“No one said marry him.” Jaime sandwiched my face between her palms and cranked my head to face her, leaning in close to me. “There’s a whole spectrum of things you can do with a beautiful man, you know. Or are you too much the alpha’s daughter for a one-night stand?”
I put my palms over her hands as I leaned away. “Thanks for the dating advice?”
“I’m not even talking about dating,” she said. “I’m talking about—”
“Oh, I get it,” I tried to cut her off.
She just laughed as she finally released me. Every guy in the place seemed to stare at her, and when one of them asked her to dance, she raised her brows at the two of us and took his hand, letting him lead her out toward the dance floor.
Over her shoulder, she called, “Surprise me, Mel!”
Chapter Two
Kingston
Luckily, none of the humans could hear the obnoxious little wolf shifters who had invaded my club over the pounding music.
I should kick them out, no matter how cute they were, especially the one with the dirty blond hair and the innocent eyes.
She followed her red-headed friend onto the dance floor. The two of them danced with each other, arms raised above their heads. The blond tossed her head back, losing herself to the music as she swayed, and a faint smile slipped across my lips.
I forced my gaze away from her, letting her get lost in the crowd. Someone would ask her to dance, I was sure. I was struck by the strangest, most ridiculous desire to claim her first, but I pushed it away.
The night wore on, but I found myself looking for her on the dance floor.
When one of my bartenders, Lucy, received a call about an emergency at home, I said, “I’ve got it.”
“Thanks, Luck,” she said, giving me a hug as she passed me.
“Of course,” I said, giving her a quick squeeze before I stepped back. She was a sweet girl, and I didn’t fuck any of my employees, anyway.
I was fixing a pair of cocktails when I turned around and found the shifter girl leaning on her elbow on the bar. She raked her long blond hair back with her fingers, shaking her head as if she enjoyed the feel of her hair gliding across her exposed back. She was simultaneously sexy as fuck and completely oblivious to the strangers to either side of her, who were being lashed with her hair.
I dropped the two drinks I’d just made off and made my way down to her. “This isn’t a shampoo commercial,” I told her.
Her eyes widened as they locked on mine. “Excuse me?”
Up close, she looked even cuter. Her skin was tanned, but freckles dusted her nose and high cheekbones. Her lips had a pronounced bow and a pouty lower lip, perfect for nipping.
Forget it. “What can I get you?”
She glanced at her friends over her shoulder, and I closed my eyes, trying to be patient. She turned back to me with a saucy smile that didn’t look quite natural on her lips. “What’s on the menu?”
I stared back at her, crossing my arms over my chest, and raised my eyebrows. “I’m not.”
Her cheeks flushed. She was cute when she blushed. “I don’t want you. I was asking about cock—”
“Sure.” I cut her off. “I’ll make you and your friends something special.”
I could see them giggling behind her, egging her on. Too bad she was so ridiculous; she was a cute girl. But cute isn’t really enough. I couldn’t stand when shifters were uppity about humans.
Humans, shifters, whatever. We all had the same frailties. Everything that walks on two feet has a tendency to be a selfish dickhead.
Self included.
I fixed three drinks, and set them down in front of her, topping each with a cherry. “On the house.”
She grinned, a grin that crinkled the corners of her big green eyes. “What’s it called?”
“It’s the Spoiled Brat. You should like it, but I don’t much care for them. ”
She pulled a face and it made me feel a sudden strong desire to yank her over my lap and smack her ass. As much as I enjoyed spanking beautiful women, it was always purely sexual. I enjoyed pleasing women.
But as she sashayed back to her friends, the leather laces of her halter top drifting back and forth across the lean muscle of her back, I had an entirely different fantasy.
She never even said thank you.
Louis arrived to take my place behind the bar, and I headed back out onto the floor.
Later that night, I was circling the room when I glanced up at the balcony and saw a girl with a look of patient discomfort on her face as a man spoke to her. He seemed to have her pinned against the railing, and she leaned away from him subtly, although she was smiling.
