Kace seemed delighted with himself thinking it was his skill that had set me on fire and I was embarrassed when he commented that he had finally learned how to “push my buttons.”
Once in the tub with him I lay resting between Kace’s legs. Dropping my head back against his chest, I closed my eyes. Glad that my back was to his front and thankful that I didn’t have to face him for a while.
Reflecting on what had just happened I couldn’t deny what thoughts of Gibson did to me, but wondered how I could find Gibson Barclay remotely appealing with his whorish behavior towards women.
CHAPTER 2 - TOWELS
Chloe
Reluctantly, I began to prepare to go to work, and dreading the thought of facing Gibson after the night before. M3rCy were playing again that night. Hoping that with my short shift, I’d have done my work and left by the time they arrived. I wasn’t on glass duty that night, just cleaning and replenishing the bar for the evening shift.
Placing my tablet on the side, I set the music on shuffle and began to clear the counter top to clean and polish. Startled by a suddenness of a blinding flash of lightning, followed by a loud clap of thunder, I made my way to the window to look out.
Staring out at heavy downpour, I was distracted from the mundane task I was doing. Relentless patterns tapped out on the window panes like beats of a rhythm, for a song I was yet to write. Life wasn’t easy away from home, but I had learned to deal with most things since moving here.
Sweeping floors and washing beer stained, wine colored vinyl seating wasn’t exactly what I thought college life was going to be about, but needs must and I was definitely in need. Learning the value of money was one of the compromises I’d made to come to college in California from Florida.
Staring out, I was pulled out of my reverie by a commotion in the hallway leading from the bar to the car park out back. Before I could compute what the noise was, Gibson Barclay and his rowdy band had invaded the bar.
Dripping wet, his hair plastered flat to his head, Gibson was the vision of male perfection. His wet t-shirt was clinging to every fabulous sculptured contour of his ripped torso. Satiny tanned skin was shining with a glow only cool rain seemed to give it. Thick lines of his tattoos were clearly visible through the thin, white, cotton material, which had gone transparent and clung to his honed muscular frame.
“Any towels for a drowning man over here?” Drawing my gaze reluctantly up to meet his, my legs buckled and my heart raced at the shock of even interacting with him, and that he had even noticed I was in the same room as him. Girls like me were invisible to guys like Gibson in normal circumstances.
Smiling sexily at me with his perfectly formed mouth and luscious lips as water droplets ran down his face and neck, he raised an eye brow in question to me, waiting for me to respond to his request.
There was a glint in his eye that said he may have very well begun to flirt with me. Silence hung in the air, whilst I tried to assimilate what he had asked me, because the effect he was having on me was incredibly distracting.
Glancing up at his face, I thought my imagination must have been playing tricks on me, but I had a weird feeling there was this…thing, that happened between us. And, for a few seconds it seemed like we had shared a moment when our eyes connected, because his smile then stretched into his trademark roguish grin. Then I felt it was definitely my fantasy messing with my mind.
Honestly? It could have been a fantasy interjecting in my real life interaction with him, but whatever it was, I was riveted to the spot. Hungry eyes feasted unreservedly on the sight before me, taking in every inch of the sexy man-whore that was Gibson Barclay.
Becoming conscious I was dressed in my tatty, white tank-top and how plain and dowdy I was in comparison, I shifted awkwardly in front of him. Open mouthed and practically drooling, I drew my arm across my chest to hide my horrible worn down appearance.
There had been several occasions when I had been subjected to his less than discreet womanizing and lewd behavior, but even after everything I’d seen and knew about his reputation, I still fantasized about him. I’d never felt a pull toward any other guy like I had with him.
Just being in the same room as him made me a quivering, nervous mess, and I hated that a guy like him could have that weird sexual effect on me. Being in a long term relationship with Kace didn’t seem to be a consideration, especially when I tried to imagine the kind of kinky stuff Gibson might get up to in the bedroom…or anywhere else for that matter.
