Charlie
You know that feeling when the world suddenly stops turning? You can’t hear anything, but you feel every pair of eyes in the room staring at you?
That’s what I was feeling.
I had told the greeters who I was, but they must’ve been informed ahead of time because they didn’t say anything as they opened the doors for me. I looked around, but I couldn’t see my father anywhere. Even if I did manage to find him, I didn’t think he’d let me hang around with him for the rest of the party.
I was searching for the refreshments table when I felt someone tap on my shoulder. I turned around and Holy Jesus, this guy was huge. He was probably around 6’5” or so, but he wore a suit well. He was probably the only person there not wearing a tie, keeping the first two buttons of his shirt open and showing a sliver of skin. I gulped as I looked up to his face, and his mask did nothing to dampen the mischievous light from his ice-blue eyes, or hide the fact that he was so brutally handsome.
“I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before,” he said softly, the velvety undertones of his voice making me a little heady and my heart skip a beat. I cleared my throat to answer him.
“I don’t really make a habit of going to parties,” I coolly replied, and his mouth formed a lopsided smirk that made him ten times more attractive.
“Yeah. Parties like this aren’t really my scene,” he agreed, and I could tell that he meant it. Judging from his size and strength, I’d think he wasn’t much for swanky soirees such as this one. Which begged the question…
“Then what are you doing here?” I asked.
“I’m an endorser. It’s written in my contract that I have to make appearances,” he answered truthfully. “Are you under contract, too?”
I bit the inside of my lip. “Something like that,” I answered vaguely.
He narrowed his eyes but didn’t ask me to elaborate, and I gave him a point for that one. The music started playing, and I saw people breaking off into pairs to dance.
Mr. Mysterious cleared his throat and raised his hand toward me. “Care to dance?”
“I’m not much of a dancer,” I admitted, recalling how my dancing lessons these past few weeks crashed and burned.
“That’s not a problem. I’m pretty good at dancing,” he said confidently.
I raised my eyebrows, incredulous. I highly doubted that.
“You know, if you don’t want to dance here, we could go and hang out somewhere else, and I could guarantee it’ll be extremely fun,” he said.
I winced and opened my mouth to reject him when he cut me off. “There are three guys currently making their way toward you to probably ask you the same thing, and I’m sorry, but I don’t want to stop talking with you just yet.” He took my hand, not bothering to wait for my answer, and proceeded to pull me to the dance floor.
He wrapped his arm around my waist firmly while he held my hand with the other, and I placed my other hand on his arm, unable to turn my head away as he stared straight into my eyes. I tightened my grip on his arm involuntarily, and he pulled me closer to him.
He took a step back and then we were dancing, gliding, and swaying to the beat of the song. I had been afraid of the possibility of making a fool out of myself by stepping on his feet or missing a step, but it never happened. I was going to look down at my feet to make sure that I really wasn’t messing up, but a gentle squeeze on my waist kept me from doing it.
“Trust me,” he whispered, and I realized that I did trust him to lead me.
“Okay,” I said, and he smiled.
“I promise I’ll take your mind off everything, just for a little while,” he said, his voice low and sexy, making me raise an eyebrow at him.
“Oh, really?” I said, going under his arm as he twirled me away from him. I was smiling at him now, curious whether he could really pull off what he was promising to do. He had the same teasing smirk on his face now, and something was tickling the back of my mind. I recognized that smirk from somewhere else, but I couldn’t remember.
“Oh, is that a challenge?” he asked, as he pulled me back in his arms before sending me out for another spin.
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
His eyes twinkled, and he pulled me back to his arms sharply, making my back hit his chest with a jolt.
“If I succeed, I want a reward,” he said, holding me in place.
“What do you want?” I couldn’t help but ask him, and I caught my breath as I felt his arms wrap around me tightly and we slowly bent our knees. He bent low, his lips brushing on the shell of my ear.
“Your name,” he whispered.
His right hand squeezed my waist again as his left spread and he ran his fingers up my stomach slowly, inching dangerously closer and closer to my breasts as we rose.
“I don’t give my name out to random strangers,” I said, trying to stall him. “If you force me to say it, I might just run away.”
He chuckled and turned me back around to face him, pulling me closer to him so that I was pressed up against his chest, waves of heat rolling off him, into my body, and going down between my thighs. I gasped at the heat of his stare, unable to look away from him.
“You can run all you want. I love the chase,” he whispered hotly, and I shivered.
“I feel like I’ve met you before,” he said, his eyes clouding up and his breath caressing the side of my face.
I tilted my head as I stared at him in confusion. To be honest, I felt the same way about him, and I had been wondering where or when I’d seen him before.
“What makes you say that?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Just do,” he answered.
I smiled. “Maybe I’ve just got that kind of face,”
“Or maybe you feel the same and you’re being this way on purpose. It’s okay, though.” he said. The song was reaching its end, and I realized that he was about to win the challenge. His eyes snapped somewhere behind before looking at me again. “I don’t mind introducing myself first.”
I heard a voice in the background saying it was time to take the masks off, and I felt his hand caress my cheek, forcing me to look up at him.
His hand felt warm as we stared at each other, and I felt the blood rush to my cheeks, making me blush. He raised his hand up and wrenched his mask away from his head, and my eyes widened as I looked at the face of Sean West, the man who’d almost killed me a couple of weeks ago. The man I’d been seriously crushing on since I saw him play for the first time. The man who’d been making my heart beat so hard and fast for the last couple of minutes while he held me in his arms.