Page 1 of One More Night
ONE
Corinne
I’ve seen him before. Once on my brother’s eighteenth birthday, and again five years later when I graduated from college. It’s not everyday you remember somebody’s face so well that the years do nothing to diminish your confidence that yes, that really is the same person.
This man’s face—angels wept.
“Corinne.” My buddy knocks her elbow into me as I make love to the straw in my cocktail. “What the fuck are you staring at?”
I curl my lips on one side, black plastic pinched between my teeth, and nod in his direction.
Sarah flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder and props both elbows behind her on the bar as she scans the booths I indicated toward. “I don’t see it.”
Is she blind? “The guy right at the back of the second to last one.”
I wait as she narrows her gaze and blatantly eyeballs the elite. “Black shirt with the open collar?”
“Yeah. That’s him.”
She makes a purring noise in the back of her throat and cocks an eyebrow. “Intense.”
You don’t say. “He has more ink since I saw him last.”
He’s also added quite a bit of size. And by size, I mean muscle. Reow.
Sarah’s perfume washes over me in a wave as she spins on the spot and leans over the bar to signal the server. “You do realize who he’s seated with, right?”
I sip my cocktail, fingers pinched around the straw, as I look across at his table. He sits with his arms slung over the back of the seat—confident, cocky, and spread out for my perusal. His dark hair falls into his face in soft tendrils, a sharp nose complimenting his square jaw.
“The guy to his right,” Sarah whispers, leaning in as she waits on her order, “is the cousin of the current Black Devils MC president.” I shift my gaze to a stocky guy, maybe mid-forties, with a messy haircut, short on the sides.
“The sexy guy in the middle doesn’t look like a biker, though.” Apart from the tattoos, I suppose.
“That’s because he’s not.” She steals a glance over her shoulder. “Well, as far as I know, anyway. The man on the other side of him?”
“Yeah.” I let my eyes drift to a striking, lean guy. Tall, tatted, and pierced.
“I’m pretty sure he’s Irish mafia.”
“How on earth do you know all this?” I cast a dubious look her way as she retrieves her vodka mix.
“A girl doesn’t come out on the town every weekend without learning a few things about the men that frequent the same places.” She smirks before taking a gulp of her drink. “So, what’s the game plan?”
I have no idea. All I know is that I want to be up close and personal with that man by the end of the night. “I guess I better slut it up.”
“Girl,” Sarah says with clear disbelief. “You have any idea how to do that?”
“So I haven’t been out in a while.” Ten months. “I haven’t forgotten how to use what my momma gave me.”
“First,” Sarah says, waving her finger my way. “Don’t say that. And second, Aden would have had a panic attack if you tried to fuck him with the lights on, so …”
“Ugh,” I grunt. “What?”
“I’m laying bets on the fact you’re rusty as hell, girl. You’re goddamn broken!”
I down the rest of my drink in three long pulls while I watch my target. He tips his head back as he listens to the guy next to him, his lips curled in a sneer. Whatever he hears, he doesn’t like it, that’s for sure. I zero in on his face and read every twitch of his eyebrow, every clench of his jaw.
His gaze shifts across the dance floor and hits mine. Fuck. Fire washes throughmy veins as I spin toward Sarah.