Chapter Seven
Look up and to the left.
Noah glanced up from his phone screen and to the left across the jam-packed upper balcony of the club, and saw his friend waving. He sighed, squared his shoulders and focused straight ahead, making his way through the throng. This was not his idea. He didn’t even want to be here. But Jake had insisted and he’d made a compelling you-need-to-get-off-your-ass-and-get-laid argument, even as he more or less guaranteed that getting laid was a stone-cold lock if he partied at Nexus.
At least two women hesitated right in front of him, only moving aside with reluctance when he smiled and motioned he was on his way elsewhere. One of them grazed his arm with her half-exposed boob, which gave him a bit of a pleasant shock, but he kept moving, figuring if this was how the first ten minutes went, he’d be set in an hour or two.
“Yo, dude, about time!” His buddy handed him a brown bottle. “Drink up. You’re behind.”
Noah sniffed the mouth of the bottle, then sipped, hoping his friend knew him well enough by now not to offer him a macro-brew. He did, apparently, so Noah drained half the hoppy IPA in one long gulp. He had come here with the whole getting-laid-already thing in the forefront of his brain, but he knew he had to lubricate his mind first.
“Check it out,” Jake said, jamming him in the side with his elbow. “Six o’clock. Couple-a MILFs, if I’m not mistaken. Right up your alley, eh, bro?”
“Fuck you,” Noah mumbled around the mouth of the bottle, scanning the crowd for a waitress. He needed at least two more of these things if he was going to venture anywhere near a woman. But he looked where his friend had indicated, if for no other reason than to have somewhere pleasant to rest his gaze while he waited for his beer. One of the women had long blonde hair tumbling down her back. The other one’s face was mostly hidden by the sleek, straight fall of her brown hair. Intrigued, he shifted to his left to try to get a better look at them.
He was interrupted by the arrival of his beer and his friend, who’d snagged a couple of chicks into their small conversational circle. He smiled at the women—just girls in their twenties, really, not his type—and sipped, angling for a better view of the MILF table.
“Let’s go dance,” one of the girls trilled, grabbing his arm. He pulled away from her, intent on making eye contact with a woman across the room. Something about the one with the straight brown hair was making him anxious, as if he knew her or something, which seemed unlikely.
“Maybe later, thanks.” He raised an eyebrow at his friend, indicating the other man should take advantage of the Jake-sandwich option. His friend shot him a jaunty salute, then held out both elbows for and led them toward the stairs. He leaned on the wall-height bar and sipped, content to simply observe the two attractive older women, who appeared to be locked in a bit of an emotional exchange.
After about fifteen minutes, they were both leaning on the railing and looking down at the dance floor when the brown-haired one stared right at him, making him blink fast.
Good Christ in a sidecar. It’s her.
He held the woman’s gaze, unable to stop looking at her even if he wanted to—a familiar place for him, since he’d been visualizing her for the last month or so. More precisely, she—the woman sitting not twenty yards away and glaring at him—had been the superstar of his most vivid and slightly sticky fantasies for the last month or so.
It was fairly clear she remembered him too. At least that was what Noah told himself. He took as casual a sip as he could manage while he waited for her to break their stare-down. She did, of course. He was a pro at this kind of thing. The unlikely, happy coincidence of the incredible woman from the yoga studio being here, tonight, filled his chest and his head, making him wobbly on his feet.
He motioned for a waitress and placed an order for two chilled shots of Chopin vodka, each with a fresh squeeze of lemon, delivered to their table. A bold move, but one he had to make if for no other reason to get her to look up at him. He’d give his left nut to see those incredible green eyes again.
He grinned around the mouth of his bottle when the shots arrived and she did what he’d hoped. He was struck breathless by the intensity of her stare—it spiraled him straight back to the moment when she’d marched out of the yoga room in her miniscule get-up and glared at him until he got back to work. The memory of her—tall, slim yet fit, hair yanked back in a severe ponytail with her somewhat odd-colored eyes boring into him—was etched onto his retinas as if from acid. But it didn’t exactly burn in a bad way.
Her full, red lips turned up in a small smile at him before she handed her blonde friend a shot, clinked and knocked it back like a pro. The hairs on Noah’s arms stood up and his scalp tingled. Luckily, he was enough of a grown man not to pop a woody in public, but he had to concentrate to keep it from happening. When she glanced at him again, he raised an eyebrow, shrugged and turned away, lest he lose his cool and run over to beg her to leave this noisy chaos with him.
