***
The bar is just what I wanted. It's wide open and even though it's early, there are at least a dozen people here with no company. The lighting is all pink and purple, lit from recessed alcoves to give the ceiling a sort of fairyland glow.
It looks like some kind of corporate place, the kind where they send people into Chicago for a few days to get a job done. People come in, check into the hotel and find themselves bored at 7 o'clock at night. They head down to the bar for company.
Here we are, ladies, more company than you bargained for.
My eyes seesaw over the small crowd. Groups of one or two. A couple of older guys in cheap suits with their eyes fixed on the muted televisions overhead, their mouths hanging open as they read the closed caption commentary of the basketball game that’s on. This is not the sort of bar where they turn on the volume for the TV if the piano is playing.
A tight, pinched-face lady looks Alek up and down as we walk past her. She's playing with a string of beads around her neck and holding a martini a few inches from her mouth. Not sure about this one. She's slightly past the freshness date, but I do like a woman who's been through the mill more than once.
I'll have to keep her in mind for later. Maybe as a snack after the main attraction.
There's a pair of thick blondes at the corner of the bar, too. They're both giggling a little too loudly at their jokes, gnawing on the end of cocktail skewers and rubbing those plump ass cheeks against the barstools. That's excellent. That's what I'm talking about. I can have them both moaning and begging for release in minutes. That's what I need, not just one woman, two. Two to go.
“Her,” Alek says in a low voice next to me.
I stop up short and look around. He’s not looking at the blondes by the bar, but at a booth off to the left in front of a violet velvet curtain and three pink pendant lights.
“Who?” I say, though I already know.
He points at the booth with his chin but I am already shaking my head. A dainty, pretty thing is just sitting there with her legs crossed at the knee. Her light brown curls catch the light as they tumble over her mostly bare shoulders.
“Alek, no. Nothing like that. How about these two blondes over here? They look like gym teachers! These could be our girls.”
Alek scowls at me. “She’s gorgeous, Roman. I want to talk to her. I’m talking to her.”
I squint my eyes closed. I don’t want to talk to her, not at all. I don’t feel like playing the big bad Russian wolf tonight for some tiny Red Riding Hood. I want a real woman. Sturdy, like I said.
But it’s too late. Alek crosses in front of me to come up behind her. I walk up to the booth to stand in front of her just as he stumbles against her shoulder from behind.
She startles and glances up at me with these big, fluttering eyelashes. The tip of her nose is bright red and her lips contract into a perfect oval as she says oh.
For second I'm annoyed at Alek’s clumsy ploy and back away. But something about her, the way that she opens her mouth right then and I can see a sweet, moist glint on her lower lip, just a drop of that Manhattan she's drinking. Something about that makes me stop.
This is bad. This is a terrible idea. She's just a tiny thing, She can’t be anything over five foot four. Smooth, glossy skin like a figurine you would find on a shelf. Long, shining chestnut hair that curls over her cheekbones. Clingy black dress that ends above her rosy, warm-looking knees.
I can see where she's got her legs crossed and how the triangular shadow that falls across her thighs is like the entrance to a carnival. Like it should be lit up with neon, maybe some stars or hearts and shit.
Alek stumbles into me and rights himself as she’s pulling herself together. He grins at her apologetically, then shoves me toward the booth. Swearing, I drop into it. Let’s just give her thirty seconds to freak out and run away. Then I can get Alek aimed at the gym teachers and we can resume a plan that has a prayer of succeeding.
She hiccups as she flinches away, and her hand slides over that oh-shaped mouth. My balls clench. I want to be inside those lips. I have to.
I should get up and walk away now, but I can't. We’re about to ruin her life.
CHAPTER 4
MARIE
There are two old guys sitting at the corner of the bar watching the Bulls game, and those are the only men in this entire place. I should not have come here. I could've gone to Excalibur or down to Rush Street maybe. There are always a bunch of college guys just wandering around there looking to get laid. That would have been a decent decision.
But if I did that, I would have immediately run into one of Daddy's guys. Maybe not, but some other family for sure. Somebody would see me and then call somebody from the neighborhood who would call Daddy who would send two or three guys to come get me. This is how it happens every time. I don't think I've ever made it to closing time at a bar in my entire life. I feel like Rapunzel half the time, locked up in the tower.