Use Somebody Read Free

Instinctually my arms wrapped themselves around the body in front of me as I hid my face in the nook of his chest. I had no idea who this person was or why I hadn’t bumped into him and just kept running. It was like this lost little girl needed something to grasp and just reached out for him.
    The laughing crowd, the wet shirt, everything fell away in the warmth of his skin and his calming, masculine scent.
    As I clung to him, his chest rumbled against my cheek, demanding, “What in the bloody blue hell is wrong with you?” Fierce waves of anger rolled off him, snapping me back to reality.
    What was I thinking, molesting this half naked stranger while soaking wet and on the verge of tears? This night had been one disaster after another, and now I had managed to piss someone off. I just needed to get out of there. But the second I tried to pull away, one strong arm came around to hold me in place.
    “I… I’m sorry,” stuttered the girl behind me.
    I froze. Now I was really confused. I thought he had been talking to me.
    “Brilliant. Now be a doll and apologize to the correct person,” he bit out.
    Whoa, whoa, whoa . Was he sticking up for me? That really wasn’t necessary. I didn’t need a forced apology from the girl. She’d likely just put me on some sorority hit list later. I just wanted to leave.
    The girl scoffed. “You must be kid—”
    “Now.”
    To my absolute dread, he shifted us so when I opened my eyes, I was looking straight into the face of one very irritated chick. She didn’t seem as drunk as she had earlier. I wasn’t sure if she had sobered, or if she had just been acting drunk earlier for the sake of… who knew?
    She leered at me as if I were nothing more than the ants at her picnic. “Sorry, Scarlett,” she muttered through tight red lips.
    “Thank you,” I said softly. Just kill me. Kill me now.
    She looked up to the man for approval. I couldn’t see his expression, but whatever it was might have actually made the girl wet herself in fear. She slinked away from us and within seconds, everyone returned to their own conversations. Someone turned the music volume back up, the girls around us resumed their dancing, and the game of quarters continued.
    Meanwhile, I became hyperaware that I was wet and pressed up against a very shirtless stranger.
    Awkward seconds ticked by as we stood unmoving in each other’s arms while the party carried on around us. I was almost too embarrassed to look upon his face. I wished—not for the first time tonight—that the floor would open up and swallow me whole. He held me patiently until I gathered my bearings and slowly detached myself.
    The first thing I noticed was his incredible physique. He was built unlike anything I had ever seen in real life, well-muscled and lightly dusted with golden droplets of beer. Good looking boys I had grown accustomed to seeing around here were lean or toned, not deliciously sculpted into a vision of perfection worthy of screensavers everywhere.
    Had I really just been pressed against this fine specimen? I belonged in his arms even less than I belonged at this party. He could have been in an underwear advertisement. I swallowed. Or something a little less improper.
    When had I turned into one of those girls? It wasn’t like me to ogle perfect strangers. I fought the urge to continue my perusal and looked up to the face of my defender.
    I gasped when my gaze collided with a pair of startling blue eyes so brilliantly captivating, they seemed to twinkle at me even in the dim lighting. So deep and all-knowing, they saw beneath the innocent face, beyond the imposter, and straight into me . They rendered me immobile. They stripped me bare.
    It was nothing profound, really. Just a subtle exchange of glances between two people passing in the night. Yet my heart knew it was also everything. The fleeting kind of sensation that only happens once in a lifetime; a moment… a connection with a perfect stranger. As if everything,