And Then There Was Her (And then There Was 1)

1

Oliver

I remembered the taste of her lips, the smell of her skin. The memory of how she felt under me, her voice coming from her parted lips as she moaned in pleasure, was a constant loop in my mind.

A year later and I still couldn’t stop thinking about Adele.

And that’s all I knew of her.

Her first name.

Who occasionally sang sad songs at Roscoe’s Bar on 59th in Downtown Brownstone.

She had this beautiful sorrow to her that broke my heart and had me falling for her all in the same breath.

Every night I went to bed, she was the last thing on my mind as I grabbed my cock and stroked myself, as I thought about all the times I wanted to find her, to demand she was mine.

And every time I woke up, she was the first thing I thought about, pictured. This was far beyond infatuation, obsession.

I’d come to the realization that I’d fallen in love with Adele that night I met her. It was instant and consuming from the moment I saw her in that crowded bar, sitting on that little bar stool onstage as she sang her heart out.

I talked her into having a drink with me. And as we sat across from each other, it was like we were the only two people there, as if a hundred bodies didn’t surround us.

I’d known what she meant to me from that very first moment I saw her, from the very second I had her back to my hotel room. I knew it without a doubt as I slowly took her clothes off, stripped her for me. I’d looked into her deep brown eyes, and seen my whole life right before me.

She just didn’t know any of that.

And I hadn’t been able to tell her, because she left in the morning before I’d even gotten up. I wondered if she’d been nothing more than this fantastical dream, if she’d even been real. Maybe I just fantasized about the woman of my dreams?

And I sure as hell tried to find her, had gone back to that bar, pleaded, was desperate as fuck for a morsel of information on her. And I’d come up against a wall, rock solid, unmoving.

To this day, I still didn’t know any more about her than I had that night. No amount of searching, calling bars to see if anyone by her name was singing, got me any closer to her.

God, who was she? Where was she?

Before her, there hadn’t been any female companionship in my life for a fucking year, not an inkling or feeling or emotion to be with anyone. I was content focusing on work. My arousal was left to me jerking off at night as I stared at my ceiling. It got the job done, but it was one hell of an empty orgasm.

God, I wanted Adele. She was the only female—ever—to make me feel anything.

The sound of hammers and saws, of men shouting right outside the work trailer, couldn’t drown out my thoughts, even though I desperately wanted them to. Adele had been a constantly on my mind since the first time I saw her. I felt like I was losing my damn mind.

But I was being sent back to the city for work in the next couple days, a short forty-five-minute drive. And although I loathed work travel, even a short one like this, I was practically salivating to go on this particular trip.

I’d taken off a week after my business was done in the city, because I was going to find her. I didn’t care if I had to turn over every damn bar in the city. I’d find Adele.

I’d make her mine.

2

Adele

I leaned against the counter, my hand braced under my chin as I listened to the woman onstage singing the blues. Her voice was slightly husky, this deep tone that went straight into your body and tugged at your heart. I was drowning in her notes, in the way the emotion was laced in the words that spilled fluidly from her lips.

“Yo, Adele.”

I blinked a few times and looked over at Bishop, Lyrics bartender and the owner of this establishment. Maybe people thought it was weird the owner tended the bar, but Bishop was a hands-on guy when it came to this place, and I had a feeling that’s why it was as successful as it was.

“Here is table six’s order.” He gave me a wink and set the last drink he’d just made on my tray.

I looked down at the drink order.

Two Bloody Mary’s, a Long Island iced tea, and a whiskey sour. This order was going to the table off to the side, a bachelorette party, where the girls were already good and drunk, a little too loud, and clearly not in the right establishment. The way they were dressed, the way they were drinking was more fit for a club, not a smoky, darkened bar in the basement of an older building almost on the outskirts of the city.