Her companion rose, which drew his—and a lot of other—eyes. The blonde was built like a brick shithouse, to put it mildly, and she was dressed to show it off. When Noah’s dream woman joined her, the two of them looked like a pair of models. Between Blondie’s killer curves and Yoga Lady’s slim, long-legged perfection, they made every single red-blooded male on the balcony turn when they made their way to the steps, pausing at the top to exchange comments and laughter, then descending into the mosh pit of humanity below.
Noah sidled over to the railing so he could keep her in his sights. When she hesitated on the edge of the crowded dance floor, he wanted to run down and tell her he didn’t want to jump into the sweaty fray either and she should come with him someplace quiet where they could drink and talk.
But of course, he didn’t.
Blondie turned and did an impressive hip shimmy, backward, into the press of bodies, crooking her fingers at her friend. He leaned farther over the railing, willing her to resist. He swore to himself that if she did, if she turned away from the dancing, he would leap over the side—or at least run as fast as he could down the steps—and scoop her up. The waitress brought him his fourth and final beer, which distracted him just long enough for him to lose sight of them both.
“Fuck,” he muttered. Spotting the two ladies dressed as they were in that crowd of mostly silver and black would be the proverbial needle in a haystack. He propped himself on his elbows and tried, nonetheless, leaving his beer untouched for a few minutes until he gave up with a louder curse.
“Hey, there he is!” He winced at the sound of Jake’s voice. “Come on, man. We’ve been invited to a private party.”
“Not interested,” he said, putting the bottle to his lips and taking a long drink.
“We don’t have to go anywhere. It’s just downstairs.” He leaned into Noah’s ear, breathing whisky fumes into his face. “Come with me, just to check it out. Please? One of those hotties over there won’t take me unless you come too.” Jake jerked his chin to their left. Noah spotted the women Jake had left with earlier. He squinted, trying to figure out if a quick fuck with one of them might take his edge off. When one of them, the taller of the two, with thick brown curls and a huge rack, blew him a kiss, he made his decision.
“Fine. But if I don’t like the scene, I’m leaving, got it?”
“Got it.” He nudged Noah’s side. “That one’s got the hot ‘n readies for you, my friend. He waved at the brunette, who was now licking her lips like a bad porn star. But she did look pretty good doing it. God, he was weak. But still…he needed this, maybe. It would help his mood, maybe. “Her name’s Amber,” Jake said, filling Noah’s nose with brown liquor fumes again.
“Of course it is,” he said with a sigh and followed his friend to the women, then down the stairs, around the dance floor where he assumed his real dream woman was having a grand old time, and through a set of double wooden doors behind the DJ. A cool puff of air hit his face, which was a relief after the heat of the main room. He took a step forward into the low-lit room and met with a hand to his chest.
“Hold up, buddy. Twenty bucks. Cash only.”
“But…” He tried to see Jake, but he’d disappeared into the gloom along with the chick who obviously shilled for this fucking place, blowing kisses and licking her damn lips at any fool who’d follow her. He didn’t have twenty to spare, but he’d come this far, might as well see what was what. He’d never find Yoga Lady out there, anyway. He handed the goon in a suit a twenty, then made his way farther into the room.
Once his eyes adjusted, he saw what appeared to be a repeat of the action outside, only with less overhead lighting. There was a large, seemingly clear acrylic bar staffed by half a dozen women and a couple of guys. Waitress types moved around the clumps of small tables. Music played loud enough to cover most conversations but not loud enough to deafen. The biggest difference his brain finally absorbed was that the women who were sitting, chatting, drinking and flirting were dressed in just enough for it not to be a strip bar.
He eased farther into the room, hugging the perimeter and observing. The women were good-looking, of course, worthy of his twenty bucks’ admission. He berated himself, thinking this would have been anything but some kind of a money grab for hapless, dateless, non-dancing dumb-asses. He finally caught sight of Jake. The guy was settled into a chair with a girl who was not the Amber-bait leaning close to him, her boobs spilling out from under a tacky crop-top. Jake was, of course, mesmerized. The guy was an easy mark for shit like this. Of Amber, there was no sign. She must be back outside, blowing kissing to lunkheads and luring them to the ‘private party’.
