Chapter Nine
Robyn
Against my better judgement, the following Friday I found myself at the large entrance doors to Club Twist again. I had been reluctant to go at first, because the idea of Sasha hitting on Oliver right before my eyes hadn’t sat well in my stomach, but after much persuasion I had agreed to come, just to stop her whinging at me.
Surprisingly, Chloe had been up for it, too, with no arguments at all, and so at just gone nine-thirty the three of us handed over our second guest pass, got our visitor stamps, and stepped into the dark, warm interior of the club.
Like some sort of magnet, my eyes were immediately drawn to the area of the bar where I’d first seen Oliver last week, and my stomach gave a huge lurch as I saw his broad-shouldered profile. He sat on a stool and was leaning forward as he spoke to the guy behind the bar.
He was here. Just as he’d said he would be.
Knowing Sasha had her eye on him, I decided not to approach him. Instead, I made my way through the crowd to the same stool I’d occupied last week, which was at the opposite end of the bar from him. I’d expected Sasha to make her move right away, that was usually her style, but she ordered us a round of shots, downed hers, and dragged Chloe off towards the dance floor, leaving me to make some more notes for my research.
I’d remembered my notepad this week, and was soon so engrossed in my scribbling that I didn’t pay any attention to the customers directly around me. I didn’t even notice when someone took the stool next to mine. I did, however, notice when a very recognisable voice ordered a double single malt with a touch of water.
Fuck. Oliver was now right next to me. He’d moved to sit beside me. My stomach flip-flopped wildly with nervous excitement, and I allowed myself a moment of calm before the storm and closed my eyes, drawing in slow, steady breaths and trying in desperation to slow my pounding heart. His clean scent washed over me, and I felt my skin heat, just from his proximity. This man really did do crazy things to my body.
Eventually, after several seconds of silence, I slid my notepad and pen into my handbag and plucked up the courage to turn towards him. I raised my gaze up his gorgeously suited body. He looked just as perfect as he had last week, with a ramrod-straight back and one foot propped on the rung of my stool. I continued to raise my eyes until they met his deep denim blues, and then gulped nervously when I found an intense, purposeful expression on his face.
‘Hi, Oliver,’ I mumbled awkwardly.
‘Good evening, Robyn.’ Oliver smiled at me, and lifted his glass to his lips, pausing to tilt his head and examine me before he took a small and somehow sensual sip of the amber liquid. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you here again tonight. You’d looked quite nervous last week, so I wasn’t sure if I’d see you again.’
Clearing my throat, I shrugged self-consciously, wishing that my shot glass was full so I could down it all over again to boost my confidence. ‘It was a bit shocking, but, you know, the more research I do the better the book will be.’
‘Absolutely,’ he agreed, sounding like he meant more than his simple word conveyed. ‘Can I buy you a drink?’
Uh. This was awkward. Sasha had claimed girl code over him, so I really shouldn’t, but how did I refuse without sounding rude?
‘Um, I’m fine, thank you.’
Frowning, he looked to the empty glass on the bar beside me, then gave me a curious look. ‘Just one?’
Huffing out an irritated breath, I looked away and my eyes immediately landed on Sasha who was giving me a thumbs-up from the dance floor. Did she want me to get her an introduction with Oliver? God. This was a really weird situation. I was attracted to him, but friends came before guys, so feeling bound to Sasha I instead decided to give her the opening she’d wanted.
‘Look, if you must know, my friend likes you, so, you know, I’m respecting the girl code,’ I muttered, feeling ridiculous.
‘Girl code?’ Oliver repeated, a smile breaking on his lips. Instead of waiting for me to explain, he continued. ‘Which friend? One of the ones you arrived with?’
Avoiding eye contact, I picked up my empty shot glass and twirled it in my fingertips as a distraction. ‘Yeah, the blonde one.’
‘The blonde, huh?’ The curious tone to his voice made me feel sick. Of course he would be curious; she was gorgeous. He would no doubt be attracted to her; all men were. ‘She has a funny way of showing it, seeing as she’s currently staring at my friend like she wants to eat him alive.’
My head snapped up, and I looked to the dance floor to see that Oliver was in fact correct. Sasha was no longer looking my way. She now stood a few feet away from us, staring at a blond guy at the bar with lust-filled eyes. Jeez. Had she moved on already? I could barely keep up with her. Just as I was thinking this, she turned and saw me watching her, before darting in my direction.
‘Excuse me for a second,’ I said to Oliver, quickly moving away from him to meet Sasha. ‘I was only talking to him. His name’s Oliver.’
