I hadn't drunk enough yet to feel that kind of rush. Don't go there, I told myself. Gray was only kidding. "You're going to scare off the other guys."
"Who?" He turned his head right and left.
"Him." I motioned to the bar. A couple of swivel stools down sat potential one-night stand candidate number one, beer gut and a wife beater. I'd need a whole keg of this alcoholic beer-flavored water to do him.
Moving on to bachelor-not number two, desperation in a business suit. "Or him."
Probably out looking to cheat on his missus. Bastard. No chance.
Gray stared at me, making me wriggle in my seat. I strengthened the prescription of my new beer goggles with a sip from the shot of bottom-shelf bourbon before I perused the rest of the male offerings in my hole-in-the-wall dive of choice. I needed the hot burn of liquid courage if I was going to do this revenge sex thing with anyone here.
On to bachelor-maybe number three. The bartender. He was kind of cute. But I'd have to wait until closing time and I planned to be long since passed out and tucked into my own bed by then. Unless he'd be up for a quickie in the back room. Hmm.
It was the perfect way to start my new life as the fat-whore-rich-bitch Marc had accused me of being as he tumbled into the street. One more thing well-muscled ex-army bodyguards were good for.
I gave the bartender my best come hither look which he responded to with a wink and a just-a-minute-while-I-serve-the-yahoos gesture.
A tiny, giddy flutter hit my chest. It had been forever since I'd flirted with anyone besides my father's cronies and even I knew they were just happy for some attention from anyone under sixty. Harmless old men until money and real estate were on the table. Then I could strip naked and give them all lap dances without being noticed one bit.
Yeah, I had daddy issues, and cheating bastard ex-fiancé issues, and I hate every man in the whole world issues. The only saving grace of the entire male species was the bodyguard slash friend and confidant that was Grayson. Even he was on shaky ground.
I tilted my head toward the bartender. Gray shook his head. "Let's get out of here and do something fun to celebrate your freedom."
"I am going to have fun. Sex is fun." Or so I'd been told. Or so I had fantasized.
"So," He leaned in. "This is about the sex."
I absolutely, positively, unequivocally refused to blush. I watched the bartender, mostly so I didn't have to look Grayson in the eye while lying. "No."
He move in incredibly close and whispered so softly in my ear, his breath heated my skin. "You're a horrible liar."
Liar, liar, pants seriously on fire. "I am not."
He didn't back off an inch. "If this isn't about sex, where did this pretty flush on your neck and chest come from?"
I could feel the heat creep up my face like the warmth from a good glass of red wine. "It's the alcohol. Plus, why are you looking at my chest anyway?"
"There isn't a man in here who isn't." His eyes rose back up to mine. "And you've only had about a half a sip of that whiskey and even less of the beer, so good try."
I grabbed the shot glass, downed the remainder, and slammed it on the table. "Fine. It's about the sex."
The tables around us went quiet. Oops. I said that a bit too loud.
I smiled and held my beer aloft, toasting the gawkers.
If Gray didn't like my plan, that was his problem. It had taken a lot of cajoling to get him to go along with my scheming, after several false attempts. I certainly didn't have the cojones to do this on my own. I needed a friend...and a bodyguard to pull this off.
I lowered my voice for this go around. "So what if it is? I'm entitled to spread my wings, or in this case my legs, if I want to. If I want a one-night stand and sheet-sweaty, shouting sex, I'm going to have it. I'm not engaged anymore. I can have dirty, dirty sexcapades with anyone I want."
Gray nodded and his eyes flicked down to my chest and back up. "Yes, you can. It's about time, too."
Uh, not the reply I expected. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He chuckled. "Just that I doubt Sparky was very imaginative in the sack."
"I have no response to that." Mostly because the correct comeback would have been duh.
Gray searched my eyes then smiled. "What turns you on, Angel?"
You.
This time it was no light flitter in my belly, this was a full-on hurricane of butterflies attacking my internal organs with a barrage of trembling beats. Oh no. "I'm not talking about this with you."
"If you really want to get your rocks off, this isn't the place to do it."
"You've got someplace better?" I sipped my beer and looked around the dank bar. Okay, so anyplace was probably better than here.
"Yes."
"Where?" Please say the carriage house, or the back of the limo, or my room, or on one of his motorcycles. Not that I had spent anytime fantasizing about how sex on Gray's motorcycle would work.
"Ever heard of The Asylum?"
"The BDSM sex club?" Chingada Madre. "We can't go there. It's members only and I've heard it's practically impossible to be considered unless you are sponsored by another member. Money can't even buy its way in. It's harder to get in than the country club."
He listened, nodding like he agreed with my report. "I can get you in."
What? Even his black ops training couldn't do that. "How?"
"I'm a member."
And then I died. Or my brain exploded. Or other more southerly places in my body did.
CHAPTER TWO
Shoulda, Coulda, Woulda
Gray? A member of The Asylum? My mind said no way and my body said yes way. To both the new knowledge and the idea of going with him to the dark and forbidden.
It was no place for a lady like me, the daughter of old and new money. A drunken hook-up in a dive bar could be forgiven, but the enormity of the scandal that could and would come from going to a place like The Asylum and being found out, well, it would be...enormous. Unforgivable.
Delicious.
Who was I kidding? I was not Asylum material. I had a big butt, cellulite at twenty-four, and only enough knowledge of BDSM to be dangerous. Which was to say only what I'd snuck a peek at on a porn-clip internet site. One which I surreptitiously watched and then deleted all the cookies and browser history for.
I was no porn star.
Honestly, I couldn't imagine Gray with anyone but... He was too good looking to be seen fucking the likes of me.
That's what people-Gray-did at The Asylum. Fucked.
Marc's words rang in my head. Nobody would fuck a fatty like you if it weren't for your money, Angie. Kick me out and you'll have to start paying for sex.
Smug rat-bastard.
That's when Gray literally picked Marc up by the collar and threw him out the front door.
Marc had brushed the bits of gravel off his precious suit and stabbed at me some more. Might as well have your manservant here to take you for a ride. Though I doubt his salary is enough to try and squeeze his way between those thunder thighs.
Gray had saved me from everything from slipping in the mud to mud-slinging gossips. Too bad he couldn't save me from broken hearts. Even my knight in shining Armani couldn't keep away the shameful truth I heard in Marc's words.
That's probably what he was trying to do now with his flirting and offers to take me to a sex club.
"You're real funny. The Asylum. I'm so sure. Like I would fit in there." I slugged Gray in the arm.
He didn't move a millimeter. "I'm not kidding."
"Sure. Right. Thanks for trying, but I'm telling you the only thing that will cheer me up is sending Marc dirty pictures of me in bed with another man."
Gray waited a beat, huffed out a short breath, and frowned at me. "How exactly do you propose to take said pictures?"
"Uh, I guess it'll have to be a selfie?"
"Have you thought any of this so-called plan through? Like where do you plan to do the deed and how are you going to get rid of him when you're done?"
What was this, the Spanish-Italian girl inquisition? "I don't know. I don't have to know. You think every woman who has ever had a one-night stand preplanned everything?"
Game face. There it was. The one he only wore when he was about to get all protective and bodyguard-y. "You're not taking some random guy back to the house or even the brownstone."
Damn it. The brownstone was exactly my plan. Maybe we could go to Cruz towers instead? No. I hadn't used our suite there in forever. That conversation with the doorman would be a bit awkward. "Okay, safety police, I'll suggest we go to his place."