Something Reckless(6)

“She’s not mine,” Sam says. “She’s seventeen.”

The guy’s eyes go wide and he throws up his hands and backs away, muttering something about jailbait.

Sam made me a pariah at this party. Fantastic.

I spin on Sam. “What was that?”

He arches a brow. “You smell like a liquor bottle. How much have you had to drink?”

“I didn’t come here looking for a new daddy, so stop trying to protect me.”

“Someone needs to,” he mutters. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

I push past him. The crowd swallows me as I work my way to the other side of the basement, straight to the bar. The girls have vacated the smooth wooden surface, and now it’s as if waiting for me.

“Want some help up?” A blond guy grins at me, as if seeing me dance on the bar would make his night.

“Yes, please.” I give him my hand and flash a look over my shoulder to make sure Sam isn’t here to boss me around and tell everyone I’m a child.

The second I climb on the bar, I’m hyperaware of my short skirt. Guys gather beneath me, no doubt to a great view of my purple silk panties, but I make the best of it and dance to the music, running my hands over my stomach and hips as I find the beat.

There are catcalls, and part of me likes it—the attention, feeling important, even if it was for something as trivial as my body. When you feel stupid all the time, it’s nice to be appreciated for something. Anything. It doesn’t take long for another girl to climb up to join me. We dance together, much to the delight of the guys watching.

“Body shots!” one of the guys in the crowd calls. Then others join in to an increasingly insistent chant of, “Bo-dy shots! Bo-dy shots!”

The next thing I know, the girl shoves a shot glass in her cleavage. “Be gentle,” she croons so the guys in the crowd can hear.

I know what they want—what they expect—and before I can think too much, I duck my head and wrap my lips around the glass. The guys howl their approval, and I come up with it slowly, shooting it back without the help of my hands.

“My turn!” the girl says, lifting another shot in the air. She turns to the crowd. “Where should she put it?”

“Between her legs!” someone answers. A chair is hoisted next to me on the bar. It doesn’t quite fit, and I have to balance it on three legs as I position the shot between my thighs.

As quickly as I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into, I remember Sam saying someone needs to watch out for me, and I pull my skirt a little higher.

My partner in crime giggles as she lowers onto her knees. “I’m not really into girls,” she whispers, “but you are pretty hot.”

Then she licks my inner thigh, and it shocks me so much that I lose my balance. Both the chair and I fall off the bar and into the crowd. Someone catches me, but I hit several people and drinks on my way down. It seems like there’s beer everywhere, including streaming down my shirt and covering my legs. Gasping at the cold, I pull the wet fabric of my shirt off my skin.

“Shit,” someone says. “Are you hurt?”

Turning toward the voice, I find myself looking into the face of Sam Bradshaw, his eyes on my soaking wet shirt. “I’m okay.”

“You’re covered in beer.” His gaze roams over me one more time before he lifts it to my face. “You really are rowdy, you know that?”

Even though I’m covered in goose bumps, his closeness makes me feel warm. I probably smell worse than I look, but I have Sam’s attention. Finally.

He grabs my hand and pulls me away from the guy who caught me. “Come on, Rowdy. Let’s get you out of here.” His smile’s so gentle, so comforting, I want to curl into it. Then he walks away and I have to think really hard to remember that I’m supposed to be following him.

I let him lead the way up the stairs, my eyes on his back the whole time.

He opens a door on the landing and nods inside. “In here.”

My drunken heart skitters and stumbles at the sound of his voice and the idea of following him into his room. I follow him inside and close the door.

Sam took me to his bedroom.

My stomach’s a mess of nerves—fear, anxiety, and excitement, all wrapped in my crush on him. I pull off my beer-soaked shirt and drop it to the floor as Sam looks in his closet.

My head spins, and some of the happiness that comes from drinking too fast begins to fade, replaced with a faint sense of shame. I was trying to loosen up, to fit in, to find the courage to approach him, and I became another reckless drunk girl.

When he turns back to me, T-shirt in hand, my face is hot with shame. His eyes widen for a moment as he takes me in, then he averts his gaze. “Put this on,” he says, offering the T-shirt.