by Megyn Ward
Jesus, it looks like Ed Hardy and Betsy Johnson had a baby and that baby threw up in here.
I hate LA.
My phone buzzes on the bar in front of me.
My brother.
Again.
I kick the call to voicemail and take a drink.
Shitty.
Fucking.
Day.
“Who the hell do I have to kill to get a drink in this god-forsaken place?”
I look up from my half-empty glass to find a woman standing a few feet away from me. Thick, chestnut brown hair pulled into a low ponytail.
Olive skin. Dark, slim-fit jeans. A plain white T-shirt topped with a cherry red cardigan. A profile that has me doing a double take.
“What are you drinking?” I don’t really care. I only ask so she’ll look at me.
“Well—” She gives me a long-suffering sigh and looks at me like I hoped, aiming a pair of brown eyes at me, deep and dark enough to drown in. “I’m trying to drink a whiskey ginger, but I’ve come to accept that is a pretty lofty aspiration.”
Even though it’s been a shitty fucking day, I laugh. “What’s your name?”
She hesitates, pulling her bottom lip between her teeth to give it a nervous chew. For a second, I’m sure she’s not going to answer me—which makes me like her even more. “Elle,” she tells me, letting go of her lip.
“Elle?” I cut her a quick smirk. I don’t know what her name is, but it sure as fuck isn’t Elle. “You just made that up.”
“I did not.” Her spine snaps straight—either because I caught her in a lie or because I insulted her. It’s hard to tell.
“So, Not-Elle...” I pick up my glass and take a swallow. The icy vodka slides down my throat, as
smooth as silk. “Are you an actress?” I wait for her to gush all about her bus ride from Nebraska and how she has an appointment with some sketchy agent or how she has an audition lined up with an even sketchier casting director she met online.
Instead, she looks at me like I just asked her if she enjoys nude sky-diving. “No.” She shakes her head but before I can ask her what she does do, she says, “What’s your name?”
“Lex.” Normally, I’d do what I accused her of—give her a fake name and try not to laugh while she tries to google me on the sly. Instead I tell her the truth. “Lex McLeod.”
“Lex?” Now she’s laughing at me. “That is not a real name,” she says, sliding onto the stool next to me.
I angle myself toward her and give her a grin. “Sure, it is.” Something stirs in my blood that I
haven’t felt in a long time. Interest. Real interest. “Ever hear of Lex Luthor?”
“You’ve got way too much hair to be a super-villain,” she says, shaking her head. “Besides, a super-villain would’ve figured out a way to get me a drink by now.”
Challenge accepted.
Planting my hands on the bar, I vault over it, landing on the other side. “Whiskey ginger?” I say, reaching under the bar for a glass.
She nods, her warm brown eyes widening slightly before sneaking a look down the length of the bar. Seth, the bartender on duty, doesn’t even look at me. “You work here.”
I shrug because I don’t want to tell her the truth, but I don’t want to lie either. Filling the glass with ice, I give it a generous pour of top-shelf single malt before forcing myself to give it a shot of ginger ale with the mixer gun. It’s good whiskey. Adding anything to it seems sacrilegious. “Not-Elle is not an actress.” I add a cherry because the damage is already done and because I want to watch her put it in her mouth. “You’re also not from LA,” I say, setting the glass in front of her.
Giving Seth one last look, she finally settles her gaze on me and shakes her head. “What gave me away?” she says reaching for the glass with a lopsided smile. “Was it the sweater?”
I make a non-committal noise in the back of my throat and take a drink, mostly to hide the fact
that now that she mentioned her sweater, I’m imagining her in it and nothing else.
“Do you work here?”
“Is your name really Elle?” I don’t know why it matters to me, but it does. Maybe because for the first time in days, I don’t feel like smashing everything I can get my hands on.
“Yes.” Heat rises in her cheeks, staining them pink while she does that thing with her bottom lip again, rolling and chewing on it while she thinks about my question. “It’s short for Ellenore.”
“Ellenore…” I try it out and find that I like it. I’ve met enough Brandis and Santanas and Taylors to last me a lifetime. “My brother owns the place.” There I go, telling the truth again. I tell myself that it’s because she told me the truth, so it’s only fair, but that’s not really why. I tell her because even though it’s been a shitty day and
I’ve only known her for ten minutes, I like her. A lot.
And I want her to like me back.
She laughs and shakes her head while stirring her drink with the straw I stuck in her glass. “So, not a super-villain—just super-privileged.”
