After countless failed attempts at finding her Prince Charming among the Horny Harrys…it was time to stop. Just stop. She’d always been the type to fall too fast, too easily, but she’d managed to kill that habit over the last year by taking things slow. Too slow, according to her jerk of an ex. So, yeah, maybe she was taking a step backwards by going home with this guy within minutes of meeting him.
But she didn’t intend to fall in love with him…
I just want to fall into his bed.
If she’d learned anything in her quest for love, and her past penchant for falling too easily, she’d learned one thing: The perfect guy didn’t exist. Men nowadays were raw, real, and mostly greedy. It was time she tried lowering her expectations for a short moment. It was time to stop hunting for a prince. To stop waiting for the guy who would sweep her off her feet with his words and his touch…and go home with the guy who made her want.
And she’d finally found that guy.
Being good was boring. It was time to have a little fun.
“Excuse me?” the guy said. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t put her finger on why, or how. And she didn’t care why, either. “I don’t think I heard you correctly.”
She fought back a smile. The dude seemed shocked she’d said yes, but hey, to be fair, so was she. “Oh, you heard me well enough,” she said, losing herself in his dark blue eyes. It took all her concentration to carry on a conversation with him, when all she could think about was kissing him again. “I said, let’s go.”
He stared at her with an amusing mixture of surprise and desire. It was even more perfectly clear that when he’d made that invitation, he hadn’t expected her to accept. But there was something about this guy that demanded submission. That demanded she go home with him, have the time of her life, and leave with a limp and a smile on her face in the morning. This guy could give her both those things.
On the surface, he looked like a nerdy, hot dude in glasses and a checkered shirt. Like he was more at home sitting on his couch playing his Xbox One, than sitting in a bar. She’d bet too many women wrote him off that way, too. But she’d been surrounded by two geek brothers and all their friends her whole life. And one thing she learned by eavesdropping—as younger sisters do—outside their doors? Geeks were the dirtiest, freakiest, sexiest men of them all. Hands down. And this guy might be the king of them all.
He stood up, towering over her, and dragged a hand through his hair. It spiked naturally as an aftereffect. “My ride’s out front.”
As he rummaged in his wallet, she studied him from underneath her lashes. He was six-foot-three, easily, and he had dark auburn hair and even darker blue eyes. He seemed to be the type of guy that was persistently just a little bit scruffy, and it suited him. Just like those khakis that hugged his butt.
He reeked of dark, stormy, addictive sex, and she was ready to collect.
Tossing a twenty on the bar, he turned back to her with a penetrating stare—as if he saw why she was going home with him, and understood better than she herself did. Which, of course, made no sense at all. His long, lean body wasn’t overly muscular, but she could tell that he was stronger than he appeared. She could see it in the hardness of his arms, and the way he carried himself. He was a man accustomed to physical activity.
“Ready?” he asked.
Nope. “Oh yeah.” She started for the door, but he rushed past her and opened it before she could do it for herself. So. He was a gentleman, too. This guy was an enigma she longed to unwrap…one article of clothing at a time. “Thank you, Mister…?”
He cocked a brow at her. “If you’re going home with me, I think you can use my first name.”
“Fine. I’m Lydia.”
“I’m Holt.”
And just like that, she knew why she recognized him. He was her older brother Steven’s friend. They worked at the same private security agency, and Steven had posted a few pictures of them together on Facebook. Every time she’d seen him, she’d been unable to glance away. There was just something that had caught her attention on the screen, so it was no wonder he’d caught her attention in real life, too.
“Oh my God. I know—” She cut herself off in the nick of time.
If she told him who she was, would he end their night together right here in the parking lot? She had no idea how close her brother and Holt were, but she had a feeling their bro code would make him leave the bar alone, and she didn’t want him to back off. She wanted him to get on.
He ran his finger over her jawline. “What do you know?”