“Gina, right?” The voice trailed up the back of my neck, cutting through the ruckus of the music that seemed to vibrate through my body. My skin was slightly damp from the exertion of the dancing that I had abandoned in search of fresh air.

Little note: one does not find fresh air, even outside, when within a biker compound. Even the open air of the backyard boasted cigarette smoke, whiskey, beer, and now the delicious scent of man I could’ve identified by smell, even if the throaty voice hadn’t accompanied it.

I turned slowly. Or quickly. The way the world blurred slightly as I did so made me think it was the latter.

But it seemed so much slower because, in stark detail, I could take in all that was Sam.

His leather pants, tucked into scuffed yet very expensive combat boots, molded over his strong thighs.

I even found some confidence to let my eyes linger on the sizeable bulge that left nothing to the imagination before they skimmed over his thick belt buckle and tight black muscle tee that had been underneath the shirt he’d worn for the ceremony.

I trailed over the ink on his muscled arms to look at his large tattooed hands covered in rings, his fingers boasting chipped black polish.

I kept my eyes there, at his hands, as opposed to his face.

Those hands had gotten him where he was today.

Not standing in front of me but in front of the world. Having it, and millions of women, worshipping at his feet.

His face, angular yet boyish and soft at the same time, was impressive. More than impressive. Totally sculpted, with all but a few strands of wayward hair pulled off it to fasten into a messy bun. Even his bun was famous. To be fair, it was the best man bun this side of Brock O’Hurn.

There were fan pages dedicated to it.

But it was his hands that fascinated me.

In school, I’d watch them tap on the weathered wooden desk in the English class we’d had together, playing imaginary drums. Even then it was obvious that he wouldn’t be staying in Amber. That his life would never be still, he’d never be stationary.

“Babe?” His throaty voice snapped my eyes up to meet his.

I swallowed.

“You called me babe,” I breathed.

Then, at his widened eyes, I slapped my hand over my mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud,” I murmured through my fingers.

He grinned, crossing his arms over his chest and making his biceps bulge as he did so. “I’ll gladly call you it again.” He winked. “Preferably when we’re horizontal. But it is Gina, right?”

His words were a burst of cold water, drowning whatever small adolescent heat that ignited from teenage me from his usage of the word “babe” directed at me.

He didn’t even know my name.

We went to school together for five years, had two of the same classes, and he didn’t know even my name.

I had been in love with him for 7 years, 364 days and 23 hours and he didn’t even remember my name.

The hungry look from before wasn’t because he was finally stationary to notice me, or somehow I’d sped up to get in step with him and he’d finally opened his eyes and seen me.

He had thought me a stranger. I guessed I’d changed a little since high school. Or a lot. My chocolate hair was now sprinkled with streaks of honey blonde, thanks to my hairdresser who shouldn’t have been sequestered to a small-town salon but doing celebrities like Lexie’s hair. I’d grown it longer and wore it in soft curls trailing down my back. She’d created bangs that swept sideways on my face, looking fashionable and bohemian.

My face hadn’t changed much, still as round as it had been in high school, but I’d somewhat grown into the features that had always been a smidge too big for my face. That and I’d learned how to contour since I spent Saturday nights with a box of M&Ms and watched YouTube tutorials on how to apply makeup.

I had Jaclyn Hill to thank for my expertly applied smoky eye. One that wasn’t weirdly warped by my glasses, since I got contacts.

Since I finally saved enough money and got my backyard landscaped into the beautiful sanctuary it was now, I spent a lot of time outside on my sun lounger, which meant my skin was kissed slightly honey—when it wasn’t splotched with red, signifying my extreme anxiety. Like it was now.

I still carried the extra pounds I would always carry unless I decided to starve myself like I had tried to in college. That little diet had resulted in me fainting in the middle of a midterm and almost failing my favorite class. So instead of changing my body, I’d decided to learn to love it. And somehow, not because I was working to change it but because I was growing into the extra skin I’d always cursed, it become different. I looked different. Not the awkward girl with glasses and “puppy fat,” but the girl who had the body of a woman. Sure, like everyone else, I wanted to lose the jiggly bits, but I also wouldn’t hate myself if I didn’t. I dressed for my curves, embraced them.

