Lessons in Corruption (The Fallen Men 1)

“First you lick,” he said, picking up my left hand and locking eyes with me as he licked a sinuous path along the back of my palm between my thumb and forefinger. “Then you salt. Get your shot in the other hand just like that. Good. Then, lick the salt, slam the shot and finish with the lime. Ready?”

I hesitated because Eugene was watching me and chuckling and a few other patrons towards the end of the bar were openly staring at the grown woman who had never done a tequila shot.

“You got this, babe. Trust me, this is good tequila and the burn is even better. Why don’t you let me show you how it’s done first, yeah?”

I nodded, relieved because I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of the regulars.

King’s smirk turned mischievous as he sunk his hand through my hair to the back of my neck and tugged me towards him. Once I was near enough, he threaded his fingers through the locks at the nape of my neck and tugged to the side so that the left side of my neck was exposed. I stopped breathing when he ducked down to run his nose over the skin there.

“Told you I’d have my nose at your throat,” he reminded me. His voice was rough like wheels over gravel but his tongue was silken as it darted out to run the same path his nose had just done down my neck.

I shivered violently, which made him laugh against my cool wet skin.

“Watch me,” he ordered as he leaned back to grab his shot.

He didn’t have to. I was certain I could spend the rest of my life watching him and never get tired. My weird compulsion lent me new understanding towards reality TV. Watching beautiful people live was definitely something I could get behind.

King gently tilted my head and sprinkled salt on my wet skin, then swayed forward to languidly lick it off. I sighed into his bright mass of hair, unable to stop myself from running my hands through the side available to me. How a man could have hair that soft was beyond me.

I waited until he slammed back the shot and sank his teeth somewhat erotically into the fruit, before I asked my question.

“Do you deep condition or what?”

“Excuse me?”

“Deep condition your hair,” I explained patiently. “It’s so soft.”

“Ugh, babe, I’m a man.”

“Yes,” I said, because I was very aware of that. “A man with seriously soft hair. I need to know what conditioner you use so I can get some for myself.”

“Babe,” he said slowly, deliberately. “I’m a man. You seriously think I use conditioner?”

“Yes, but specifically deep conditioner,” I explained. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have hair softer than Vicuna cashmere.”

“What the fuck is Vicuna cashmere?” King asked, laughing, leaning back to prop his elbows on the bar so that he could rest comfortably between my legs but not touch me, close but not crowding.

“It’s the finest cashmere in the world. So, don’t tell me you don’t use deep conditioner, King. We just met and lying doesn’t make a good first impression.”

He stared at me for a long minute and I stared back, my eyebrows raised and lids narrowed in a modified version of my No Nonsense Teacher expression. Finally, he blinked and burst out laughing.

I tried to be annoyed but couldn’t. His laugh was seriously the best thing I’d ever heard.

“King,” I protested, but he was already leaning forward to wrap his arms around me, cocooning me in his laughter.

It was awesome.

When he quieted, he pulled back just enough to look down at me with sparkling eyes. “You’re hilarious babe, you know that?”

“I was serious.”

He chuckled again, shaking his head as if I was too much. “Take your shot and let’s play pool. Winner gets a kiss, yeah?”

“That means loser gets a kiss, too,” I pointed out.

King winked at me. “Perfect.”

It was after another tequila shot, three cocktails (a gin and tonic, something called a Moscow Mule that was fabulous and a cosmo martini that I thought tasted like liquid sugar, so yuck) and a Blue Buck beer for me and just the one shot and a beer for King.

It was after I’d lost at pool four times but kicked ass at Mrs. Pac-Man and after I’d met some of the regulars, all of them old men except for a nerdy ginger-haired guy working on his computer named, inexplicably, Curtains.

It was, in all, after the best date and probably best night of my life, and King and I were heading back to Entrance because it was well past midnight and I had school the next morning.

The happiness I felt drove me to distraction, which was why it took me a moment to distinguish the new sound from the rushing wind, the gun of the motorcycle and the increasingly loud vibration of machines against pavement as they gained ground. Before I could make sense of it, they surrounded us.