Shane
He didn’t think about women. It wasn’t something he had ever done- dwell on another person. There hadn’t been a single woman in his life who had ever had that kind of impact.
Until her. Rayvn Whittaker. The woman who bid on him at the date auction.
Unfortunately, she’d been busy for a week. Or she’d put him off for a week. He wasn’t sure which. He did know that ever since he’d looked around that room from up on stage and spotted her, he hadn’t wanted to look away. He hadn’t been able to. Annoying enough, he hadn’t been able to stop seeing her since that night.
He was tortured by images of her jet-black hair, her dark black eyes, thick lashes, high cheekbones, full lips that were red just by nature. She was captivating. Bewitching. A single look at her had done something to him that he couldn’t undo.
He wanted to undo it. He didn’t like being tortured day and night.
The ball was in her court since she had his number, not the other way around. When she finally contacted him, she asked for something simple. Somehow, he knew she would. Somehow it was more romantic to envision an evening picnic in the park than something that cost a virtual fortune. He’d gone with that. He’d actually borrowed his mother’s hand-sewn quilt, purchased a picnic basket and assembled the food inside. Sandwiches, a bottle of wine, truffles he’d purchased at a chocolate store downtown.
He’d made a real effort and he never made an effort.
He wondered if he’d blown things out of proportion. If he’d made Rayvn out in his mind to be something that she wasn’t. If her ghost was far more intriguing than the real deal.
They’d agreed to meet and when she walked into the park wearing a breezy red dress and black strappy sandals, hair trailing down her back, loose and free, eyes sparkling with life, the sun at her back, framing her gorgeous tall, yet curvy silhouette, he knew he hadn’t imagined anything.
He was so tongue-tied he couldn’t even get anything out past a hello. She didn’t seem to mind. She seemed completely unflustered and unfazed by him. She took a seat next to him on the blanket he’d spread out and he marveled that his palms were sweating, his heart beating a mile a minute.
“You know, this is actually pretty romantic.” Rayvn raised a dark brow. She turned to him like it was the most natural thing to lead off the conversation, and the entire date, with a sentence that sounded completely skeptical. She looked at him like she saw straight through him, like she already knew he didn’t believe in romantic gestures, grand or small.
Her jet-black hair, so shiny that it almost glowed blue under the setting sun, cascaded down her back in a thick mass. Shane’s hands actually ached. It started as an itch in his fingertips and only got worse from there. His hands vibrated with the need to touch her, to caress that silken mass. He wanted to hold a strand up to his nose and inhale deeply.
This is insane. He’d never been attracted to a woman’s hair before. It was the sad truth that he’d been with so many women, even just on dates, that he rarely found anything about someone attractive. The whole connection thing- he hadn’t felt that in a very long time. When he dated, it was just going through the motions because he thought he should. It didn’t really mean anything. He couldn’t actually remember the last time it did.
Ravyn was different. He’d actually been excited. He couldn’t sleep knowing that he was taking her out. She was… he didn’t really know what she was. She was dazzling, captivating. She was mysterious, not like any other woman he’d ever met.
Ravyn was complicated. She was undefinable. She was that feeling in his chest that he hadn’t experienced in years. Just the sight of her stirred something in him that he’d thought was pretty much dead. She’s dangerous. That’s what she is.
“So- uh- do you normally just sit and stare at people all night and not say anything or is that just me that brings out the best in you.” She smiled sarcastically, as though making fun of herself too.
He snapped out of his trance at the same time he sensed that Rayvn was the kind of woman who didn’t take anything too seriously, least of all herself. That was an attractive quality. Humor. He liked the light, airy quality that shone from inside of her. Lord, he liked it far too much.
“I- sorry.” Shane tried to ignore the wild pounding of his heart and the way his pulse leaped at his throat. He didn’t want to be that guy, that guy who was pathetic and tongue-tied and entirely… smitten. That’s not who I am. That’s never been who I am.