Normally.

But today that little subconscious mind of mine must have been in the Macy’s dressing room with me, warping the image of myself, letting the nerves of seeing him again chase away the common sense that would’ve had me buying a slimming and timeless little black dress that hugged in all the right places and finished a little above my knee.

No, I had to decide that my sun-kissed skin looked luminescent with the feminine pink, the bias cut tumbling over my curves in just the right places.

Silk!

I’d though silk would somehow slide effortlessly over those aforementioned jiggly bits. Even with my Bridget Jones underwear, I was sure the dimples in my thighs showed through the fabric.

And now I was standing in front of Sam, in this ridiculous dress, having the heartbreaking revelation that I’d been borderline obsessed with the idea that he’d have some kind of epiphany at this wedding. Where he’d have the “big bang,” the monologue of our forgotten moments together, and magically fall in love with me after seeing me in my silk dress with my soft curls and my tanned skin and my expertly applied makeup.

Just like in a great romance book.

But no matter how hard I wished for the contrary, books were fantasy.

This was reality.

And in reality, he’d just plain forgotten me.

No, that was wrong. You had to remember someone to forget them.

If it was possible to somehow curl into myself and disappear, I would have. In response to that being physically impossible, I glanced around the crowded night air. If this were ever a time for that door to Narnia to appear, now would be the time. I’d even welcome Roland, the gunslinger, to rope me into whatever twisted adventure Stephen King had him on at this point. Flesh-eating lobstrosities would be preferable at this point in time.

Unfortunately neither appeared.

“Looking for someone?” Sam asked, his brow furrowing slightly and his tone becoming a fraction less playful.

Without thinking, I replied, “Roland.” Tequila obviously inhibited my brain-to-mouth filter.

I had downed three in the hour I’d been talking to Jagger—that was seriously his name—and some other men from New Mexico. Emma had been right—it helped. Immensely. I had been enjoying a delightful vacation from inhibitions and self-awareness, and my body had felt light, my thoughts the same.

Until now. Now my thoughts were apt to sink my blush strappy heels into the ground.

Sam’s furrowed brow turned into a full-on scowl and his eyes lost their playful twinkle. “Who’s Roland?” he demanded. He didn’t wait for me to answer. “Is he your boyfriend?”

I regarded him. The muscled, tattooed, heartbreakingly beautiful rock star who had a website for his hair. The man who graced the wallpapers of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of phones across the world.

The man who was on last month’s cover of GQ.

The man who used to be the boy I’d daydream about in English lit.

Who, if I was honest with myself, —and tequila was forcing that honesty—I’d harbored a small flame for in the darkest recesses of my mind to light up the small shelf I’d created to store my memories, my fantasies of him.

The man who starred in fantasies that I’d dreamed up on the flight here, in fact.

The man who didn’t even remember my name.

I had two options here.

Tell this particular man that Roland was not my boyfriend but a fictional character in one of my top ten fantasy series of all time, authored by one of my top five authors of all time, that I’d lapsed into my own head where I imagined these characters were real, and that I did not in fact have a boyfriend, or even any prospects.

Or I could actually pretend I wasn’t a giant weirdo spinster at twenty-three and clutch onto whatever dignity remained from this interaction.

“Yeah, he’s my boyfriend,” I said. “Roland’s my boyfriend.”

Sam’s brows relaxed, as did the rest of his face, into that easy and lazy grin that was characteristic to him. That won the hearts and minds of thousands. He stepped forward, replacing the polluted night air with his own scent, a faintly sharp yet pleasing aftershave that smelled like cedar and something uniquely him.

He smelled like he looked, if that made sense.

We weren’t touching but we didn’t need to be. Not when someone had a presence like Sam. That was the beauty of it. You could be in the back row of a concert, thousands of sweaty gyrating bodies in front of you, and you’d still feel it, the magnetic electricity he possessed.

It hadn’t been created by the rock star he became. It made him that rock star.