I knew that look. I’d dealt with plenty of guys who left girls with that look. I headed for the stairs, but by the time I reached the landing, the blond from earlier was throwing her arms around the girl’s neck.
“There you are,” the blond said cheerfully. “I was looking for you.” She smiled at the guy. “I’ve got to steal her away, sorry. We’ve got so much catching up to do.”
He frowned and opened his mouth to say something that I was one hundred percent sure was going to be douchey.
I slung my arm around the blond shifter’s shoulders. “There you girls are. Come on, sweetheart. I grabbed us a booth.”
The guy seemed to shrink back into himself. Yeah, I thought so.
I steered the two girls to the booth one of my waiters had just held for me. The booths were always a hot commodity, usually unavailable unless someone was here right at nine o’clock.
The blond waved to her friends, who started over toward us. Great. The girl she’d rescued gave me a grateful smile, and I leaned over to tell her that when she was ready to leave, my bouncer would see her to a cab or whatever she needed.
Then I turned to blondie. I’d slid into the round booth and she’d slid in after me, and suddenly I realized the two of us were sitting intimately close together.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Kingston Luck.” I saw the guy from earlier pushing through the crowd toward us, his face irritated, and I rested my arm possessively on the back of her booth. As I leaned close to her, my lips brushing her ear, I felt her heart begin to race faster. “What’s yours?”
“Melanie.”
I dragged my gaze away from hers—with difficulty—to stare down the guy who had headed toward us. He suddenly diverted.
“What do you do, Melanie?” I asked, my attention half on her and half on the guy who was stumbling through the crowd toward the stairs now.
“I’m a college student,” she said, just as I took a sip of my whiskey sour, and I almost choked.As if she saw my face, she added, “I’m twenty-three.”
“I'd love to see some proof of that, friend." I knew how fast-and-loose shifters played with the law. Shifters all gambled on never being caught for who they really were; it wasn't hard to extend that to never being caught breaking all those inconvenient laws.
"Really?" she demanded.
"Really. Your friends, too."
"We're all grown," she promised me, pulling her ID card out of her wallet and sliding it across the slick tabletop to me.
"I doubt that very much," I told her. I studied her driver's license. I was good at spotting fakes—from art forgeries to ID cards—and this one looked legit. I handed it back with a shrug.
She leaned intimately close to me, resting her hand on my bicep, and before I could second guess myself, I leaned toward her too.
"If you think so very highly of me, why are you here at all?" she demanded.
"I thought it was cute how you helped that girl out," I admitted.
"Cute?" Her brows rose. "I just follow the girl code. We all have to look out for each other."
Given the things she and her friends had said about humans, I was surprised she'd care. "Even if they aren't your kind of people?"
"Everyone's my kind of people. I love everyone." She smiled at me over her drink as she li
fted it to her lips, a mischievous little smile. "Except you."
"Maybe you'd come to love me if you spent some time with me," I said. "What did your friends say, after all? 'There's a wide spectrum of things you can do...'."
Her eyes widened, and then she pulled a disbelieving face. "Well, awkward. You weren't supposed to hear that..."
"I know. But even if I couldn't lip-read, it was hard to miss you trying to eye-fuck me from across the room." I leaned close enough to whisper, "It was quite rude."
"So you hated it?"
"I didn't say that." I drained the last of my Scotch and set the glass on the table. "Stay out of trouble tonight, Melanie."
"My friends call me Mel."
"Good to know, Melanie." I scooted toward her, trying to give her the hint to move out of my way and let me out of the booth,
But she just grinned at me. "Does that bullshit really work for you? I mean, I saw plenty of girls all over you tonight, so it must, but it's kind of ridiculous. I have the worst case of secondhand embarrassment on your behalf."
Oh, so she'd been noticing me too, while I was trying not to notice her.
