by Morgan Black
And then I saw it. The glow that I’d heard so many things about. At my age, women were having babies left and right, but it wasn’t for me. Just the thought of having something in my life and dictated my every move made me feel suffocated.
The happiness in her eyes over knowing that she was going to bring life into the world was beautiful, but I didn’t understand it. I’d never understand it.
As best as I could, I pretended to be excited for her. “What? Wow, that’s great news!”
She laughed, and happy tears sprang to her eyes making her glow and glisten even more. “I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I know you better than you think.”
“What?” I acted like I was clueless. “I’m happy for you,”
“It’s okay, Meela. I know babies and family isn’t your thing.”
What could I say? The girl knew me.
“That’s not true.” I tried to protest. But I knew it was pointless. “I’m just not personally ready, but I’m very happy for you.”
It was enough for her and she smiled. “Thank you.”
“When did you find out? Does Dillon know?” I asked, quickly changing the subject from me to her.
“I found out the day before last and I told Dillon last night.” Her larger than life grin told me there was more to her celebratory news.
“And?”
“And he proposed!” She couldn’t contain her excitement as she jumped to her knees in front of me. She pulled something from her pocket, and I watched as she slipped the small silver ring onto her finger. “I didn’t want you to see it before I had a chance to tell you,” she explained.
“I really am happy for you, Carrie. You’re my best friend and you deserve whatever is going to make you happy.”
“I couldn’t be happier.” This time her smile didn’t reach her eyes and I felt a sense of dread simmer.
“What’s wrong?”
She picked at her fingernail before finally looking at me. “Dillon wants me to move in with him.”
I couldn’t help but look shocked. “What? When?”
She sighed. “As soon as possible. He doesn’t want to miss out on anything with the baby and… I don’t want him too either.”
It made sense, and the rational part of me knew it did. Carrie was happy and in love. She was going to have a baby, and of course she’d want to start her life with Dillon as soon as she could, but I couldn’t help but feel sad.
After everything Carrie had done for me in the past two years—moving in with me so I didn’t have to do this alone. I wasn’t going to be anything but happy for her. Slipping on my best smile, I acted happy for my friend.
“Of course you don’t. I’m going to be fine, Car. Move in with Dillon. Wait, you said yes, right?”
She laughed. “Of course I said yes! You don’t get the ring unless you say yes, Meela.” She spread her fingers wide and held out her hand in front of her exhaling a dreamy sigh. Her lovey dovey expression didn’t last long before her face pinched.
“What’s wrong?” I was instantly on the alert.
“I wasn’t lying when I said my stomach was upset. The joys of morning sickness,” she said, as if I was supposed to understand.
Maybe to someone normal, but I didn’t know anything about babies, pregnancy, or what to expect when you’re expecting. All through my life, I rebelled against anything family related and everything that it entailed.
“Let’s celebrate in tonight.”
“What? No! I’ll be fine. It’s not too bad now so I need to enjoy the freedom of not having my head stuck in the toilet for the first trimester.”
I stared at Carrie like she’d just said she was an alien and grew another head. Who was this person and where was my friend? She talked as if she was a veteran mother and already had two kids worth of experience under her belt.
I knew Carrie wanted a family eventually. I used to make fun of her and pretend to gag every time she brought up the subject, but I never expected it in the prime of our lives.
It was strange to me how natural the early stages of motherhood suddenly became second nature to Carrie. Especially when I couldn’t get past the idea that something was growing inside of her. It was only more proof that baby making was never going to be in the cards for me.
I didn’t have time for babies, and I definitely didn’t have time for men. I was happy with my life and my career, and for now that was enough. And when it wasn’t, I’d figure it out then.
Carrie waved a ring tainted hand in my face. “Are you okay? I know this stuff weirds you out.”
“Stop it.” I dismissed her worries with a roll of my eyes. “Honestly, I’m fine, Carrie. As long as I’m celebrating with you, I don’t care where we do it.”
“Good because we’re going out. We’ll get all dressed up and go to that new place Nicole was telling us about. What was it called?”
“Lust?”
She snapped her fingers. “That’s the place. Let’s go. You call Nicole and you’re sister and we’ll go.”
While Nicole and Kaylee lived a good hour away from Charleston, it was Friday night and for a chance to go out, they’d be there in record time.
I watched Carrie get up from the couch and realized that our lives had just taken a turn in two totally different directions.
t was ten o’clock when we walked up to club Lust. The pink neon script was buzzing with life above the club doors. It was such an odd name for a club, but I guess in theory it made sense.
Wasn’t that what all clubs were about? Getting drunk and lusting after the men or women in the room? Not that I would have any clue about it. I was far from the type of girl who fell in lust with anyone. I kept my head in the books and focused on what was important to me. The law.
Inside, everything was decorated in pink and black. Chandeliers and sheer material lined the ceiling making everything appear sexy and sleek. Cocktail waitresses walked around with trays of pink and black tubes asking customers two questions… lust or disgust.