“It seems, Thumbelina, that your boy Roland is nowhere in sight. And I say boy because no man would leave a little beauty such as yourself alone in shark-filled waters.” His eyes scanned my now-trembling body. “One of the best-looking, most talented and most satisfactory sharks is likely to eat you. Right up,” he murmured, his voice husky, thick with the erotic underdone.

I was lost for a moment. In the words. In the shock of the invitation.

Then I remembered.

“Gina, right?”

I straightened, stepping out of his immediate orbit, shaking myself of the thin film of his scent that seemed to have settled on my skin.

“I’ve seen Jaws,” I retorted, my voice so icy I barely recognized it. “So I know how to avoid the sharks.” I downed what was left in my glass. “You don’t go in the water,” I finished before turning on my heel.

I had planned on strutting victoriously away, but I was wearing heels and walking on soft grass, so I only succeeded in some strange kind of galumph where I had to wrench my foot out of the earth with each step. I was almost certain I looked like an ogre trolloping back into the clubhouse, but I didn’t care. It was dry land and I was getting the fuck out of the water.

Well, until I’d had three more tequilas.

Then I dove back in. Headfirst.

* * *

“We should have sex,” I blurted.

Right to his face.

Without blushing or stuttering or crying or anything.

I decided I liked tequila.

It had given me the courage to strut—not trollop, since we were inside on carpet—over to Sam and utter those words confidently. Right in front of Noah, who choked on his drink, nearly spitting it all over his shirt.

I didn’t pay attention to that. I paid attention to Sam. Which was what I had been pretending not to do for the past hour, talking to bikers I normally wouldn’t have said boo to, telling jokes I hadn’t even realized I knew. And the whole time, like a brand, Sam’s gaze burned into me. Every time I turned in his direction, he grinned, showing all his teeth. Once he’d even snapped them together in a biting motion.

And somehow, that ridiculous gesture had sent a spark of desire from my head to my… there.

And that spark had turned into a full-on inferno, one I decided I wasn’t going to fight anymore.

One tequila decided I wasn’t going to fight.

“We should definitely have sex,” he replied with a wolfish grin, snatching my hand and pulling me toward the parking lot before I properly knew what had happened.

I decided I loved tequila, even if it did make the parking lot blur as we passed it by.

Then my blurring vision came to an abrupt stop as the man leading me by the hand did the same.

“I’m not usually one to take the moral high ground. Or go near it, in fact,” Sam said. “But I do fear that you’re a woman deserving of someone who at least vacations there,” he continued. “So I feel vacation-bound to ask. What about Roland?”

“Who?” I blinked.

“Your boyfriend?”

Oh yeah, the fictional character I’d previously wished to save me from an embarrassing situation that happened four tequilas back.

“Roland’s… not coming,” I said carefully, only slurring my words slightly.

His eyes scanned me, and for a moment I was worried he saw through my lie. It’s not like I was well versed in the art of deception. Then again, I wasn’t well versed in the art of sexually propositioning the boy I’d been in love with who was now a man and a world-famous rock star.

“Stupid fucking Roland,” he murmured.

Then, before I could give myself a mental high five for lying about my boyfriend being a fictional character, I wasn’t doing anything.

Apart from being kissed by Sam.

Sam Kennedy.

Kissing me.

More accurately, Sam Kennedy kissing the fuck out of me.

All I could do was clutch his biceps and pray I didn’t fall into a puddle at his feet—or worse, forget how to kiss.

It was over far too soon. He’d only been kissing me for, like, an eternity. Far too short.

His face was illuminated by the lights of the party thumping in the distance. In another universe, it seemed.

In this one, the one created by the big bang, Sam’s eyes glowed and his mouth turned into a lazy grin.

His hand spanned my neck, the largeness of it, of him, making me feel small. Tiny. And not in the bad way.

“Yeah,” he muttered, eyes on my swollen lips. “Stupid fucking Roland.”

I found myself nodding.

Yeah, stupid fucking Roland. For not existing.

* * *

“You most likely shouldn’t be driving.”

Sam’s head turned to regard me with what I could gather was a smile. Then he regarded the road we’d been traveling from the Son’s compound back into town.

It was empty.

Amber was a small town and had little to no nightlife. And any sort of nightlife it had, we were driving away from it.