The conversation I had with Ruby the night before was playing over in my mind. Once, when my girlfriends and I were having a slumber party, I admitted that I would have considered throwing over my relationship with Kace, my high school sweetheart and steady boyfriend, for one night with a guy like Gibson if he’d asked me.
Maybe I’d said that because I knew there was more chance of hell freezing over, than any possibility of that happening. No matter what I knew about him, and the red flags that were everywhere in relation to him, I’d become sexually aroused, while being touched by Kace, but with Gibson on my mind.
“Did you hear me, darlin’?” Horrified at my own lack of composure and that I’d drifted off into my fantasy and I realized I’d been objectifying him while he was watching me. Catching the briefest glimpse of a wicked grin again, I dropped my gaze once more to the floor, nodded and headed off to the closet in the office, where spare towels were kept.
I was mortified at the way he could make me feel so unsophisticated, yet he was only a year older than me. I was dreading the thought of returning with the towels because that meant facing him again.
Luckily, Matt the owner of Beltz Bar, liked to shower during the long hours he kept, so there was always a good supply. Reaching up on tip toe, I began to pull five from the top shelf, and I was about to turn, when firm hands landed on either side of my hips and finger tips applied the slightest pressure into my flesh. “Whoa! Careful. Let me take those from you.”
Gibson must have crept up on me, which heightened the effect of his touch on me. Sharp pangs of electrical currents jolted deep in my core and my mouth went dry. Working a swallow, I turned my head. I regretted it as soon as I realized his lips were only a couple of inches from mine and damn he smelled incredible. Clean fresh laundry, mingled with a unique body smell in his wet clothing, and fresh rain. Jeez the guy was so hot I could have scorched myself.
Releasing his grip, Gibson reached out and when he did, his hand brushed over my fingertips, sending tingles down my spine, as he secured the pile of towels in his grasp. Blushing, I passed them forward and quickly made space between us, by taking myself over to the open doorway.
Touching me like that was a liberty, but everything Gibson did was one big liberty and he seemed to get away with it because of how he looked and his charismatic ways. Plenty of times, I’d seen him pull a ‘lucky girl’ from the audience and kiss her roughly, during his band’s performance. He definitely wasn’t playing to the crowd either. Sometimes Mick, his lead guitarist, had to pull him away from them to keep the gig on track.
Turning away to hide the fact that he’d unnerved me so much, I headed to the staff room to collect my jacket. Staying there in the bar a moment longer would just have got even more awkward for me. Besides, the storm had passed and my shift was short so I didn’t want to hang around longer than necessary.
Kace was waiting in the parking lot and was already opening the door of his truck for me. I climbed up into the cab, feeling guilty for having those unwelcome feelings about someone like Gibson, when I was lucky to have a fabulous boyfriend like Kace.
Smiling warmly, I leaned over and kissed Kace and tried to put as much passion into it as I could, partly because I loved him and partly to rid myself of the feelings that I’d just had when Gibson had touched me.
Entering the floor where my dorm room was, I heard music and smiled when I saw Julie dancing with her back to me. She was in her underwear and lost in the moment to “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga. Oblivious
that I had walked in on her, she was twerking and trying to body pop, which made me shriek with laughter. Spinning around, she hid her body, then realizing it was me she lunged at me swiping my arm. “Jesus, you gave me the fright of my life.”
Smirking wickedly at her, I said, “I could say the same. Look at you dancing around in your panties.” Shaking her head, she leaned over and pulled a blue cotton t-shirt from the pile of clean laundry and pulled it down over her slender frame.
“What time are you meeting Kace?” Those words jolted me right back to the bar and M3rCy’s upcoming performance. Unsure I would be able to sit through it, I swallowed hard, twisting my mouth at Julie.
“I don’t think I’m going to make it tonight. An assignment for my media class is proving more difficult than I thought.” It was a bare faced lie. I could still feel the soft pressure of his hands on my hips from that briefest touch, but one that I was finding hard to shake.
