The bartender muttered something but lined up the shot. I tossed down some cash, but Mila pushed it back to me. “I’m here with Volkov,” she told the guy for the third time, and a bolt of jealousy hit me, making me want to punch whoever the hell Volkov was.
“She’s here with me,” I snarled at the bartender, pushing the cash at him. “Whatever she drinks, I pay for it. Understand?”
“Yeah, dude, relax.” He took the money and then started to hand over the change, but I shook my head.
“Keep it.” Picking up the shot, I handed it to Mila, then picked up my tall glass of draft. “Here’s to causing trouble,” I told her as I tapped my pint glass against the shot glass.
A grin tilted up one side of her mouth. Fuck, she was beautiful. “Causing trouble is my full-time job,” she said with a sassy little wink before tossing back the shot.
She swallowed it without flinching, and I swear to all my aunt’s gods I almost came right then. I reached out, clutching the edge of the bar top, praying for control, yet at the same time, all too happy to give every ounce of it over to her.
Stephen coughed beside me, and when I looked at him, I saw he was watching her with a hunger that matched my own. Jealousy, something I couldn’t ever remember feeling before setting eyes on Mila, pushed down on me like a tsunami, and I was seconds away from punching my friend in the face.
As if sensing how close to death he was, Stephen turned his face neutral. “Think I’m gonna call it a night, man. You… Yeah, you have fun.” His lips tilted up in a ghost of a smile, and he saluted me as he backed away. “Call me tomorrow. We’ll go looking for an apartment for you or whatever.”
I didn’t return the smile. Just watched him go until the crowd swallowed him up.
“I don’t like the color of your eyes when you’re pissed,” Mila commented, placing her glass on the bar top. “All the other colors are pretty, some even beautiful, but this murky brown isn’t my favorite at all.”
Forgetting all about Stephen, I focused on her. The tension leaving my body, I found myself fighting a grin. “My eyes? Is that why you said amber was your favorite color?”
Her even, white teeth sank into her bottom lip for just a flash of a moment before she released it and shrugged. “Guilty. Ah, they’re back to being russet. Damn. I’m leaning more toward that than the amber now…” She lifted her hand and traced her thumb under my left eye in a butterfly-soft caress that gave me serious jelly-leg.
What the actual hell? I’d never been weak-kneed in my life, yet one barely there touch of her soft-as-a-rose-petal skin and I was having to hold on for dear life to keep myself upright.
And I fucking liked it.
“Damn it. They’re back to being amber. I love that color.” She sighed dramatically, and we both grinned. “What does it mean when your eyes are amber?” she demanded in the next moment, stepping closer and looking up at me through her lashes.
Catching her hand, I placed her palm flat against the center of my chest, letting her feel how hard my heart was pounding, and lowered my head until my lips skimmed her ear. “What do you think it means, my Mila?”
I felt her heart rate jack up before she shivered, heard her sharp inhale that made her amazing rack press up against the low neckline of her top. I caught her gaze, saw the simmering hunger banked in the depths of her gray eyes, and knew I wasn’t ever going to be the same again.
All these years, I’d been skeptical of my brother’s claim that he’d always known Violet was the one for him. Even when we were all little kids, he’d gone on and on about her being his other half from the moment he set eyes on her.
It wasn’t that I didn’t believe he and Violet had a special connection. It wasn’t even that I doubted they loved each other and had since they understood what that word meant.
No, it was that someone could know so instantaneously another person belonged to them.
But right then, I understood.
And I wasn’t going to fuck it up like Luca had with Violet.
Having seen what my brother had gone through when he’d lost his other half, I refused to put myself through the same misery.
“Tell me everything there is to know about Mila,” I commanded, holding her hand hostage against my heart. “I need every detail.”
“Did you know the russet and amber swirl together at times?” she murmured, seeming not to have heard what I’d said as she continued to stare up at my eyes. Her tongue drifted between her lips, the tip brushing over her bottom one. Transfixed, I followed the movement, wanting to taste her so fucking badly my chest heaved as I sucked in each breath. “They are right now, and I can’t seem to make myself look away.”