“Haven’t taken away my license yet, babe,” he replied dryly.

Babe.

It was the second. Yes, I was counting. I was collecting them, the moments. So I could put them on my shelves and store them and revisit this when the bad moment happened. Where reality would crash in and he would realize who I was and what I was.

Which was so not someone he would want to date.

His last girlfriend was a Victoria’s Secret model.

The one before that had won an Academy Award.

Before those thoughts could take me down a road I didn’t want to go on, his hand brought me back into the present.

More aptly, his hand on my leg.

His eyes stayed on the road, his other hand casually resting on the top of the steering wheel.

I glanced down at the hand on my thigh. It squeezed gently over the thin fabric. Like it was natural. Like he did it all the time.

Maybe he did do it all the time. With other girls. Not with me.

I swallowed.

Heavily.

Then tried not to breathe, scared any sort of movement would take his hand away. Then I thought about where it was. On my thigh. They were much larger than the matchsticks I was sure he was used to clutching, and having them flat on the car seat made them double in size.

Shit.

Was there a way to suck in your thigh?

I contorted the muscles the best I could, holding my breath as I did so. It didn’t work apart from making me want to pass out.

Instead I worked to distract myself from the tattooed hand burning a hole through the silk of my dress and igniting the throb between my legs.

“You shouldn’t be driving,” I continued, following my last train of thought before the hand on the leg incident. “Because you’ve been drinking.”

I thought of the amber liquid he’d thrown back like water throughout the night. I knew for a fact that I could barely navigate my heels, let alone a motor vehicle. “And drinking and driving is dangerous and illegal. We could crash.”

And then your hand wouldn’t be on my leg, I thought sadly.

And then we wouldn’t drive to wherever we were going and I wouldn’t get to have sex with Sam. The thought of dying in a fiery heap on the side of the road in a town I’d escaped from five years before was only a fraction scarier than sex with Sam.

But sex with Sam was scary in a good way.

I think.

I caught my train of thought again. “Or get a ticket,” I added.

He chuckled, and the sound filled the air of the car like music. It was throaty, rough and genuine. Easy. I wanted to find a way to put it in a bottle and drink it up.

I settled for placing it in a spot on my shelf.

“Thumbelina, I don’t know if you know this, but I’m kind of a big deal,” he quipped, quoting Anchorman. “And if Amber’s finest does happen to pull over the hometown hero, America’s bad boy and the best drummer this side of Travis Barker, I’m sure they’d look the other way.”

He glanced at me and winked.

I rolled my eyes. “America’s bad boy, and humble to boot,” I muttered under my breath.

Not that there was any real weight to what he said. Not in the egotistical way, anyway. That was just Sam. It wasn’t the fame that made his head that big; he’d already had trouble getting in the door in high school.

Though I reasoned it was more about deflecting attention away from the things he didn’t want people to see about him—what he didn’t want to see about himself—more than any sort of vanity.

With maybe a sprinkling of vanity.

The hand on my thigh squeezed again, harder that time, before it moved so his fingers grasped the fabric of my dress, bunching it so he could pull it up and expose the bare skin underneath.

I sucked in a breath.

“Secondly,” he continued, his voice still easy, eyes still on the road as his hand settled on my flaming skin. “I’m an excellent drunk driver. The designated drunk driver of our little motley crew, which some call the most talented and attractive rock band on planet earth.” His eyes twinkled. “Not only that but I stopped drinking the moment I saw the most beautiful girl in the room brush her silk against the leather of the bikers and look like a lamb in for the slaughter, eyes wide, not even noticing that every fucking wolf in the place wanted to gobble you all up,” he murmured, voice husky and hand going higher.

Much higher.

I swallowed and then sucked in a ragged breath at the heat on my inner thigh. “Wolves,” I stuttered. “I thought they were sharks. You’re mixing metaphors,” I pointed out, my words ridiculous at this current juncture as the lights of Amber twinkled outside while we drove through the deserted streets toward the ocean.

I didn’t even have time to figure out where we were going. Or to be thankful he didn’t expect to come back to my place. I was staying at my childhood home. For the first time in five years. It was not exactly the place I wanted to finally consummate the fantasy I’d nurtured for all of my troubled teenage years in that house.