Lust was a pink liquid, and floating at the top was a thin pink candy. Disgust was black as tar, but I’d heard it tasted like black licorice. It moved around the thin shot tube like dark fire. Looking at the crowd around me, I was sure that lust was the obvious choice for many of the clubbers.
I suspected a lot of conceptions would take place tonight after couples left the club. So when the waitress approached us, I declined both.
“You’re no fun, Meme,” Nicole pouted.
“I just like the good stuff. Where’s the bar?” I asked the waitress, following her finger as she pointed me in the right direction.
An hour, three shots, and two rum and cokes later, Carrie and I had lost Kaylee and Nicole to a crowd of suit junkie stock brokers. I loved my sister dearly, and despite the fact that we looked alike, we were the complete opposite. While I was tamed and reserved she was wild and carefree.
Nicole was Kaylee’s side kick, they did everything together and with the three year age difference, I was glad she had someone she could relate too.
“On a scale of one to ten, how much do you wish you were at home in your turtle pajamas.” I asked Carrie, leaning against the bar.
Her lips puckered to the side as she thought about her answer.
“I’m going to say a solid seven.”
“I told you we should have celebrated in.”
Her expression changed and it was one I was very familiar with. “I worry about you sometimes, Meela.”
I frowned. I expected the older “sister” to come out in Carrie, but I didn’t expect her to say that.
“Why?”
“You don’t get out enough.”
“Since when has the club scene ever been a part of my persona? And since when did having a goal turn into a bad thing?”
“It’s not a bad thing, but when do you ever make time for you? You’ve devoted the last of your first year as a lawyer to one upping that jerk. I just don’t want you to forget why you became a lawyer in the first p
lace.”
Before I could respond her expression shifted again and she was talking to someone behind me.
“What are you doing here?” Carrie yelled over the obnoxious music.
By the shock in her voice, Dillon’s appearance was unplanned.
“Me? What are you doing here?” he countered, wrapping a possessive arm around her waist.
I liked Dillon, and he treated my best friend the way a man should treat a woman, but the way he marked her like his territory in the room full of horny drunk men was comical to me.
I kept my thoughts and feelings to myself, though. The girls already thought there was something wrong with my inability to wrap my head around anything relationship related.
“You’re pregnant, Carrie. You should be at home,” Dillon pleaded his case.
“I’m fine,” Carrie said, obviously forcing a smile. “We’re celebrating mine and Meela’s big news.”
Dillon looked at me as if noticing for the first time I was standing there. “Big news?” he raised his eyebrows at me.
I tried to wave off the attention, but Carrie was there to fill in the blanks for me. “She won another case against douche face.”
“Congrats. So are you the big, bad lawyer around the court house now?”
“Hardly. I’m just finally happy to have one upped that annoying son of a…”
A then a familiar laugh moved over me and I knew douche face had heard our conversation. I hadn’t even known he was there. It pissed me off that he was everywhere. The courthouse and now the club. I couldn’t seem to get away from him.
Landon moved close to our group as if he knew Carrie and Dillon personally and flashed his signature smile. If the music wasn’t so loud, I probably could have heard Carrie’s sigh.
“I’m douche face, aka Landon Tate,” he said, flashing another lethal smile and holding out his hand.
“I’m mortified,” Carrie said, turning three shades of red under the bright lights.
She accepted his hand and if she didn’t have a tiny being inside her stomach I would have hugged her hard for not saying it was nice to meet him.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you…” Landon said.
“Carrie.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Carrie.”
I was about to tell Landon to put his eyes back in his head, but then he noticed the ring on Carries hand and the possessive man at her side and his entire stance changed from flirty to casual.
The bass around us banged against my brain only adding to the aggravation of see him there. I was seconds away from telling him to get lost, when Nicole and Kaylee decided it was time to join us. I knew it was only so they could get in Landon’s line of view.
“We rushed right over.” Nicole said and I prepared myself to be embarrassed by the two.
“Who’s your friend, Meme?” Kaylee asked, not even bothering to cover her interest in Landon.
They were like a drunk pack of hungry lioness, and Landon was a giant tainted steak. It was my duty to let them know he’d leave them with a nasty case of food poisoning, but first I had to block the embarrassment I was sure they were going to lay on me.
“Oh god,” I groaned, looking down at the floor willing it to open and take me away from the situation.
I raised my hand. “This is Landon Tate, Landon this is Nicole and Kaylee.”
The instant I said his name, both of their faces fell and I suppressed the urge to laugh. It was one thing for me to openly hate Landon Tate, but it was another thing for him to know I obsessed over it to my friends. Knowing him, he would turn it into something it wasn’t.
“I see you’ve told your friends about me, Meme,” he taunted.
Glaring at him, I took a quick sip from my drink. “It’s still Ms. Davis to you Tate.”
Like usual, he wasn’t fazed by my cruelty.
Leaning in closer so no one else could hear him, he tucked my hair behind my ear. “I’ll remember that, Ms. Davis.”
I swallowed hard and tried to keep my composure. I didn’t respond since I knew coherent sentences weren’t a possibility. I wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or if it was Landon. All I knew was his words had struck me low in my stomach, and a slow pressure was beginning to build in my panties.
