I’m standing in a rock club, sipping a beer, watching a band of men dripping sex appeal sing about a one-night stand while thrashing on electric guitars.
Yeah, so much for getting back to the old, clean-cut, polished me.
Sierra elbows me as the guitar player steps forward for a solo. “That’s my friend!”
“Wow, he’s-”
“Gorgeous?”
I blush, grinning.
“Yeah, I know,” she laughs.
Chastity mutters something about the devil’s agents, but I can barely hear her as I tip the bottle back, take a sip of beer and let the music and the crowd and the light just wash over me.
A baptism in coolness.
But then suddenly, I freeze. I blink, squinting in the dim light, but there’s no denying what my eyes spot.
Rowan.
Here.
He’s in profile, off to one side of the stage up on the second level of the bar, and he’s scowling as he argues with someone I can’t see behind a pole. I jerk my eyes back to Sierra, who’s glancing up at her brother too.
She sighs exasperatedly.
“What?”
“Just classic older brother crashing my night out,” she rolls her eyes. “He’s probably here with some skank.”
“A skank?”
“Oh,” she rolls her eyes again, grinning. “He’s like a lightning rod for the sluttiest girls in New England. You could drop Rowan on Mars and he’d find some bar skank ready to sink her claws into him in under an hour.”
My face scowls.
“I know, gross. But that’s Rowan.”
“Disgusting,” Chastity mutters.
Rowan’s eyes narrow, his face darkening as he stabs a finger at someone behind the pole. Suddenly, a large hand reaches out from behind it, shoving him back. He steps back, and suddenly two men step into my line of sight.
The big one I instantly recognize as the “beer delivery man” from that night at the bar. But it’s the smaller man, in a brown leather jacket, who’s speaking to Rowan, jabbing a finger right back, and shrugging as he takes a sip from the glass in his hand. Rowan looks away, shaking his head and looking furious.
“Oh, shit.” Sierra’s looking up at him again.
“What?”
“Oh, Rowan’s got…” she sighs. “He’s got some not great friends.”
I watch as he angrily shrugs off the smaller man’s hands when he claps him on the back. The guy laughs, does it again and then walks away, followed by the large man.
Rowan scowls, taking a big breath and running his fingers through his hair.
I haven’t seen this Rowan. This Rowan isn’t cracking a joke, or being crude, or grinning.
He looks furious.
He looks scared.
And then he looks right at me, and suddenly he’s right back to the man I know.
He grins that wicked, tempting grin at me over the crowd, wagging his brow.
I quickly look away.
Nope, not going there. The rock show, the beer, the crazy music, the new scene I’m not used to?
Sure.
But Rowan Hammond and his magnetic ability to tempt me into wickedness is nothing I need to add to this. I take another quick sip of beer as I purposefully turn back to the stage.
I take a second one right after.
You know what? Maybe beer is my drink. And maybe I can make it until Milton gets here without Rowan interfering in my life.
Getting under my skin.
Getting in close.
Getting into my pants.
Because I know where that leads. I know myself enough to see the weakness I have around him. I let go around him for some insane reason, and I forget who I am.
I want to forget who I am around him. I want to forget the way I was raised, the code and the rules I’ve adhered to.
Around him, I want to be bad.
I want to sin.
And I can’t keep doing that, not anymore.
I’m watching the bass player jump off the drum stand when I feel the hand on my ass.
Is he serious?
I freeze, clenching my beer tightly before whirling. “Are you serious?” I hiss as I turn. “Here?”
I freeze.
“We can go somewhere else, cute stuff.”
Oh. My. God.
It’s not Rowan. Not at all.
The man in the skull t-shirt with the arms cut off and a Red Sox baseball hat leers at me. “How you doing, babe?”
I jerk away from him but his arm darts out to catch my wrist. “Hey, where you going? Thought you wanted to go somewhere?”
I swallow thickly. “Oh, no, I- I mean-” I shake my head, my eyes darting across his creepy grin.
He swigs the beer in his hand and when he leans close, the smell of it washes over my face, making me cringe.
“What’s your name.”
“Let me go.”
“That’s a funny name.”
I yank my hand away from him again. “I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else.”