Eventually, Julie wore me down because part of me was being irrational about that little encounter. Wishful thinking probably made me see more than there was, besides, I couldn’t hide from him indefinitely. Once Julie talked me around I showered and changed to go out with them. There was no way around it anyway I had to face him again sooner or later, Beltz Bar fed me
Seeing Kace made my heart swell. After all this time he could still make my heart flutter and the thing with Gibson was probably infatuation. Leaning back lazily against the front of his truck, his legs crossed at the ankles, Kace was engrossed in his cell phone. My stiletto heels clicked noisily as I approached and he looked in my direction.
Slowly, his pouting mouth stretched into a beautiful, sexy smile, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “Well, hello there beautiful. How is my gorgeous girl tonight?” Smiling warmly as we walked towards each other, I licked my lips, preparing for the kiss I knew we’d have as soon as we made contact. Strong, warm arms wrapped around me-- one around my waist, one over the back of my shoulders, as Kace pulled me into his chest.
“Great, and it just got a whole lot better.” Grinning with pleasure, I glanced up at him, right before he bent and kissed me softly on the mouth. All my worries about Gibson and going back to the bar dispersed as soon as Kace were together.
I had started to think that my interlude with Gibson was all nonsense and I’d been ridiculous in my thinking that what happened was anything other than an innocent interaction. From my own perspective, I thought it was probably best for me to get this particular gig over with, as it would the first of many more times I’d have to be around him.
My friend Ruby and her boyfriend Dylan had already snagged a table for us. Unfortunately for me, it was right in front of the stage. Stupid that I should feel so shaken by what was probably a very innocent situation I had blown out of proportion.
Ruby stood up from her chair and edged her way around Dylan’s legs to cuddle me. “Thank God you’re here, I thought I was going to be stuck listening to these guys talking car parts like they were pornographic images. I mean who would have thought there were so many parts to an engine, that it had been the only topic of conversation for the last twenty minutes?”
Ruby’s face was a picture, her lips pursed and her eyes rolling. She always did look very dramatic, and had one of those really animated faces when she was explaining something. Smiling my understanding of how boring the guys got when they talked cars, I nodded towards the rest rooms for us to have a five minute catch up without the guys in earshot.
Kace saw someone he knew and excused himself from me as at we were walking to the table. When I turned to see if he was coming he was at the bar talking to one of the girls in his lab class. Their discussion looked pretty intense.
Glancing over, he seemed to stop in his tracks and smile at me, and I immediately relaxed. Turning back to the girl, he continued to talk to her, leaning in a little as if she couldn’t hear what he was saying.
She looked frustrated with him whatever they were talking about, and although Ruby was talking to me, I was still watching them as we crossed the floor, until I had to lose sight of them to go into the restroom.
“So, we have a ‘close up and personal’ of Gibson tonight, Chloe. Still got that hot fantasy going around in your head about him?” Feeling flustered, my heart started beating quickly because I was taken off guard by Ruby’s remark about the disclosure I made at the slumber party. She was choosing this moment to throw it back at me. I began to blush and protest that it was all made up on the spur of the moment to shock her and the other girls there.
Ruby laughed loudly and shook her head. “No way, Chloe, we all saw your reaction when you were talking about him, honey. It wasn’t as much about what you said about him, and more about how you said it.”
Turning away from her to use the hand drier, I was glad of the noise it made because I needed a moment to collect my composure and leave a pause in the conversation. Protesting too much was much worse than letting it go.
Leaving the restroom, I wondered how I was going to get through the evening after the encounter with Gibson that morning and Ruby’s comments. The night was only beginning. Desperate to shake off the lingering feelings that his brief touch had given me, I decided to focus completely on Kace during M3rCy’s performance.
Not usually the most outgoing or demonstrative person, I surprised Kace by sitting on his lap when we got back to the table. I felt a bit embarrassed about my public display of affection but this was rewarded with a seductive smile on his part, and he slid his warm hand up the inside of my tight fitting, red t-shirt at the back, causing the hem to ride up my belly at the front.