“Can’t I be both?” From the corner of my eye, I watch the redhead she was sitting with slip out of their booth and saunter her way across the room. She looks vaguely familiar—whether because she looks like every wannabe starlet in LA or because she’s an actual working actress is hard to tell.
“I guess.” Elle laughs and gives me a shrug while swirling the cherry in her glass around by its stem. “But wouldn’t that just make you Batman?” She pops it into her mouth before rolling it around with her tongue and I’m 100% certain she has no idea how fucking sexy she is. Before I can recover from watching that tongue of hers and imagining how it would feel wrapped around my cock, her friend sidles up to the bar.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she says, flipping her long, red hair over her shoulder with a practiced flick. “I just realized I have a 5AM call-time tomorrow.”
“Oh…” Elle looks at me, the regret on her face is palpable. Goddamn, she’s adorable. “Okay. Well, it was nic—”
“Don’t be silly.” Her friend shakes her head. “I’m sure—” she looks at me, obviously waiting for me to supply my name.
“Renaldo.”
“Right.” She smirks. “I’m sure Renaldo is more than willing to give you a ride home.” Is it my own wishful thinking or did she just emphasize the word ride?
I look at Elle. “I think I can manage that.”
She does that thing with her bottom lip again. “Dan—”
“Have fun.” She leans in and presses her glossy lips to Elle’s cheek and murmurs something that has Elle’s eyes bulging and her head shaking. Before she can say anything, the red head looks at me and smiles. “I took your picture,” she says, lifting her phone. “So, play nice.” No matter how plastic she seems, she obviously cares about her friend.
“Yes, ma’am.” I give her a snappy salute.
She gives Elle a wink and walks out the door.
Ellenore
What just happened?
What the actual fuck just happened?
My best friend—the one person I can count on in this world, the person I rely on most—basically just pimped me out to the hottest guy in the bar.
That’s what happened.
Ridiculous.
That’s the first word that popped into my head when I looked at him. Dark blond hair, just long enough to be considered unruly. Strong, angular jaw covered in golden stubble. Soft, generous mouth. Straight, white teeth. Deep-set eyes, the kind of blue that if you look into them for too
long, a search party is going to have to be formed to find you. Tattoos reaching up from the collar of his shirt to lick at his neck. I’m pretty sure the term ridiculous extends to what’s going on under the shirt too. Ridiculous… and vaguely familiar. Not in a didn’t I see you on TV sort of way. In an I passed you on the street last week and almost ran into a light post because I was staring so hard kind of way.
It’s the fact that he’s so
ridiculously out of my league and possibly semi-famous that I felt comfortable talking to him in the first place. There is no way a guy who looks like this is going to be interested in someone who looks like me. I’m a gatekeeper. I’m the girl guys like him start conversations with so they can get to girls like Dani. No need to get all tongue-tied and stupid over a guy I can only dream about because girls like me don’t get ridiculous.
We get bland.
Average.
Respectable.
The human equivalent of vanilla pudding.
Guys like Derek.
Derek is a douche. He broke up with you, remember
It was mutual.
No, it wasn’t. He dumped you.
Yeah, but he says he misses me. That counts for something, right?
Yeah, it says he expected you to be waiting for him. That he takes you for granted.
It says you dodged a bullet because when Derek broke up with you, you weren’t heartbroken about losing him. You were panicking over the fact that losing him meant you didn’t have a plan anymore.
It says you’re so tightly wound that you’d rather marry a guy you don’t love and be miserable for the rest of your life than not have a list of step-by-step life directions to follow.
It says that you need some headboard-knocking, tectonic plate shifting, come-so-hard-your-grandma-can-feel-it-in-Decatur sex in your life and you need it right freakin’ now.
Maybe so, but not with this guy.
No way.
If I can’t take my shirt off in front of someone who is firmly in my league, then I sure as hell can’t take it off in front of someone who isn’t even playing the same sport as—
Shit, he’s talking to me.
“Hmm?” Great. Now that Dani has unceremoniously dumped me in his lap and run out of here like the place is on fire, I’ve fallen victim to selective mutism.
My struggle must be obvious because the corner of his mouth kicks up in a smirk. “I said, what’s ridiculous?”
Your face.
The hope that you might let me sit on it.
“Dani.” I blurt out her name, like a swear word.
“Dani’s your friend?” He glances at the door she just ran through.