The challenge in her blue eyes made me want to smile, but I stared her down instead. "If you're going to call me out on my 'bullshit', you're going to have to be more specific."
"This whole 'I'm so much better than you, you're just a spoiled, immature brat I'm a real adult, I look like a sex god' shtick you've got going."
I raised my brows slowly. "You've got a legitimate complaint, but you're undercutting the power of your argument when you say I'm a sex god."
"I don't know if you are or not," she said, patting my bicep before she released my arm. "But you're a terrible fake boyfriend. It was fun, though. I just love being insulted—what girl doesn't?"
Most girls thought my 'bullshit' was pretty cute, actually. At least, I never had any shortage of girls who wanted to go home with me.
"This music was made to be danced to, and I for one am not wasting my night," Mel said with a big smile to her friends, and then she raised an eyebrow as she glanced at me, as if she wanted to be sure I knew she didn't want to waste her night with me.
I couldn't help but grin. Little spitfire.
She sashayed off into the crowd.
Chapter Three
Mel
The girls and I danced all night and for the most part, we had a good time. I tried to forget the man with the green eyes and nasty attitude, but they wouldn't let me. Jaime especially kept poking me, teasing me about how I should take advantage of his obvious interest.
"He expressed the opposite of interest, actually," I shouted above the music.
She quirked a dark eyebrow at me. "Even you're not innocent enough to think that."
I rolled my eyes. "I'm not that innocent."
"Sure." She reached out and pinched my cheek. "You've got that new car smell."
I narrowed my eyes at her. I was just about sick of her mean little comments, especially when they weren't even clever.
And I wasn't a virgin. I'd had a boyfriend in high school: first love and all that sweet nonsense that never works out.
I left her behind to go to the bathroom.
Walking into the black marble and rose gold bathroom and letting the door close behind me brought such a sudden sense of peace. There was a girl refreshing her red lipstick at the sink, but there was no line.
When I came out, I was blessedly alone as I washed my hands. I could take a second. I hopped up on the sink to scroll through social media on my cell phone and check my email—as if anyone was emailing me at 2am on a Saturday night—because I just needed a break from the racket of the club, no matter how sexy it was. I pulled at face at how low my battery was. At least Jaime and Carrie should be ready to head out soon.
When I headed back out, I couldn’t find Carrie or Jaime. At first, I was annoyed, and then annoyance spiraled into panic. It was fine, I told myself, I’d just take an Uber back. I’d never been alone at night like this in a city so it was a new feeling and it made me anxious—although of what exactly, I wasn’t sure.
I was looking across the crowd for them as I came down the stairs, and that must be why I missed a step.
I fell down the last several steps with a dramatic clatter that I swear to god drowned out the music.
I sprang to my feet before I could even catalog the damage. With my cheeks flushed, I managed to hobble across the dance floor even though pain spiked through my ankle with every step. I probably would’ve sat there on the shiny floor under the strobe lights cursing to myself for a while if my embarrassment hadn’t gotten me moving.
I limped past the bouncer, who nodded and opened the door for me, and into the cool night air outside the club. There was still a line to get in, which seemed ridiculous.
I turned back to the bouncer. “Ah, did you see my friends come out, by chance? A red haired girl and an obnoxiously pretty brunette in a silver dress like she thinks she’s Beyonce?”
Actually, I was sure Jaime thought she was better than Beyonce.
“Yeah,” he said, frowning. “They left.”
“Great. Oh, great. Thank you.” I limped a few steps away, but I really had nowhere to go yet, before I called Carrie.
She picked up after a few seconds while I fidgeted and sat down heavily on the curb so I didn’t have to stand anymore on my aching ankle. She sounded drunk. “Heyyyy!”
“Hey. Forgetting something?”
There was a blank pause and then she said, “Oh my god, Mel!”
“Where are you guys? Maybe I can catch up to you.”
“I didn’t even realize because you didn’t come with us! I just forgot all about it!”
“It’s okay, where are you?”