“You don’t have to apologize,” she assured him, eyes twinkling. “I know you probably didn’t want to go on this date anyway. You didn’t exactly get a choice.”
“No,” he tried to protest. “I- uh- I did want to go on it.”
“You don’t have to lie to me. I know I paid to get you here. Which is kind of shady in a way. It was for charity though, right? It can’t all be bad if the money went to a good place. At least that’s how I rationalized buying a date.”
Shane’s mouth nearly fell open. He ground his teeth together just to make sure that it stayed shut. “You’re not the kind of girl who doesn’t get dates,” he blurted. He was aware that he sounded like a moron. What the hell is wrong with me? Normally he was the smooth one who ran laps around everyone else.
Rayvn shrugged. “I haven’t been out in a while. I guess that was my choice though.”
She looked like she was going to say more, but out of nowhere, a pink plastic disk entered Shane’s field of vision. He saw it on the periphery, screeching its way over towards them.
“Look out!” He yelled. He was already moving even as the words came tumbling out. He put out a hand and leaned forward, blocking the Frisbee at the last second. It had been on a crash course for Rayvn’s face.
The hard-plastic disk hit his hand painfully, but bounced away, down to land on the quilt. He breathed a sigh of relief, even as pain bloomed in his knuckles. He turned to the side as excited screams announced that the owners of the errant Frisbee were there to retrieve it.
A younger boy, probably five or six, and an older girl who had the same blonde hair and blue eyes as well as the same slight build, came running up. The boy was panting while the girl looked at him scathingly.
“I’m sorry,” the boy panted. “That was an accident.”
“I told him not to throw it so far,” the girl, probably the boy’s sister, protested. “He kept getting out of control. I kept telling him that there are other people here and we have to be careful.”
Rayvn slowly picked up the Frisbee. Her smile was radiant and her whole face softened when she handed it back to the kids. The boy reached out and tentatively took the proffered toy.
“No harm done,” Rayvn said softly. “My partner in crime here happens to be a very good Frisbee blocker.” She winked at him, which served to tie his insides in a whole pile of useless knots.
“Next time, be more careful,” Shane muttered. “You could have taken her out. Given her a black eye or something. These things can do some damage.”
“Sorry,” the kids said again, at the same time. They cast one last look at Rayvn before they scurried off towards the tree-line where they’d come running out of.
Rayvn sent him a sidelong look. “That wasn’t very nice. They said they were sorry.”
“They really could have hurt you,” he protested, hating that he was trying to defend himself against kids. “They’re probably just brats disobeying what their parents told them. Kids nowadays never listen to anything. No one raises them to have any responsibility.”
“You sound like you’re eighty.”
“It’s true. They’re just useless lumps for the most part that are being raised by technology. I guess you can’t blame them since their parents choose to bring them up like that.”
“Really? That’s what you think about kids?”
He shrugged. “Who would want to bring a kid into the world anyway? Look at the state of it. It’s all bullshit now. I wouldn’t want a kid. I don’t want what everyone says you have to have in order to be happy. A wife and kids and all that. I’m happy how I am. I don’t need brats running around the house, never listening to anything and then they grow up to be useless.”
“So, you don’t want kids because you hate them or because you’re too irresponsible to handle the thought of caring for another life, or because you’re afraid of what would happen to them out there, in a world that is always changing and not always for the better?” Rayvn leaned back and pegged him with a hard look, like she really did want to know the answer to her question.
“I don’t know,” Shane shrugged. “Some of both I guess. I don’t want kids. Never have. Never will. I like being by myself. If that’s being irresponsible or immature, I guess I’m okay with that.”
“Why did you even agree to go up there and stand on that stage then, if you didn’t really want to be with anyone?” She pursed her lips and he got the message loud and clear that she was annoyed with him.
Shane ignored the warning bells that were going off in his head. All he could think about was how damn beautiful Rayvn looked with her eyes flashing and her lips pursed and the bright pink color that flushed her high cheekbones.
