One Dirty Night

My little dabbles of wondering if he came here tonight were the worst kind of joke. Because he was here. And now, I wanted him to be anywhere else.

“Ella…care to tell me what you’re doing here?” Nick asked, deceptively soft.

Hunter stiffened.

Giselle flicked him a look from the booth.

And I stayed silent, tripping over words I would never say.

Shame shot down my legs, moments away from bolting from everyone.

But then…the hottest, dirtiest groan tumbled from Nick’s throat, wrenching my eyes to his.

The moment I looked at him, the world stopped spinning.

I jerked at the sudden stop.

I gasped at the sharpest punch of connection.

His nostrils flared as he drank me in. Glowering at me in another man’s embrace. Hatred swirled with unfiltered, unhidden, undeniable lust.

Lust?

My dead heart struck up a thrum again, racing, racing, racing.

Lust for me?

But how?

When?

Surely, not.

I would’ve sensed it, wouldn’t I?

After eight months of living together, I’d never caught him checking me out unless it was with that usual air of annoyance.

I could never do anything right. I couldn’t load the dishwasher right, hang out the washing right, even hoover our apartment right. Everything I did was wrong. Everything I said was a nuisance.

Yet here he was…staring at me as if he was fucking starving.

No, not starving…ravenous. A violently ravenous beast eyeing me up for his final meal.

“Ella…I asked you a question,” he seethed, his fists tightening into rocks.

Hunter shifted me deeper into his side, squaring off with Nick. “She’s here for the same thing you are. To get fucked. And if you’ll excuse us, we’re about to get started.” Barging past Nick, Hunter dragged me with him. “Run along, man. Pick your own partner because you’re not having mine.”

“Wait.” Nicholas’s hand shot out, latching around my wrist.

He didn’t hold me gently.

He bruised me.

Squeezed me.

Struggled to hold back whatever mania coursed through him.

I froze and looked at where he grabbed me. “Nick…let me go.”