“Then don’t,” I rasped.
She blinked a few times and then shook her head as if to clear it. Sucking in a fortifying breath, she tried to step back, but I still held on to her hand. And I wasn’t letting go.
“Did you just move here?” she asked, taking my beer out of my hand and swallowing a large gulp. A few drops clung to her pillowy bottom lip, and I ached to lick them away. “Your friend said you needed to find an apartment.”
“Just landed my dream job,” I told her. Unable to stop myself, I used my thumb to rub away the droplets of beer, then sucked it into my mouth.
Goddamn, but that tasted good.
“So, you’re not from around here?” I shook my head, still sucking on the pad of my thumb, wanting to get every trace of her taste I could.
“Me either. We’re only here for my cousin’s wedding. Which is tomorrow. Then my aunt has to get back to Cali in case my other cousin, Lexa, goes into labor early. She’s not due for a few more weeks, but as big as she is with that baby boy, she’s liable to pop any day now.”
My heart stopped as the realization of what she was saying hit me like a ton of bricks had just been dumped on my head. “You don’t live here?”
“No. I live in Northern California. This is just a quick visit.” She took another thirsty sip of my beer.
“You visit often?” Please, fuck please, say yes.
“This is my first visit. My dad isn’t a fan of big-city life.” Another drink and my beer was down to just suds in the bottom of the glass. She placed it on the bar top and motioned to the bartender for a refill.
My fingers tightened around hers, desperation suddenly clawing at me. “When do you go home?”
“Tomorrow night,” she said with a casual shrug, not realizing she was turning my world upside down. I had less than twenty-four hours with her before she was going to get on a fucking plane and leave me.
The thought of her not being in the same city—fuck, just imagining her not being beside me tomorrow night—made it hard to breathe.
“Lyric?” Her hand was flush against my chest, so of course, she felt the change in my heart rate and breathing. Her free hand touched the side of my face. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
“You’re leaving tomorrow,” I choked out past the constriction in my throat.
“Yeah,” she agreed, and when she moved a little more into my space, I was finally able to breathe deeply. “But…there’s still tonight.”
Chapter 4
Mila
The bartender set the refilled beer between us, but my focus was completely on Lyric.
The pounding of his heart against his ribs vibrated through my fingers and up my arm, but at least his breathing had evened out. Had he really nearly had a panic attack at the idea of me leaving?
That was oddly sweet, and I found myself wanting to know everything there was to know about this guy. He’d sent his friend running with just a look, but his eyes had been murky brown, and I’d wanted to erase that color from his gaze.
The feeling that he looked familiar kept nagging at me, but I pushed it down, not wanting to focus on it. We were in the VIP of one of New York City’s hottest clubs; of course there were celebrities running around. I just didn’t want to think about Lyric being one.
All I wanted was some fun until I found the guy who would love me like Dad loved Mom. I wasn’t going to settle for anything less than the guy I loved loving me as completely as my parents loved each other. It was a hard act to follow, but I wasn’t going to compromise.
That we were running on such a short time frame told me that Lyric wasn’t going to be my future, but he looked like he could give me what I wanted for one night.
“Can we get out of here?” I asked him as I looked up at him through my lashes. “I don’t want to waste our night together surrounded by curious eyes and music so loud I can’t hear myself think.”
His brown eyes stopped swirling russet and amber and settled into a cinnamon color that became my newest favorite color, the perfect blend of the two. “Whatever you want, my Mila.” Taking my hand, he started to tug me away from the bar and toward the nearest exit, but I couldn’t just leave without telling someone where I was going.
My brother and cousins would throw a huge fit, and someone would call Dad and I wouldn’t get my one night with Lyric.
“Wait,” I said and turned us toward where Monroe was sitting.
Several feet behind the couch, Maverick was sitting with River, so I waved my sister over. She rolled her eyes at me but got to her feet and walked over to us, muttering something that had River pulling Mav’s head down and distracting the hell out of him with her lips.