Bait

I wish the ground would swallow me up.

I don’t even know his fucking name.

“Jack,” Jack says. “I work with Abi.”

There it is. Abi again.

I can’t look behind me. I can’t face the awkwardness as his eyes meet mine.

I figure he’ll bail with a grunt and a see you later, but he doesn’t. His hand is big and warm against my back. The bulk of him so reassuring as he steps to my side.

“Leo,” he says, and my jaw hits the floor. He takes Jack’s outstretched hand. “Good to meet you.”

“Same,” Jack says, even though he’s lying. He gestures back to the garden. “Do you wanna join us? Excuse the stupid outfits, it’s tarts and vicars.”

I hold my breath. Please. Please, please, please.

“I’m driving,” he says, and my heart drops. “But introductions would be nice.”

I’ve lost the power of basic bodily functions when my monster – Leo – steps out into the light after Jack.

I’d never be able to follow him if he didn’t take my hand and pull me along after him.

The girls’ faces are a picture. I can only imagine what mine looks like.

And I can only imagine the grilling I’m going to face when the monster leaves.

The thrill makes my heart sing.

But not as much as Leo does.Twenty-ThreeInsanity is knowing that what you’re doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can’t stop it.

Elizabeth WurtzelPhoenixI shouldn’t be here. I don’t know why I am.

I don’t know why I’m shaking their hands and smiling so politely and using my real name.

Abigail can’t stop staring at me. Her eyes are big, blatant, the alcohol stealing any coyness. Though she might be a little more self-conscious if she could see the love bites darkening on her neck.

I’m glad everyone else can. I feel like a caveman with her at my side, my arm wrapped so possessively around her waist.

This is ridiculous. Crazy. Idiotic and most definitely fucking insane.

But I can’t stop.

I can’t bring myself to play this down as nothing and say my goodbyes.

“Where did you guys meet?” Lauren – I think – asks. She looks between us and I look down at Abigail.

I love how my black swan flounders.

“I, uh, met Leo at, ummm…”

The sound of my name from her mouth makes me thoroughly uncomfortable, but weirdly excited at the same time.

She looks up at me, but I give her no help whatsoever.

And then she surprises me, which seems to be a running theme for this evening.

“We met online,” she says. “On this like… introductions website…”

A circle of raised eyebrows give way to whoops and chatter. I’d usually hate this shit.

“Online?!” one of the other girls asks. She looks me up and down, and I think she’s had more than her bandwidth of tequila already. “Wow, you’ll have to give me the web address.”

The Lauren girl points between us, one to the other. “So, is this a thing? Are you guys dating?”

“No,” she says, straight off the cuff.

Her reaction makes me want to wrestle her to the floor in front of all of them and fuck her tight little asshole with an audience.

Her eyes meet mine and widen. “No, I mean, um…” she starts. I hold her stare. “I mean, I dunno… it’s early days…”

Better.

Lauren laughs aloud. “Abigail Summers. You’ve been caught behind the bins with your knickers down. Proverbially if not literally. Have you even seen the state of your neck? I don’t think the days are that early somehow, you little minx.”

Oh the beautiful fucking horror on Abigail’s face. It makes my dick harden all over again.

Her hand jumps to her throat, as though she has a hope in hell’s chance of hiding them. It makes me smirk.

I love that I’ve marked her. I love that she’ll be conscious of those for days.

She isn’t the desperate lost soul I met online. She sparkles. Shines. She’s lively and full of life.

Stunning.

Being at her side makes me feel all kinds of fucked up. My truck is calling, and so is familiar turf, but my feet stay rooted to the ground and my arm stays firm around her.

“Are you coming to the summer barbeque?” the guy asks, and it takes me a beat to remember I have to play ignorant.

“The what?”

It’s Abigail who steps in to answer. “It’s nothing really, just some work barbeque for charity.”

I wonder if she’s trying to head me off attending, if so it’ll be so much more of a thrill to turn up unannounced.

She is trying to head me off, I see it in her eyes. In the way she sweeps the conversation around to her blonde neighbour and how she picked out her nail colour.

Even as she’s angling the topic away from social engagements her fingers come to rest against the small of my back. I like having them there.

I like it a lot less when her fingertips sweep upwards.