I nod even though I’m suddenly sure that friend is a strong word. She’s not my friend. She’s a sadist. “I just moved here a few days ago and my boyfriend just dumped me and she thinks I need—”
“To get laid?” He arches a dark, sandy brow at me while his deep, blue gaze flicks from my eyes to my mouth and back again. “By me.”
OhmygodOhmygodOhmygod…
I nod and swallow the wad of cotton that seems to have suddenly lodged itself in my throat. “Which is—” I make an up and down gesture with my hand. “I mean, look at you. It’s—”
“Ridiculous.” The corner of his mouth kicks up in a smirk again.
“Yes. Thank you.” Air rushes into my lungs and I can breathe again. My chest doesn’t feel like a
trash compactor. I’m not wondering if the ladies’ room has a window and if I can fit through it. He agrees with me. He understands that I’m not hitting on him. That I’m as much a victim as he is. “I mean, she’s clearly insane.”
He gives me a solemn smile. “Clearly.”
“She even suggested that I sleep with my boss.” I take a healthy swallow of the cocktail he made for me in a desperate hope that it will lubricate my throat. “Which is rid—”
“Ridiculous. Got it.” His lids narrow around those impossibly blue eyes and the smirk falters. “Who’s your boss?”
Shit.
“No one.” This is LA. Everyone’s boss is someone. I shake my head, eager to get away from the subject of Landon Trask. “He’s just some guy. No one important.” I shrug. “Anyway, I’m really sorry she dumped me on you like this.” Averting my gaze, I reach into my purse to fumble out my cell phone. “Don’t worry, I’ll just—” I’ll call an Uber. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll call an Uber, go back to Dani’s place and murder her for doing this to me. Planned formed, I look up at him with a relieved smile “I’ll just get out of your—”
“Oh…” That smirk is back in full force. He leans across the bar and into my space, the sudden proximity of his mouth to mine pushing the air out of my lungs in a rush. “I think you’ve misunderstood my intentions.”
“Intentions?” I say it like I have no command over the English language, whatsoever. Like I have no idea what the word means. “You have intentions? Toward me?”
“Yes.” He reaches for me—past me—to pull my ponytail over my shoulder. “I do. Would you like to hear them?”
I swallow hard, nodding like a dummy because I can’t catch my breath. Can’t seem to make my mouth move to form so much as a single word.
“Good...” His fingers tighten around my hair to tug me closer, shooting tingles across my scalp. “I intend to take you home with me, Ellenore,” he whispers it, his lips brushing against mine with every word. “I intend to get you naked.” His blue eyes go dark, and his mouth curves in the kind of smile that would lay me out flat if I weren’t already sitting. “And I intend to make you come so goddamned hard, you forget your own name.”
Holy.
Jesus.
“I’m dressed like a soccer mom.” What am I doing? Am I actively trying to repel him?
He leans away just enough to look at me. The smile holds. “Hopefully not for long.”
“I don’t—I mean, I really—shit.” I squeeze my eyes shut so I don’t have to look at him because he’s too perfect. Too everything I’m not supposed to have. “I’m bad at this.” Obviously. “I don’t know what to do.”
The fingers around my ponytail tighten again, jerking me closer and I gasp, seconds before his mouth closes over mine. I feel his tongue skim along my lower lip, gently coaxing my mouth open, and suddenly I know. I know what to do.
I do what I want.
Opening my mouth, I can’t help the sigh that shudders up my throat when his tongue slides past my lips to tangle with mine. His teeth nipping and teasing, slow and hungry. Like he’s starving. Like he wants to eat every last bit of me ut wants to take his time. Wants to savor every bite.
Finally, he pulls his mouth from mine and I reluctantly open my eyes to find him looking at me. “Say yes.”
Out of my league.
So out of my league.
I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until I let it out in a rush, formed around a single word.
“Yes.”
Trust me when I tell you that Lex and Ellenore are hands down one of the hottest couples I’ve ever written. Their story is sexy and sweet and I can’t wait for you to read it!
Also by Megyn Ward
The Gilroy Clan
Pushing Patrick
Claiming Cari
Having Henley
Conquering Conner
Destroying Declan
Taming Tesla
Reaching Ryan
Giving Grace
The Kings of Brighton
Tobias
Logan
Grayson
(Coming in 2021)
Jase
(Coming in 2021)
Mr. Right
(Coming in 2021)
One Night Series
DRIVE
GRIND
With Shanen Black
My Way to You
Paradise Lost
Diving Deep
Hard Dive
Tidal Wave
