Page 17 of Untethered Heart
Claire and I finish our drinks, and when a punching synth riff commands the speakers, we eagerly run back to the dancefloor. With our arms thrown up in the air, I close my eyes, smiling as I let the song lyrics replace my thoughts. The back of my neck prickles, sensing attention on me. I open my eyes, answering the warning call, and everything stills. The green gaze I’ve been seeing in my sleep is staring straight at me. Everything that felt lost suddenly feels found again.
“Hello, Siren.”
Chapter eleven
I was hallucinating. Dreaming. I’d drunk a batch of poisoned whiskey. These were all reasons I had given myself over the last four weeks to explain why I was obsessing over a single night with a woman who I knew nothing about except for her first name.
But that’s not true. I knew more than that. Like the feel of her soft, tanned skin as I ran my palm over it. The taste of coconut on her neck as I pressed my lips against her. The sounds of her gasps and sighs as she accepted the pleasure I offered.
Whilst I know business, I’m not clever or gifted enough to conjure up a goddess like Lex. She had to be real, but if she was, where was she?
Finally.Finally.She’s here.
Standing right in the middle of the crowded dancefloor of my brother’s bar.
White cowboy boots hug her calves, making me salivate. I want to wrap her legs around my head and drown in her sweetness again. I follow those golden thighs upward to a tempting little skirt, a sliver of toned skin at her middle, exposed between the waistband and the hem of her cropped T-shirt.
It makes irrational possession twist my face at the thought of anyone else here witnessing so much of her beautiful body. That’s my body to drink in, to caress and worship. My discomfort easesas I get closer and read the words stretched across the fabric.Cowboy pillowsis written across her breasts in invitation.
Well, okay then. Looks like I’m a cowboy tonight.
Her eyes are closed, head thrown back with a freeing smile on her face. As if sensing me, her lashes spring open, revealing grey eyes as they latch onto mine. Her lips part, her rolling hips pause, and her arms slowly drop down to her sides as I continue sauntering towards her.
It’s like an arrow to the heart to be seen by Lex.
Before tonight, I was certain my fixation was only because I didn’t get my fill. That I had left too quickly the night we were together. I should have stayed and spent more hours exploring her body, but the connection we shared that night startled me. I walked away, and the memory of her has lingered unrelentingly ever since. Flashing like neon lights inside my brain, demanding I find her and correct my mistake of leaving that night.
I can’t describe the satisfaction I felt when my hands ran along the contours of her body. I didn’t even get to appreciate it in full light, just the soft glow of her lamp as it illuminated her. A woman like that deserves to be washed in sunlight, lit up like diamonds and worshipped long into the night and even longer into the early mornings. God, do I want to worship her. Pick me as a sacrifice and lay me at her feet.
The second I’m in her space, that scent of coconut wraps around me, and I’m coated in warmth and peace.
“Hello, Siren.”
“I’m just going to get a drink,” her friend says. I didn’t notice her before; all I cared about was getting to my girl. Lex nods, keeping her eyes on me, and her friend disappears.
“You came back,” I say as I breach the final distance between us. The tips of my shoes meet hers, and my palms land on her delicately curved hips, causing her to gasp and stare at where our skin touches.
My thumbs brush over the exposed skin of her stomach, revelling in the smooth warmth there.
She meets my eyes again. “How do you know I haven’t been here?”
I look away, hiding the guilty smirk on my face. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“You have?”
I nod, the confidence I’m more used to returning with my next words. “Waiting for you.”
I slide my hands around her hips, landing on the small of her back, pulling her into me so our bodies align. I slowly dance us back and forth, not having it in me to rush with her this time. I want to savour the feel of her beneath my studious touch, explore the sizzling that graces my fingertips every time they dance over an inch of exposed skin.
Her hands glide up my biceps, running up and over my shoulders to rest there as she leans into my guiding steps, seemingly unbothered that we’re dancing off beat. I don’t care if we look foolishly out of place, swaying like teenagers at a school dance. The woman I’ve been fixated on for weeks is standing before me, held tight within my grasp.
“So you haven’t been purposely avoiding this place?” I ask, earning a shy smile as she shakes her head. I can’t describe why that lights me up.
“Just busy working.” She shrugs.
“I can understand that.”
She studies the hunter-green tie tucked into my charcoal vest. “That doesn’t surprise me,” she sasses. “This is the second time we’ve met, in a bar, and you’re wearing a suit.”