‘Who?’ she asked with a frown.
Jerking a thumb over my shoulder I leaned closer and lowered my voice. ‘The hot guy you liked. He’s one of the owners of this place, and his name is Oliver.’
Frowning, she peered over my shoulder and, to my mortification waved, presumably at Oliver. The back of my neck prickled and, somehow, I just knew he was now standing behind me. One brief glance confirmed my theory. He was indeed beside us, right inside my personal space again, and giving me and Sasha an amused smile.
‘As handsome as you are … Hi, I’m Sasha, by the way,’ she announced before looking at me again. ‘That’s not the guy I was talking about.’ Turning her head, she pointed through the crowd at the blond guy at the other end of the bar. ‘That’s the guy.’
Oh. A different hot older guy. Oops. I’d been so infatuated with Oliver that I’d just assumed she’d been talking about him, and hadn’t bothered to ask her to describe her crush to me. A simple “what colour hair did he have?” would have saved all these issues, because these two were like chalk and cheese.
‘I’m going to dance. Feel free to chat up Robyn, she’s young, free and single,’ Sasha declared with glee, giving Oliver another eyebrow wiggle.
‘Shut up Sasha, you’re drunk,’ I chided playfully, watching her knock back yet another vodka shot then slam the glass down.
‘So? It’s Friday night! Besides, alcohol makes you tell the truth, doesn’t it? And you are young, free and single. And desperately in need of a good fuck.’
Oh, Jesus Christ, she hadn’t actually said that, had she? My stomach just about dropped from my body in horror as her words hung in the air between us all. Judging from Oliver’s raised eyebrows and the wicked smirk playing at the corners of his lips, she had.
‘Good to know,’ he murmured dryly, as Sasha waved and swayed her way back to the dance floor. I was going to kill her later. ‘Blunt, isn’t she?’
Forget a simple blush on my cheeks, my whole body now felt overheated with mortification. ‘You have no idea,’ I groaned, desperately wishing for a sinkhole to swallow me up.
‘Now we’ve cleared up that misunderstanding, can I buy you that drink?’
I paused, staring at the floor and biting my lower lip as I tried to decide. I was so tempted; I was really attracted to Oliver and, under different circumstances, would have ripped his arm off for a drink, or a date, but he was the owner of a sex club. He liked to control women in the bedroom. I had no idea what else it might entail, but I knew I was way out of my depth with him.
The feel of a gentle finger on my chin broke me from my thoughts as Oliver tipped my face up towards his. ‘I won’t bite,’ he murmured, his voice low and teasing. ‘Not unless you want me to,’ he added, the playful expression from last week returning to his face.
He was joking about the biting. Wasn’t he? Before I could really think it all through and persuade myself out of it, I found myself nodding and depositing the vodka glass on the bar. Fuck it, why not? ‘No to the biting, but yes to the drink. I’ll have a white wine, please.’
Oliver grinned at my joke and we took our seats once more as he ordered me a drink.
As he spoke to the barman, I fiddled with the clasp on my bag, making sure it was closed, but looked up when he spoke again. ‘She’s not my type, by the way.’
My eyebrows rose in surprise at both his statement, and the force of his gaze as he stared at me from under slightly hooded eyes.
Not sure how to respond to the way he gave me so much of his attention, I glanced out to the dance floor and located Sasha. She was grinding against one guy, while another danced closely behind her, pressing his groin to her buttocks in a move so innately sexual that it made me cringe. It was about usual for Sasha, though. With her confidence and seduction skills she could usually be most men’s type if she put her mind to it.
‘Why?’
Oliver held out a glass of wine to me, effectively drawing my gaze away from Sasha’s antics and back to him. ‘I don’t mean any offence, but she’s very … loud. And I suspect she’s flighty, too. I saw her last week dancing with practically every man in here. I bet she’s never with the same guy twice, that sort of thing?’
Wow, he’d described my bestie to perfection and I momentarily gawked at him in surprise. If he could tell that much about Sasha from just a few observations, then God only knows what he had read in me.
‘I’m a good people reader,’ he murmured in answer to my questioning look. Great, so he probably knew exactly how affected by him I was.
Ignoring the pang of embarrassment, I shrugged, glancing at Sasha again. ‘Guys seem to love Sasha. I’m surprised she’s not your type.’
In response to my words, Oliver leaned back on his stool and gave me a very thorough look up and down, his gaze causing goose bumps to appear across my skin. His eyes travelled right from the tips of my stupidly painful boots to the top of my head, before he licked his bloody divine lips and grinned at me.