She started to say something, and my phone died.
I pressed my hands to my forehead, cell phone in hand. Who goes out drinking with their cell phone already low on battery from work? Who goes out drinking with idiots? Mistakes had been made.
“I’m pretty sure that I’m also better than you at getting home.” It was a familiar low, sexy voice behind me.
I turned to find Kingston Luck behind me. His hands were in his pockets, and he had a distinctly smug—but still sexy—grin across his lips.
“I don’t need you to rescue me,” I said. “I can call a cab.”
“You’re right,” he said. “You don’t need me to rescue you. But I wouldn’t mind driving you home.”
“Why?” I blurted out.
He shrugged. “I don’t want you to sue me for those treacherous stairs.”
I groaned. “You saw that?”
He nodded. “I tried to get to you to make sure you were okay, but you hobble faster in high heels than most girls run.”
“Everyone needs a special skill in life,” I muttered.
Hopefully it wasn’t my only skill.
“Are you all right?” When e crouched in front of me, his elbows braced on his thighs, he looked sexy as hell. His green eyes met mine, full of concern no matter how irksome his words, and I had to drag my gaze away.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I said.
He nodded, but he took my tender ankle in his hands anyway and pulled it into his lap. I definitely did not need his fingers stroking across my ankle, but I didn’t stop him.
Until he pressed a tendon and I hissed in pain.
“I think you’ve got a sprain,” he frowned. “Come on, I’ll drive you home, or I’ll get you a cab. On the house.”
“Does the free ride come with insults like the free drinks did?”
“If that turns you on,” he shot back. He offered me his arm, and after a second of doubt, I grabbed his forearm—which felt muscular even through the arm of his expensive suit—and let him help me up to my feet.
I wobbled briefly. My ankle felt worse now, as if it were getting more stiff by the minute. I took a step and winced, and then he swept me up into his arms, pulling me against his chest.
I let out a yelp of
surprise, even though I automatically grabbed his shoulders with my hands to steady myself. His body was hard against mine, firm and warm, and he smelled like sandalwood and soap.
To be honest, I didn’t hate being carried, not by him. But I felt like I should put up a fight. A girl has to maintain her dignity—even if she’s just wiped out on the stairs and been abandoned by her friends.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Cab or car?” he asked, making it very clear I had every opportunity to get away from him.
But I didn’t want to.
It’s not as if he were any danger to me anyway. When it came to mortal men, I always had the option to rip their throats out if they got handsy.
“Car,” I said. “But first, do you have any ice?”
I didn’t entirely want my time with him to end, for some reason.
He paused as if that had surprised him. “Yes.”
He carried me back into the club, and I thought we were heading to his office. Instead, he carried me into the elevator and we rode up to a penthouse above the club. The elevator doors chimed open into a sleek, modern living room overwhelmed by the view out the floor-to-ceiling windows that led onto a balcony; beyond the city lights, the ocean sparkled under the moon.
“You live here?” I frowned as he carried me carefully through the doorway, twisting to avoid banging my head on the doorframe.
“I own the building,” he said.
“I thought you were the bartender.”
“Among other things.” He deposited me on the couch and then moved to the freezer in the kitchen. The ice maker rattled.
“Seems like pertinent information.”
“Well, we don’t know each other yet, darling.” The pet name on his lips didn’t sound ridiculous like it should have; his voice was naturally sexy, low and husky and rich. That voice was a caress. Even if I was only borrowing that voice for one night.
He returned to the couch with a bag of ice, wrapping it in a hand towel. He sat beside me and reached for my leg, drawing my foot into his lap and placing the ice pack alongside it. He looked at me with genuine concern written across his face. “Better?”
I nodded, even though I’d all but forgotten the throb of pain in my ankle with his firm but gentle hands on my leg. No matter what he said, he touched me like we already knew each other well.
Bound to Change: A Limited Edition Spring Shifter Romance Collection Page 5