Just as he did that, Gibson and the rest of M3rCy walked out on stage, his gaze immediately falling to my bare mid-rift. When he looked up again, he caught me watching him, watching me. Raising an eyebrow at me, he smirked suggestively then licked his bottom lip.
Looking away, I squirmed uncomfortably on Kace’s lap, which Kace read as a sexual overtone and pulled me tighter onto his growing erection, by gripping my left hip and positioning me more central on him.
For a moment I thought about having an imaginary migraine so that I could leave, but I knew I had to get over the stupid misplaced attraction I felt for a guy who treated women like sexual objects.
The conversations I’d heard previously from his band members was enough to turn me off. And, although I hadn’t actually heard Gibson use the term, his band mates often talked about other bars they were going to as places where they got to sample “fresh meat.”
Striking the first cord, Mick, the lead guitarist, dragged me out of my reverie and my eyes automatically followed the sound. Gibson was walking over to the mic wearing a tight fitting black t-shirt with a Harley Davidson motif on the front, tight fitting dark blue jeans and a pair of biker boots. Classical disheveled rock star attire.
Strong upper arms strained the short sleeves of his t- shirt and exposed his amazing bold tribal tattoo on one arm, and a clever bass guitar tattoo on the other. The guitar strings on this were inked like the stave on a music manuscript, with notes positioned along the strings or stave, and words written along the neck above which said, “Heart strings can only truly be tugged by music.”
While wrapping his fingers around the mic he took from the stand, the introduction to a cover of “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure played. An instant hush fell as the room held their breath waiting for him to sing.
Choosing the line ‘I’ll run away with you,’ he started staring straight at me and I was embarrassed by his attention. Gibson seemed to sense my discomfort and that only made him focus all the more on me.
Coming close to the edge of the stage, he made me his target female to sing to. That was a very normal occurrence for him; Gibson did that with every song. He generally singled out a female in the audience and sang in a way that made the girl feel it was just for her.
Averting my eyes from him, I looked in Ruby’s direction and she was singing along but raised her eyebrow at me. Her questioning brow
made me feel like I was being ridiculed by the both of them, so I looked at the floor. Rising off Kace’s lap before the song ended, I excused myself to go to the restroom.
I was humiliated by what had happened and there was no way I could continue to sit there with the level of scrutiny I was under. Twice in twenty four hours I had been stuck in the same restroom, mortified by the selfish attitude of Gibson fucking Barclay.
CHAPTER 3 - LUCKY GIRL
Chloe
Somehow, I managed to fumble my way through the rest of the night in the bar after Gibson’s ‘personal performance’ aimed at me. It wasn’t so bad when Julie and Brody arrived. She positioned a chair directly in front of my line of vision from the stage, and that gave me some respite from the scrutiny that Gibson had me under.
Ruby was the only one who seemed to notice what was going on with Gibson and as soon as we were alone she cornered me. “Oh. My. God. Chloe. Talk about eye fucking? It’s a wonder he didn’t whip his dick out and shove it down your throat. That performance between you both was smoldering hot! If you had seen your face, it was priceless. You were trying to give him an, I- couldn’t- give- a- shit face, but what I was seeing, was an uncomfortable, hot and horny reaction from you.”
“Ruby! That’s bullshit, why would I feel anything for a guy like that when I’m lucky to have someone like Kace?” Ruby looked like she was considering my comparison for a moment then grinned.
“Gibson Barclay, experienced, seriously hot, highly sexed and well-oiled machine, is why.” She grinned wickedly at me. “Come on Chloe, there isn’t one girl on campus that would turn that guy down if they came on his radar. Well, I definitely wouldn’t.”
Romance: Gibson's Legacy ( New Adult Contemporary Erotic Romance) (Last Score Book 1) Page 2
