“Tequila,” I said. “The best you got.”
When the shot glass was thrust in front of me, I slammed it back, and a female voice hollered behind me.
I turned as the girl slid onto the stool next to me. “Get straight to the nasty stuff, I see,” she said.
I flicked a finger at the bartender for another round. “You don’t like tequila?” I asked the girl.
She had a green bracelet on her wrist, too, so at least twenty-one, though she didn’t look it. All her features were soft and rounded off, like she hadn’t matured into herself yet. Her eyes were big and bright, and though her smoky voice had the upswing of a flirty vibe, her gaze said otherwise.
I knew a predator when I saw one. Which made me wonder—in what twisted world did I look like prey?
“I like tequila just fine,” she said, and folded her hands on the bar top. “It’s what comes after the tequila I don’t like.”
“You mean the blackouts? Or the hangover?”
She smiled. “Both. Obviously.”
The tempo of the music picked up, and I could feel the thrumming of the electronic beat in my chest.
“You want a shot?” I asked her, and she quickly nodded. I amended the order for one more.
When I went straight for the booze, the mystery girl stopped me with a hand on my forearm. I looked down at her fingers spread over my skin and tamped down the urge to yank my arm away.
“What?” I said, as lazily as I could manage.
“You drink tequila, you drink it right.” She handed me a shaker of salt, and I rolled my eyes.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said.
“I never kid.”
She licked her hand between her thumb and index finger, her eyes trained on me as she did. I held up the shaker with an arch of my brow, and she gave me her hand. I shook out some salt. I pulled back to do the same, but she snatched my hand in hers and licked it for me.
I grinned at her. She grinned back.
“Ready?” she said.
“I was ready five minutes ago.”
She laughed. We raised the shot glasses, and I swigged the tequila back after the salt, finishing it off with a bite of the lime wedge. The booze was smooth, and burned all the way down my throat, setting fire to my gut.
The girl smiled. “Another round?”
“Always,” I said.
A half hour later, the club started to teeter around me, and everything was so fucking funny, I couldn’t stop laughing.
“Dance with me,” the girl said.
I set down the shot glass hard. “I don’t dance.”
“Yes, you do.” She grabbed my wrist and tugged me toward the floor.
The electronic music had been replaced with hip-hop three shots ago, and the heavy bass thumps rocketed up my legs. I got in close to the girl, our bodies pressed together so tightly, you’d need a knife to separate us.
When the song’s hook slowed the beat, the girl moved against me in equally slow, sinuous movements. The heat of the tequila in my gut sank lower, until I couldn’t think of anything else but the girl and me.
The blow of trumpets punctuated the air—what kind of hip-hop song was this?—and the girl ran her hands beneath my shirt. When she looked up at me, her head tilted back to make up the ten inches of height difference between us, I recognized that look in her eye, and who was I to ignore it?
I hunched forward and kissed her, my hands running up her body.
Hers found their way to my stomach—girls always went for the stomach.
When I pulled back, she was breathing heavily, her eyes half-lidded.
“Want to get out of here?” I asked.
She nodded, so I pulled her hand out of my shirt and tugged her toward the door.
On our way back to my hotel room, my cell rang, and I fished it out of my pocket. When I answered, I tried my hardest not to sound blasted out of my mind.
“Hello?” I said.
The mystery girl—I still didn’t know her name—grabbed my hand and asked who it was.
“Where are you?” Sam asked.
He’d ignored the code we’d agreed on. “Where do you think I am?”
“Are you drunk?”
I snorted. “No.”
“Nicholas!” he growled.
“’S fine,” I said.
We stopped for traffic at a street corner, and the girl danced circles around me.
“What do you want?” I asked Sam.
“I want you to not be drunk.”
I laughed. “Too late, boss.”
“For fuck’s sake, Nick.” Sam pulled in a settling breath, as if he were three seconds away from reaching through the phone and throttling me.
“I’m on my way back to my room,” I said. “I’ll stay there till morning. Promise.”
“Like that’ll stop anyone from busting through the door?”