‘My type falls more to gorgeous brunettes, about five foot seven, with the most unique coloured eyes I’ve ever seen, a very attractive blush, and a stubborn streak that will no doubt drive me insane.’
I blinked in surprise at how blatant his words were, then I blinked again, not quite sure how to respond. Finally, I managed to swallow and answer. ‘Oh.’ It wasn’t much of a response, but it was all I could manage.
‘Yes, “oh” indeed,’ Oliver agreed. He clicked his glass against mine in some sort of toast, then took a sip. I was too stunned to sip my drink, though. To be honest, I was too stunned to move.
Was he really hitting on me? I paused, wondering if this were another of his teasing jokes, and not wanting to make a fool of myself if it was. One thing was certain – joke or not, I was definitely feeling rather giddy from all the attention I was getting from this gorgeous man.
Apparently picking up on my hesitant confusion, Oliver smiled at me and nodded once. ‘I apologise if I have made you uncomfortable with my words, but I won’t take them back. It’s the Spanish blood in me, it makes me say what I think. I can’t help it. You’re rather lovely, and I would very much enjoy getting to know you.’
He thought I was rather lovely? None of my past boyfriends had been particularly flowery in the words department, and although I might have had the odd “you look nice tonight” comment, I’d never received compliments like this before. It was all quite overwhelming, really. The way he’d said it with his slight Spanish accent had sent a jolt of desire curling into my belly and I tried to get a grip of myself before I swooned at his feet.
‘Your silence is particularly telling. I think perhaps you are more curious about our lifestyles than you want to admit,’ he speculated casually as he sipped his drink. ‘Perhaps it is also me? Are you curious about me, Robyn with a y?’
Yes. Yes, I was. I swallowed hard enough to make an audible noise and blushed as I saw the corner of his mouth lift in an answering smile. He’d hit the nail right on the head. I was curious about the club … about the sex … about him. He really was a good reader of people if he’d managed to get all of that from my expressions.
I didn’t want to admit it out loud, but just as I was fumbling for what to say, he suddenly laughed, a lovely warm sound that vibrated through me and chased away the chill of nervousness from my skin. ‘I’m teasing you. I’m sorry, please forgive me. It is another trait of my culture, we are merciless jokers.’ Giving me an apologetic smile he wiggled his eyebrows hopefully. ‘I do like you, that part wasn’t a joke, but look, don’t put so much pressure on yourself. Why don’t I just help you with your research and we can get to know each other a little in the process. You’ll have to put up with my teasing, but I promise there are no strings attached. I will expect nothing in return except your company.’
Reaching up, he ran the pad of his thumb across my cheek and smiled fondly. ‘And your blushes,’ he murmured. ‘You blush so beautifully when you’re embarrassed.’ Pausing, he briefly bit on his lower lip then his smile darkened. ‘I wonder if you also blush like that when you’re aroused?’
My face now felt like it was on fire. His touch sparked some crazy chemical reaction within me that sent my hormones wild, and his teasing statements were almost too much for me to handle. This was all getting really intense really quickly, and as much as I was enjoying it on some level, I was also quite terrified of my reaction to him.
Ignoring his last question, I focused on the part of his statement that I could deal with. ‘No strings?’ I rasped, my voice rough from nerves.
‘None, I promise,’ he replied, removing his hand from my cheek and placing it over his heart as he graced me with another of his breath-stopping grins.
I knew what the sensible response would be. Thank him for his time and leave. Walk away and not look back. I was too affected by him to linger, and he was way too charming and handsome for me to resist, so I was bound to get burned by any type of relationship with him, even if we were supposedly just friends. But even knowing that, it’s not what I ended up saying. ‘OK, then. Deal.’
Oliver’s eyes twinkled with happiness at my acceptance and he raised his glass towards mine. ‘To new acquaintances,’ he murmured. Once again, his tone seemed to say so much more than he vocalised, and as I lifted my glass to gently chink it against his I decided that I was definitely in dangerous territory with this man.
New acquaintances. Hmm. I could think of so many levels that I’d like to be “acquainted” with Mr Oliver Wolfe, but none were really within my sphere of bravery. He was a self-confessed sexual dominant, not to mention older than me, and therefore presumably far more experienced, and I was … well, I was Robyn, the girl who’d never achieved a climax through penetrative sex because all my boyfriends had been dreadful in the sack.
Or perhaps it was me who was awful in bed?
God. What was I getting myself into?