“Not the best with words, babe. I’m better with my hands,” he growled, his voice thick at the end as those very hands moved higher, well under my dress now.

I let out a sound that could be described as a moan and could also be explained as totally fucking mortifying.

I had enough tequila that I could pretend that hadn’t happened, even as it was happening. So I latched onto another train of thought. “Plus, that’s a lie,” I accused as we headed down the little street where I knew Mia’s boutique hotel was housed. “I was watching—” I stopped myself from saying ‘I was watching you all night,’ a statement that would come off desperate. “I mean I caught a glimpse of you every now and then, and you were drinking,” I fumbled.

He chuckled, the hand at my thigh pulsing slightly. “I said I wasn’t drunk, not that I wasn’t drinking. I’m not a monster, Thumbelina, unlike you, sucking down your tequilas,” he teased.

The car stopped before we could carry on our conversation. We were in front of The Cottage. Lexie’s mom, Mia, owned it now since the owners and Lexie’s adopted grandparents had been murdered by Lexie’s father. Who then proceeded to kidnap Mia after shooting Killian. Yeah, that happened. Mia was quickly rescued by her then biker boyfriend, now biker husband.

You couldn’t make this stuff up.

Both Spencer woman had men who had and would always walk through fire for them. And I loved that. It wasn’t common, nor even occasional, that kind of love, despite what books said. I was a dreamer, not an idiot. I knew Amber had reached its quota of love like that. It was a single grain of diamond chips on an entire beach.

Like lightning.

And it had struck two of the best people I knew.

Plus all those beautiful woman married to the bikers in the compound we’d left. I didn’t know them well, but they were kind and welcoming and each of them had gone through their own versions of hell. They deserved that stuff that most people wouldn’t even get a taste of, let alone the whole cake.

Leave it to me to make love metaphors something to do with food. That was the closest I’d get to true love—red velvet. Or chocolate with peanut butter frosting.

“You’re staying here,” I deduced as he turned the engine off. His hand was still on my thigh. It hadn’t moved upward but it didn’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon.

Sam gave me his attention. Though tequila had muddled my mind, I got an inkling that I’d always had it, even when we were driving. Maybe before that. Even before I’d propositioned him. But this was him actively showing me that I had it.

“Sure am. We’ve rented the entire place out.” I could just barely make out what I thought was a wink in the dim moonlight. “Keep us safe from all those pesky commoners.”

“But your parents live two minutes away,” I blurted, not thinking about what a dork I was for knowing where he lived and then broadcasting it.

It may have been a trick of the light, but it seemed all easy teasing left his face for the smallest of moments, for a slip in a second before his easygoing grin returned. “I became a world-famous and wealthy rock god precisely so I could do baller things like rent out entire hotels in my hometown and be sure that I’d never darken the door of my childhood home again.” He winked again. “Plus, for what I’ve got planned, the walls are far too thin and my childhood bed is far too small.”

My stomach did a dip. A big one. That inferno of arousal from his touch, from his proximity, his words, his everything was flickering throughout my entire body. I also felt like I could vomit too.

Not just because of the tequila. Not even a little bit because of the tequila.

This was real.

Before, when the car was in motion, I was able to think that maybe it might never stop. Maybe I’d ride with Sam’s hand on my thigh and his easy conversation and intoxicating presence for the rest of forever, and that would be just fine.

But now that we were stationary, it was evident that movement was required. I looked down at my seat belt. I would need to unbuckle that. Then I would have to open the door, get onto my heels and hopefully not fall over, and then walk through those arches that were so beautiful in the sunlight but were now menacing, disquieting. Because I would cross over there and end up in a hotel room. With Sam. And a bed. And lights.

Oh God, sex meant I had to be naked. In front of Sam. With lights.

I tried not to hyperventilate.

Maybe if I just sat very, very, still, he’d forget I was there and I could melt into the seat. He’d get out of the car and I could make my escape.

I’d done it before. Not melted into a seat, but turned invisible. Well, not technically turned, since I’d started off invisible.

