Friday morning, I woke up hard and aching, rutting against my mattress in an attempt to find some relief. I groaned and felt around for my phone, peering at it. It was the third morning that week that I’d woken up from a sexy dream about Emily.

It was stupid, really. Was she attractive? Sure. But was she the most attractive woman in Barcelona? Of course not. She had nice curves, that was all, and a pretty face. But what made her so attractive to my subconscious, I knew, was the fact that she refused to sleep with me.

I sighed and shook my head. It was finally Friday, at least. I had a couple deliveries to make for Uncle Evgeni that day, but then that night, I could head out to Ritmo, get plastered, and find someone else to take home. I was sure that I could fuck the dream-memories of Emily out of my system pretty quickly, especially with one of the spicy Spanish ladies.

For now, I wrapped my hand around my member, muffling a groan as I started to pump it slowly, thinking about Emily’s mouth. She had such perfect, round lips. What I wouldn’t give to have those lips stretched around me, as I thrust into the warm wetness of her mouth…

That night, I pulled on a nice pair of dark jeans and a plain, white, button-down shirt. Casual but nice looking, that was what I was going for.

Ritmo was already busy when I got there, and I nodded a little to myself. This was going to be too easy. I couldn’t remember the English idiom for it, but I knew Aunt Vitka would have said it was as easy as boiling a turnip…

As I made my way to the bar, I bumped into someone. She stumbled a little, and I caught her, already preparing to give her some sort of heroic speech and offer to buy her a drink. The words died on my lips, though, when I realized that it was Emily who I was still hanging onto.

I brushed the imaginary dust off her sleeve and smiled ruefully at her. “So we meet again,” I said.

Emily groaned. “I knew I should be avoiding this place. I just wanted to come out and have a fun night.”

I snorted. “And I should be avoiding you,” I told her.

To my surprise, Emily looked indignant at that. “You should be avoiding me?” she snapped. “I’m not the one who has no personality aside from being a skeeze who tries to sleep with random women at his club.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, amused in spite of myself. “Is that really what you think about me?” I asked. She looked mortified, like she hadn’t meant to say that out loud, and I wondered how much she had already had to drink.

“I didn’t mean to…” She trailed off, and even in the dim lighting, I could see her blush.

“Well, if I’m just some skeeze, why do you care if I’m avoiding you?” I asked teasingly.

Emily ducked her head. “Because I don’t want to be the kind of girl that guys need to avoid,” she muttered.

“You’re not,” I said automatically. When she looked questioningly up at me, I shrugged expansively. “I need to avoid you because I can’t seem to avoid you,” I told her honestly. “I can’t get you out of my head. And I need to get laid, and I know that you’re not interested.”

Emily looked like she was about to say something, but then she guiltily turned away. Interesting… I wondered whether maybe she had a boyfriend, or an almost boyfriend, from back home. But she’d been away for long enough now that surely that wasn’t the problem. I wondered what it could be, though.

But before I could ask, she shook her head. “I have to go,” she managed to stammer out. Then, she slipped through the crowd, heading towards the exit.

I wanted to stop her. It would have been easy enough: grab her wrist as she turned, pull her back towards me. Kiss her passionately into submission… But I remembered what she had threatened the last time I’d seen her there at Ritmo, about calling security. Obviously the bouncers weren’t about to throw me out, but I didn’t need to cause a scene there either.

I sighed and let her go.

“Brother, there you are,” Andrei said, suddenly appearing at my side. He clapped a hand on my back and then steered me towards one of the booths at the back. I grimaced, wondering what exactly he thought that he’d just seen.

“So, is that girl the reason that you haven’t fucked anyone the past few nights?” Andrei asked, waggling his eyebrows at me.

I rolled my eyes. “If you’re going to interrogate me, you could at least get me a drink first,” I complained.

Andrei pushed his glass of vodka across the table towards me, and I downed what amounted to a couple shots in one quick go. “So?” Andrei asked the moment I put the glass back down.

“Andrei, I’m your older brother,” I reminded him.

Andrei snorted. “And?”

“I don’t have to let myself be interrogated by you.”

Andrei shrugged. “If you were going to get up and leave—if you didn’t want to talk about her—then you wouldn’t still be here,” he said, leaning back in the booth and looking smugly at me. “Now, I assume you want to talk to her. Maybe because you’ve seen me with Sarah and know that I know what I’m doing in a relationship?”

“I’m not taking relationship advice from you,” I said, rolling my eyes again.

“So don’t,” Andrei said. “But seriously, who’s the girl?”

“I met her last week,” I admitted grudgingly. “Her name’s Emily.”

“And she won’t let you sleep with her?” Andrei guessed.

I shook my head. “I don’t get it. She gave every sign of wanting to sleep together last time I saw her here at Ritmo, but at the end of the night, she made some lame excuse and left. Then, I ran into her while I was out running, and she went to get coffee with me. We had a nice talk, but I didn’t even get her phone number. Now, I ran into her again, and…well, you saw her. She acted like I’m a leper!”

“Well, it’s obvious that she’s interested in you,” Andrei said, frowning thoughtfully. “But she probably thinks you’re just a player, and she’s not the kind of girl to have one-night stands. Maybe you need to take her on a proper date first.”

“Because coffee wasn’t a proper date?” I asked.

“Not really, not if you just happened to bump into her. It needs to be something that you arranged ahead of time.”

“How am I supposed to arrange something ahead of time if she won’t even give me her number?” I asked, rolling my eyes.

To be honest, I didn’t even know why I was considering the idea. Whatever Emily was looking for, it apparently wasn’t the same as what I was looking for. Even if I took her out on a proper date and went home with her afterwards, she would expect something more to come of that. She would expect me to call her a couple days later, to start a relationship with her.

I wasn’t the relationship kind of guy.

“Come on,” Andrei said exasperatedly. “Don’t try to tell me that you couldn’t get her number in five minutes if you really wanted it. Maybe she won’t give it to you outright, but the Volkov family has…connections. She’s probably bought her drinks using her credit card; start with getting her last name.”

“Sounds like a lot of work just to get laid,” I muttered, taking another healthy swallow of vodka.

Andrei plucked his glass out of my hands. “You know it wouldn’t just be about getting laid,” he said.

“Oh really?” I snapped, lashing out at him because I couldn’t exactly lash out at myself. “What exactly do you think it would lead to?”

Andrei just looked amused. “You don’t need me to tell you that,” he pointed out. Before I could snap out a reply, he stood up and left the booth.

I stewed there for a moment, staring out at the crowd and trying to pick a different target for the night, one who was decidedly not blonde. But I couldn’t seem to settle on one. Instead, I took a bottle of the nicest vodka from the back room and headed home alone to drink myself into a stupor.