“My best friend and my brother might have convinced me,” he admitted. It was obviously the wrong thing to say, since the color staining Ravyn’s cheeks, anger, he realized, darkened to a deep red.
She slowly shook her head, eyes blazing. “I don’t know what’s worse. That I paid for this date or that you’re actually a child.”
She shoved to her knees like she was going to leave, but Shane was quicker. He actually reached out and set a hand on her shoulder to guide her back to sitting. His fingers grazed warm, petal soft bronzed skin and he shuddered violently at the contact. She shrugged away quickly, like she couldn’t bear the thought of his touch. He dropped his hand back to his side, since that was obviously the safest place for it. He’d touched a lot of women in a hell of a lot more private places than a shoulder before, but he couldn’t ever remember it affecting him that way that gentle graze just had. His head spun and he stared at Rayvn through a fog of disbelief.
“Why shouldn’t I go?” She glared at him. “You obviously have no desire to be here. I know this was basically a blind date, but I know even those sometimes produce good results. I had to start somewhere. I thought that this would be as good a place as any. And since the money was going to a good cause, I thought what the hell. Now I realize what a stupid thing it was to do.”
“Bet you wish you would have saved it and bid on someone else.”
“Yeah, actually I do.” She nodded emphatically. “Although, bidding on no one would have been way better than bidding on you.”
“Really?” He raised a brow. “Oh really? I thought you said you had to start somewhere. Doesn’t that mean you’re tired of spending time alone?”
“Maybe, but that’s kind of my point. At least the conversation would have been stimulating. Even if it was just with myself.”
Shane leaned back on his elbows. He crossed his ankles and let his feet dangle off the edge of the blanket. The long lush blades of grass tickled his skin right where his jeans ended. He glanced around the park, but the kids must have ventured off. There wasn’t really anyone else out. It was part of the reason he’d picked the place, because he thought it would be private and nice. He hadn’t even lit the candle he’d brought in the picnic basket. He had yet to crack the lid on the damn thing and his date was already going to hell.
It had been a really long time since he was on the opposite side of the spectrum. He was never the one to be overly interested. He was never the one to beg. He didn’t call people back the next day. He often bailed halfway through a date because he just couldn’t be bothered. He was never really even attracted to the women he went out with. He just went because he could. Because he was bored. Generally though, no, almost always, his dates were into him.
Not Rayvn though. Not the one woman I’m actually into. Figures. How fucking ironic.
“I’m sorry that you feel that way.” He feigned casualness and leaned back further. He pretended that he didn’t care. That, in his experience, usually served to make the women he actually did want to chase away that much more clingy.
Rayvn shook her head again. Dark tendrils of hair bounced around her face and fluttered around her shoulders. More than ever he itched to bury his fingers in those midnight tendrils. He ground his fingers into the blanket so hard he felt the earth below both layers of the quilt.
“No, you’re not. You’re not sorry at all.”
“What if I am?” He refused to back down. He could at least stand his ground and hope for a miracle.
“You’re not.”
“What if I said I wanted you to stay?”
“I can tell you don’t mean it.”
Fuck me. That would certainly never happen. Not with Rayvn. What am I supposed to do? Beg? “And if I did?”
“I still wouldn’t want to stay. I can tell we have nothing in common.”
“You can tell after a few minutes?” He didn’t like the way his insides tightened in what felt pretty damn close to panic.
“Believe me, I could tell after a second. I’m so over this.”
“I’ll give you your money back then.” He was beyond begging her to stay or trying to reason her into it. She’d somehow found a way under his armor and stabbed straight into his pride. Let her go. She’s not worth it.
Rayvn annoyingly shook her head again. She smiled at him, but it was a sad, hopeless, lost gesture. “Don’t bother. Like I said, it went to a good cause.” She stood quickly, and he made no move to stop her. “Have a good night, Shane. Have a good rest of your life. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”
She walked off through the park, hips swaying gently, that glorious hair shining jet black under the setting sun.
He knew that was impossible. He’d never find what he was looking for because he had a horrible feeling it had just walked out on him for good.