99 Percent Mine

“You’re not some random guy.” I almost say, You’re the guy. But thankfully I’ve still got a little of the safer humiliation left in my bloodstream. “I’d be sitting here with my guy and I’d be all over him.”

He pulls back and our noses graze; we’re agonizingly close to a kiss. His eyebrow quirks at whatever my expression is. “What if he doesn’t want to be consumed, body and soul?”

My confidence sizzles out. “I guess . . . I guess I’d just have to hope . . .” Everything pulls back into focus. We’re talking about a man who will not be Tom. I try to turn back to the bar but his knees press tight.

“Hey,” he says, and strokes my cheekbone with his thumb. “I’m sorry. He’ll love it. He’ll only want your hands.” He hesitates, then plunges. “Being the full focus of Darcy Barrett is something else, let me tell you. It’s intense.”

“Yeah, I know. Kitchen-smashing intense.” I reach for my wine. “Hopefully whoever ends up mine will know beforehand exactly what he’s gotten himself into.”

Gotten into? It sounds too close to get in me. I need to make this conversation be a little more rhetorical. “What kind of guy would you approve of for me?”

This should be the perfect thing to say. It’s light, it’s neutral, and it covers up everything that has been scribbling so confusingly inside me. But I’ve said the wrong thing. His entire body flexes. The big knees squeeze, the fingers on his hand close, and his jaw barely lets the words out. “No one.”

Even if he’s jealous, it’s pointless. I look across the room. There’s Vince with a blond girl. Her face is lit up blue from her phone screen. I give him a nod, and he nods back, glum.

“Ha ha, he’s having the worst night.” There’s not even a blip of emotion inside me.

As soon as I’m looking back at Tom, no one else exists. I’m beginning to think that it’s going to be the case for life. It’s why I really should make an effort to find my silver medal. “Please, tell me. What kind of guy?”

Tom responds like I’m testing his patience. “There’s no one in the world I’d choose for you. He’s still looking, then?” He weaves my bra strap between his fingers. “You wear some fancy stuff around my building site.”

The lace stretches tight and I feel it everywhere. “Only up top. Down below, it’s nothing but sturdy, abusive cotton.”

“What do they say? Right now?”

“Oh yeah. They say . . .” I lean up to his ear. “None of your business.”

“Your jeans are tight enough that I can almost make it out.” His fingers are on my hips now, sliding into my belt loops. The tiny tug he gives me rocks me another half inch into him. I’m turned on. In public, on another goddamn stool.

“Hey, you’re blushing. That’s a pretty pink.” He presses a kiss on my cheekbone, sits back, and smirks in Vince’s direction.

With each second, the light is changing on the planes of Tom’s face and he’s looking more like a stranger. I couldn’t care less if Vince is watching. “I swear, if you’re just messing with me . . .”

His eyes spark in memory, and he uses my own words. “What is it like, being messed with by me?”

“You’re so good at it, I’m starting to sweat.” I blow out a breath. “Seriously, don’t try this on anyone else tonight. I’ll break her face.”

“If I was really good at this, I’d tell you what I’d do when I got you home.” He visibly checks himself, sitting straighter, reaching for his beer. He sips it and his eyes look at his watch.

Meanwhile, my body is absorbing what he just said, and it needs an answer. “Come back. Don’t stop.”

He puts his hand on my bare shoulder and there’s a slow, warm squeeze. My nipples pinch. He sees everything, through the lace and the silk. I know he does, because his orange-stripe eyes are going black. “I’ve been wondering. What does hungry skin feel like?”

“I just start feeling hollow, and lonely.” My throat is so dry I have to pick up my wineglass and tip it all into my mouth. His touch brings me relief, but also a restlessness. There are too many people in this room. They’re all a bunch of laughing, drinking jerks who don’t know that they need to get out. This is my room and my person.

He’s watching his own hand as he touches me. It’s unbearably sexy. “I don’t like the thought of you being all hungry.”

Someone jostles me and Tom’s eye line cuts above my head. He transmits a male warning: Don’t touch her. The air behind me quickly cools, his denim knees clasp gently, and he refocuses on me. It’s intoxicating, being tucked so safe inside this gold bubble.

I really need to keep up with this conversation. “I just get crabby and irritated. Big surprise, I know I’m always like that. But I just need to feel someone else . . . It eases off the sharpness inside. It really is an actual thing. Skin hunger. I read a study about it.”

“I think it’s because you’re a twin,” Tom says, and his hand lifts away from me, leaving me cold. “You were squashed up together in the womb for so long.” A tiny hologram of Jamie is hovering somewhere, Princess Leia–like, in our vicinity.

“No, no, come back.” I press his hand back down onto my skin and although his mouth has a hint of disapproval, he strokes me in a way that feels like praise.

“Like a rose petal, DB.” The fingertips trail, gentler than I thought possible; he’s thinking about my softness and it’s making me crazy. He’s getting shy, then glances casually to one side at Vince. When he looks back he’s got an edge to his stare.

“If you were mine, I’d be careful with you. I bet that’s something you haven’t had much of.”