Noah sighed and stuck his fingers in his jeans pockets. He looked around a bit more, noting how close the women would get, but also noting there was a clear line of demarcation. Wondering for a hot second how much more it would cost to the get the full lap dance, he headed for the bar, ready to break his four-beers-and-done rule for the night. His head still spun from the memory of her eyes, her hair and that incredible body in the god damned tiny, yet perfect silver dress. His Yoga Lady…
He sighed and leaned forward, ordered a local IPA, flirted half-heartedly with a couple of the planted, half-dressed chicks until they gave up on him. When he turned and leaned backwards on the bar top, determined to at least get a few voyeuristic jollies for his twenty, he saw Jake had disappeared. Not terribly surprising, since the guy was nothing if not direct when it came to women and what he wanted from them. Noah put the bottle to his lips and was shocked to find the thing already empty.
Deciding he should do his friendly duty and figure out where the guy was, just in case this was a shake-down joint on top of everything else, he moved through the crowd, deflecting the women and keeping his eyes on a couple of doorways covered in black, flowy material, like curtains. The high, lilting laughter coupled with low, masculine chuckles and utterances he couldn’t make out all the way through the room. When he got to one of the doorways, another suit stopped him. Big surprise.
“Sorry, pal. You don’t come back here without an escort.”
“Good name for it,” he said. “I’m trying to find my friend. To let him know I’m leaving.”
This seemed to perk the bouncer guy up. “Hey, don’t go yet. You just got here.” He made a subtle motion with one hand and a couple of girls materialized as if conjured from thin air. Noah sighed at the sad dreariness of the whole scene and the girls looped their arms into his and guided him toward a table.
“I’m not interested, ladies. Really.” One of them gave him a not-too-gentle shove into a chair, then giggled to her friend before turning to face him. She was older than most of the companions, which piqued his waning interest. She had long, jet-black hair and startling blue eyes which seemed to bore into him, as if reading his reluctance and willing him to think differently. She smiled, slowly, and put her hands on the chair arms where he sat, pinning his wrists and giving him an unadulterated view of her tits. They were not huge, but not small either and tipped with dark, rock-hard nipples… Just right, he thought with a wry smile, releasing the big-boy control he’d kept over himself, groaning under his breath when his dick hardened, trapped as is was under too-tight jeans. He tried to move his arms to reach for her, but she kept pressing down, letting him leer all he wanted, but not touch.
Another hand landed on his thigh, making him flinch. “We get to touch,” the woman whispered, giving him a face full of spearmint fumes and a whiff of booze.
“Really,” he said, not moving as the other woman’s hand reached the point where his jeans were strained by his erection. “Seems a bit unfair.”
“You are fucking adorable,” the woman still looming over him said. “How old are you anyway? I didn’t know they went for fake IDs at the door of this place.” Her lips found his earlobe. Then her teeth, which made him shiver and clench his jaw against the need to either shove her and handsy-chick off him or throw the talkative one on the table and fuck her silly in front of an audience.
Wouldn’t be the first time, after all.
That memory, of a life he’d led briefly in sheer desperation, made his body soften ever so slightly in shame. He looked away from her tits and focused on the ceiling above them.
“Well?”
“Well, what? Well, will I pay yet more money to disappear behind the curtain with you so you can do whatever it is I can afford, or, well, how did I get in here in the first place?” He leveled his gaze at her, giving her his best I-don’t-give-a-damn expression.
“Both,” she said, with a grin before standing up, taking his hand, turning away from him but putting his palm on her shoulder so he’d follow her. “But later. I want to get a closer look at you first.”
Noah’s eyes were drawn to her ass, which was barely covered in a pair of black shorts, her legs, which were long and lean, and the sky-high black heels she wore as if they were a pair of sneakers. He made it as far as the curtain, saw the grinning bouncer with his hand out, then stopped. His date or whatever she was turned around, annoyance clear in her eyes. But he took her hand, yanked her close, put his lips to her ear and whispered, “I’m twenty-nine but look ten years younger. It’s a blessing and a curse.” She tried to pull away and grab his hand again, but he held on tight, one hand in the small of her back, the other copping a feel of her breast. She sighed and leaned into him, giving new life to his softening erection. “I thank you kindly for your interest, but I can’t afford any more direct attention, if you know what I mean. I’m just a poor working man. I don’t have spare dough for this.” He caught her earlobe in his teeth, giving her the same hard bite she’d given him.
Her nipple hardened under his thumb.
He smelled her lust curling around them, beckoning him further.
Well, at least I know I’ve still got it. Thought I might have lost my edge.
He took her hand again, kissed it like some kind of a gallant knight, shifted his dick with a wince and a wink then turned away and headed for the doors. This was not what he wanted. Not anymore.
He wanted his Yoga Lady. And, by God, he was going back out there to find her.