My mind was anti-Landon, but the lower parts of my body were all too happy to respond to his slow smolder.
“How about I get you another drink to make amends?” he said, leaning away and flashing me a cocky smile.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew what he was doing to me and all it did was strengthen my resolve.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said, downing the rest of my drink.
“I know you’re a hard ass, counselor, but how about tonight we tone it down and forget about the courtroom?”
“We’re not in court, Landon. I don’t have to put up with you.”
Throwing his head back, he laughed loudly. “You are a firecracker, Ms. Davis.”
“Yep. You should be careful with fireworks. They burn.”
“That’s true.” Reaching around me, he grabbed another drink from the bar before moving in and whispering in my ear. “No worries. I can handle fireworks and you can go off in my hands anytime you want, sweetheart.”
We were obviously not talking about fireworks, and the parts in me that were being weighed down with a want I didn’t understand rejoiced. I loved to hate him, and he knew it.
Somehow in the mix and mingling of the club, we got ditched by Nicole and Kaylee for a group of guys and the promise of a night out on the harbor in an expensive yacht.
Sitting at the bar with Landon, a pregnant miserable woman, and her obsessive fiancé just wasn’t doing it for me, but I knew Carrie would pretend to be fine until I forced her to leave.
“You should go home, Carrie. You don’t look so great and Dillon’s right, you should be at home resting.”
“But we’re supposed to be celebrating,” she pouted.
“We’ll celebrate tomorrow over fluffy scrambled eggs and crispy bacon,” I said.
The color drained from her face. “Please, don’t say anymore.” She held up her hand and pressed the other to her stomach. “Unless you want me to throw up all over you.”
“I’ll pass. Now get out of here before you do toss your cookies all over.”
She hugged me tight and promised to be at the apartment in the morning to celebrate. I watched her walk away with Dillon and sadness settled over me.
I’d spent many nights at the apartment alone, but I knew she’d always come back. Tonight would be different, and I wasn’t ready for the change of her not being there. I wasn’t ready to lose my best friend.
I turned away before I started to cry in the middle of the bar.
“Are you ready?” I felt the warmth of a hand and the slight pressure he applied made my spine tingle.
I’d almost forgotten he was there and that I’d just put myself in the awkward situation of being practically alone with him.
Looking up, my eyes clashed with his before they landed on his smile. His lips were plump and inviting—smooth and perfectly shaped. I couldn’t stop thinking about how they’d feel on my skin.
Shaking myself, I tried to push past the unwelcome thoughts. I had to maintain my stand. I was Meela Davis, kick ass lawyer extraordinaire and I was dealing with a snake. I couldn’t allow myself to get bitten… or could I?
“Excuse me?” I responded.
“Don’t play coy with me, Meela. Not when I’m just starting to enjoy your bite,” he said, wrapping his decadent lips around the mouth of his beer.
A tingle worked its way between my thighs, making me squeeze my legs together tightly.
“I never said it was okay for you to call me Meela, and if you’re wanting to get bitten then I suggest you keep it up.”
Looking down at me from under his thick lashes, he gave his bottom lip a good suck before the grin that I was slowly beginning to like spread across his face. “Is that a promise… Meela?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek as I watched Carrie and Dillon disappear out the door and into the heated Charleston air. They were the last thing that stood between me and all my irrational lustful thoughts of Landon.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
I knew what flirting was. I wasn’t an idiot, but something about the room around us—the sweaty bodies pressed up against each other, the way the bass was moving through me, and the alcohol that was swimming through my veins… it was all adding to the ambiance around us—it was adding to Lust.
“The better question is, what are you doing?” Moving closer, his knee skimmed the inside of my thigh as he placed himself between my legs. “Haven’t you had enough foreplay? And what’s with the girlish act?”
I scowled. “I don’t know what act you’re talking about and I’m not a girl, I’m a woman.”
His greens eyes burned and my skin went up in flames as he took yet another step toward me, pressing into my heat. “Prove it, sweetheart.”
Turning toward the bar, I lifted my glass and downed yet another drink. When I turned around, he was close, surround me from all sides.
“Are you going to hate me forever, Meela?” He whispered into my ear, making the hairs on my arms stand on end.
It was all too much. His presence, dear God his presence, the alcohol, the noise. I couldn’t handle it and I definitely couldn’t handle the way he was looking at me.
“I don’t hate you.” I managed to get out.
He smiled, and fire licked at my insides. I didn’t understand. He was doing something to me and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
“First of all,” he said, pressing into me and fingering a strand of my blonde hair. “You’re not a very good liar. I can see the truth every time your blue eyes spark.”
“I’m not lying,” I rasped.
Again, he grinned like he had me. At that moment a waitress walked by with the tray containing the black and red tube shots. Stopping her, he grabbed one of each and held them up.
“Prove it,” he said, licking the edge of one of the shots as if he was about to down it. “Lust or disgust?”
Looking at the two shots in front of me, one pink and full of passion and the other black as the night outside the doors, I chewed on the inside of my lip.