But I wasn’t to him, for whatever reason. That became evident when his hand left my thigh, fluttering the fabric of my dress as it did so, and came up to my chin, lightly grasping it between his thumb and forefinger to gently move my gaze from the arch to the beautiful shadows of his face.

“There’s no expectation here, Thumbelina,” he said firmly. “No pressure. You don’t feel comfortable, we can just eat the fourteen bags of peanut M&Ms I have stashed in my room safe and watch movies. I think there’s a Twilight marathon on HBO, and I do love those sparkly fuckers,” he remarked lightly, but the undertone of it was something more serious. Something that took my breath away yet again. Concern. Consideration. Some kind of sight or power that made him sense the unease and utter fear vibrating through me.

Maybe he could smell fear. Like a horse. Or was it a dog? Though he was not technically a dog, I and the rest of the world were aware of his revolving door of a bedroom, so he was, in fact, a dawg.

His thumb moved to stroke my flaming cheek with a gentleness that I didn’t even know was possible.

“I don’t expect anything, babe. May sound like a line—fuck, I’ve used it as a line. I’m pretty sure I invented it. But this, with you, it’s different.” He paused eyes steady on me. “Fuck, that sounds like another line.” His hands tightened so he pulled me across the car, straining the lengths of my seat belt. “But it’s not. I just like spending time with you. Being in your orbit. It’s nice.” He paused again, looking into my eyes as if he was searching for a word. “Calm,” he said finally, his voice little more than a husky whisper.

I inspected it. His words. His eyes. The truth in them. Tequila made you speak the truth, but it also made you see it. It stripped you of all the lies you told yourself about what people thought of you. Sam wasn’t lying.

But I didn’t want that. It was the safe choice, to take him at his offer. The most sensible thing to do would be to get out of the car, walk the short distance home and spend yet another night in that room dreaming of Sam Kennedy.

But that was pretty much the definition of my life. Safe. Boring. A Master’s in Education, minoring in Literature.

A house I’d purchased when the market was good, with a sensible interest rate on my mortgage. A savings account.

No. I wouldn’t go back to my little sensible but cute house in my small and incredibly forgettable town and torture myself with my cowardice. If anything, I wanted to be able to dine out on this night for years to come. Even if it was just one night of recklessness, I needed something. I didn’t have an exciting or life-changing future ahead of me. I had a carefully planned and boring lifetime coming up.

“Problem is,” I whispered, not breaking eye contact, “I don’t want calm. In fact, I’d quite like chaos.”

And then, before my brain could catch up, I unbuckled my seat belt in a smooth motion and crossed the short distance between our faces to kiss him.

Full.

On the mouth.

Tongue and everything.

That unclicking of the seat belt signified a lot of things. The beginning of the most incredible kiss of my life that promised the most incredible sex in my life, which would be followed the next morning by the most incredible pain I’d ever felt in my life.

Not that I knew the last part at the time. I didn’t really know anything but the taste of Sam and the beauty of his tongue in my mouth.

A split second and our lips were apart.

“Just so you know, babe, this is it. Point of no return,” he growled against my mouth, eyes seeming to glow in the moonlight. “You taste like fucking strawberries and drive me fucking crazing. I kiss you again, there’s no going back. I’m taking you in there and I’m going to do things to you that will make you forget my name. That will make you forget your own name. I’m sayin’ that because I can taste how much you want me. How much you need me. No safe words, just no and I’ll stop. But I have a feeling there’s not going to be any stopping for either of us once we get close to a horizontal surface. So here we are, at the crossroads. We leave everything behind here. Speak now or forever hold your chaos.”

I blinked rapidly at him, unable to catch my breath, not unless his mouth was against mine. So I didn’t say anything, just did as I’d done moments, hours before—grabbed him and kissed him. So I could breathe. And hold the chaos.

I had taken it. Control. Done something so un-Gina-like and kissed him. Sam.

I may have initiated the kiss, controlled its inception, but Sam stole it, owned it. Me. Everything.

And like Alice, I was down the rabbit hole. And it wasn’t a Mad Hatter I was spending time with, but an arguably mad and criminally sexy drummer.

And like Alice, I would never be the same again.