Marked

I’d lost him in the crowd, pushed back like a wave in the ocean, farther from the shore.

Nadine flopped on the couch, bringing me back to the present. She had one leg and arm hanging off the cushions, her head turned to the side toward me and her eyes closed. She was still giggling, but I knew she’d be passed out sooner rather than later. She had a lot more to drink than I did and had gone straight for the hard stuff, where I just stuck with beer. But I was a lightweight so was feeling those beers pretty damn hard.

And I’d had a couple more bottles before we ended up leaving the club, and the only reason I stayed was in hopes that I’d see Mr. Dark and Sexy again. And the fact that I was depressed and disappointed I hadn’t, made me feel a little bit uncomfortable given that I shouldn’t feel this way about a complete stranger.

I closed the hotel room door and leaned against it, closing my eyes and exhaling. I pictured me and the stranger on the dance floor again, his hands on me, the feeling of his big, hard body pressed against mine sending pleasure through me. Even now, even though it had been hours since we touched.

God, I didn’t even know his name, yet here I was, wishing I would’ve asked him to take me home, to take me to a hotel room, hell, to lead the way to a bathroom stall at the club.

I’d never felt such intense, potent desire before, and I wanted to cling to it, wanted to forever have it ingrained in my memory and then on my body.

I opened my eyes and saw Nadine was sitting up now, her focus trained on me, one dark eyebrow cocked. “Girl, I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but you’re blushing like hell.” Her voice was slightly slurred, and before I could respond, she started giggling again.

She hadn’t seen me dancing with the stranger, and a part of me was thankful for that, because I would never hear the end of it. But then another part of me was disappointed, because I wanted her to have witnessed that connection I felt, to make it feel like I wasn’t insane, that it had been real and I hadn’t been fantasizing it all.

But I knew it hadn’t been a dream, hadn’t been wishful thinking. I felt him on me still.

I pushed away from the door and walked over to the chair that was beside the couch. After sitting down, taking off my shoes, and putting my feet up on the coffee table, I rested my head back and stared at the ceiling. I was just about to tell her everything about the mystery man, when the sound of a female voice came through loud enough it had me sitting up and looking over at Nadine, my brow furrowing. “What was that?”

She looked toward the window then back at me. “Just probably somebody outside,” she said without missing a beat.

I was feeling buzzed enough that I didn’t question her, but when I heard the female voice again, I looked toward the window, realizing we were twenty stories up with glass thick enough we couldn’t even hear traffic. I glanced back at Nadine and shook my head. “Nadine, we’re in a hotel. There’s no way we can hear outside.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but then we heard it again, loud and crystal clear, coming from right next door. A woman moaning. People having sex. I felt my eyes widen and slapped a hand over my mouth. Nadine looked shocked at first, her lips parting as she looked at the metal door that separated our room from the next, the kind you could open if you were sharing rooms and wanted to go between them.

It was silent for a suspended moment, but then the woman moaned louder, a porn-star-style shriek that had Nadine and me laughing uncontrollably.

“Oh my God,” I whispered and found myself out of the chair and moving toward the divider door, placing my hands on the cold metal, and putting my ear against the crack of it.

“Izzy, you freaking pervert,” Nadine said on a whisper and started laughing uncontrollably as the woman moaned louder.

I might not be experienced in sex, but I could tell when a woman was faking it, and this girl was really giving it her all. She would give porn stars a run for their money.

Maybe I was a pervert to listen to people banging next door, but this was something you only saw in a movie or read about. It certainly never happened to me. This felt like a novelty.

It got quiet for long seconds, and I pulled away, shrugging as I looked at Nadine. “I think they’re done,” I whispered, my hand bumping into the handle and making a loud clicking sound. I felt my eyes widen and as I looked at the door, as if they could see right through it, knew I was being a creep and listening. But then she started moaning again, and the very distinct sound of skin slapping against skin came through.