Hendrix (Raleigh Raptors 3)

“By having a lot of indiscriminate sex,” Roman answered matter-of-factly.

“Thanks, Einstein.” I ordered a beer from the nearest waiter and leaned my elbows on the cocktail-height table. “She didn’t even care that I didn’t remember her.”

“No shit?” Roman turned slightly to look at me.

“No shit, but I cared,” I finished quickly as Teagan returned. There was no other way to put it. It had been six months since I’d had sex, which was the longest I’d gone since losing my virginity at fifteen. Sex had always been easy, and women had always been willing, and I was just…over it.

Not the sex.

Never the sex.

God, I fucking loved everything about sex.

But I was done with the emptiness that stuck around after.

“Let’s go, you two,” Teagan said with a grin as the song changed to a remix of The Weeknd. When neither of us moved, she arched a single brow, then held out both her hands, one of which sparkled with her engagement ring as the lights hit it.

“Okay, okay,” I agreed, a begrudging smile working its way loose. There was nothing I’d deny Teagan when she asked—hell, even when she didn’t. It wasn’t just that Roman loved her, either; it was the way she never left me out even though I was now the fifth wheel between her and Roman, and Nixon and Liberty.

We moved to the floor, disappearing into the crowd. I knew about half the guys on the floor—they were all the teammates that hadn’t gone home for the off-season, or to obscure places on the globe, like Nixon and Liberty. The rest had paid to be here.

“Oh my God!” a girl in a rated R Strawberry Shortcake costume exclaimed. “You’re Hendrix Malone!”

“Sure am.” I flashed her a smile because that was my job for the night, then held my breath for a second, waiting for the attraction to come, the thickening of my blood that recognized a good time was coming my way…but nothing.

“Can you sign my purse?” She hefted a strawberry-shaped, hard-sided bag into my face and pulled a pen from her bra. “My name is Cherry!”

“Of course it is,” I mumbled, but signed the thing. “Here you go!” I said above the beat.

“And a selfie?” she asked, already turning and backing her ass into me with her phone held in her outstretched hand.

I smiled for the picture. She snapped one, then turned and kissed my cheek for the second, then gave me a disappointed look when I turned away, looking for Roman and Teagan in the crowd.

“You’re not dancing?” a voice called out over the beat as tendrils of smoke came in from the sides of the floor, spreading thick at our feet, then rising to catch the lasers from the lights.

“Depends on who’s asking,” I answered, turning toward the voice.

Fuck yes. I had no clue who she was, but I was sold. Whatever she wanted from me—it was hers, she was that damned captivating.

The woman was tall with legs that wouldn’t quit, her curves accentuated by a purple corset that lifted her breasts to mouthwatering heights, and her skirt flared out short enough to show her garter belt and stockings. Her hair was ice blond, tucked away behind a tiara, and a butterfly mask covered her face from her high cheekbones, to flair out at the sides of her eyes, completely obscuring the rest of her face. Purple eyes looked at me expectantly, and I would have killed to know what color they were when she wasn’t at a costume ball.

And that mouth? Fuck me. Her lips were curved in a wide smile. About a hundred different plans flashed through my mind of what I was going to do with that mouth. I wanted to suck on that bottom lip, run my tongue over the little bow on top, plunge inside and taste every secret, and then I wanted to see those lips curve in an O of surprise and pleasure before they wrapped around my cock.

“Apparently, I’m asking, Farmboy.” She walked forward, her diaphanous wings stretching two feet on either side of her, then looped her arms around my neck. “I’ll be your Buttercup for a song.”

“What’s my line?” I managed to ask. A song? I was taking this woman home for the night. The weekend. The month. The summer. Whatever I could take.

There was something tickling the back of my brain, some part of me whispering I’d seen her before. The way she tugged that bottom lip between a row of even, white teeth was familiar.

“As you wish,” she reminded me with another flash of a smile and started to dance.

One good thing about being a professional athlete? I knew how to move my body. That’s all dancing really was, anyway, just a cross between athletics and sex, both of which I excelled at.

I took her waist in my hands, then moved to the beat, pulling her against my body.