fatal Series) Read Free Page A

her place, she told herself, to bust the two guys smoking pot in the kitchen or to run a check on the white powdered substance she noticed on the nose of another loser.  
    If she wanted to be a total asshole, she could’ve called it in and had the place raided, which would get her out of here and home to bed. But she couldn’t do that to Angela, who’d been so excited about connecting with Spencer again. Seeing Angela excited about anything had Sam refraining from making the call, but she couldn’t bear to breathe the pot smoke coming from the kitchen.  
    She went through sliding doors to a huge deck that was full to overflowing with more bodies. Is this thing strong enough to hold this many people? Sam would bet money she was the only person on the deck wondering about its structural integrity. The rest of them were too busy drinking and boasting and bullshitting and generally trying to score.
    How had she managed to skip this entire phase of her upbringing? She’d gone from high school to adulthood in the blink of an eye, when her mom left her dad for another guy the day after Sam, their youngest child, graduated from high school. Shit like that causes a person to grow up quickly. Plus, she’d never been one to suffer fools easily, and this party was chock full of fools.  
    A few of them were good-looking. She’d give them that. Many of them were also well dressed, having come directly from work. But the packaging didn’t make them more appealing. It only made their behavior seem more vapid, since some of them clearly had careers and something to lose by acting like frat boys after hours.
    She found a corner to occupy while she kept an eye on Angela, who was talking to a group of guys across the deck. She didn’t think any of them was Spencer, but she wasn’t sure since she couldn’t see their faces. She’d met him once before and thought she’d recognize him if she saw him. Angela was smiling and laughing and engaging in the conversation, so Sam left her alone and let her do her thing.
    Hopefully, Spencer would show up soon and Sam could have a word with him before leaving. At times like this, she enjoyed making sure a guy was aware of what she did for a living so he’d know better than to fuck with her sister.  
    She’d made the mistake of relaxing into her corner of the deck when one douche bag pushed another douche bag, sending beer flying out of a red plastic cup and all over her. Motherfuckers .
    “Oh my God,” one of them said. “I’m so sorry. Let me help.”
    “Hands off,” Sam growled at him.
    He backed up immediately, hands in the air. “My apologies. What can I do? Napkins? Paper towels? What’s your pleasure?”
    “A paper towel or three would be good,” Sam said as she held her soaking wet skirt away from her body.
    “Coming right up.”
    Since she fully expected never to see him again, she wrung the beer out of her skirt, grimacing at the nasty smell and the stickiness it left behind on her hands. Now she really wanted to get the hell out of here.
    A starched white handkerchief entered her line of vision. She glanced up at its owner and every thought that wasn’t about his supreme hotness left her brain in one big whoosh. He was tall—easily six-foot-four or five—with olive-toned skin, kind hazel eyes, thick dark brown hair that curled at the ends and a mouth that had her immediately thinking about how long it had been since she’d had sex.
    “I saw you take a direct hit,” he said in a deep voice that had her leaning in closer so she wouldn’t miss a word. “Thought this might be useful.”
    And then she realized he was offering her his handkerchief and waiting for her to take it from him. “Oh, um, that’s really nice of you, but I’d hate to ruin it. Looks like a nice one.”
    He shrugged. “I have others.”
    Rattled by his presence and the way he looked at her, she took the cloth from him and used it to mop up some of the liquid still dripping from her skirt.