Mother-effin’ twenty.

Son-of-a-bitch nineteen.

Eighteen, seventeen… Calmly closing my eyes, my brain was still screeching at the pot-bellied piss infected Neanderthal. My insides wanted to claw his eyes out and dickkick him for touching me.

Three.

Two, just breathe…one.

My eyes fluttered open and all thoughts about drunken men touching me vanished.  Actually, all my thoughts completely faded into oblivion when I noticed a strange man watching me.  I heard myself gasp when I saw him. The air just sort of sucked itself right out of my lungs.  Not only was he devastatingly handsome, he was staring at me.

Me.

Not Natalie, aka Lace, who was up on the stage wearing only her sparkly little thong and humping a pole.

Not Bree, the blonde bombshell who every man drools over.

Me.

I’m just going to put it out there, right now. I’ve never seen a man watch me like that before. It was personal.  Intimate.  I mean…I was one of those women who got acknowledged for their brains more often than their looks.  And I took pride in myself for that. I liked being intelligent and confident, but that look…

My cheeks heated at the severity of the stare; his gaze was unnerving.  It was animalistic and primal.  Hot-as-hell; it made me tingle with a damp warmth between my thighs and against the cotton material of my panties.

I was completely embarrassed.  Fully flushed and blushing, I was literally reacting like some silly virgin from a cheesy romance novel.  Then…then to make matters worse, I started to fan myself a bit with one of the laminated menus.

But, damn, it felt good to be looked at like that, you know?  It was a look that made you want to swing your hips a bit more, smile a little wider for, because you knew this man was enjoying the view, appreciating the way you looked.  I felt wanted.  Desired.  Hungered for.  Lusted.  Preyed on.  Was this what Lace was feeling right now on stage with all the men watching her?

I fanned myself faster.

He was leaning back against the red velvet of the booth chair, dressed in an expensive looking tuxedo.  His hair was as black as mine, deep inky black, and wildly arranged on his head.  His face…all hard angles.  His skin was light, pale against the silky darkness of his hair.  A jaw carved out of stone, strong cheekbones and full perfect lips. But those weren’t the attractive features of him. Well, they were, but it was more than that. He seemed to wear a deep intelligence and life experience in his expression.  Strength and pain. Knowledge, endurance, and raw danger were blatant on the planes and hollows of his skin.  Dangerous and unfriendly, an angry outsider looking into the world from some far distant places in his mind.   The sort of man that didn’t fit in. The one you would always pick out of the crowd as different, uncomfortable and on edge.  Kind of like me.

I stared at him a little too long, holding his gaze, which made my senses, all of them, kick into overdrive.  The exchange was maddening and arousing, and like nothing I’d ever felt before, primal and visceral in texture.  It was purely mouthwatering.

My eyes diverted to Dylan, who had just sat down next to him and without a doubt, I knew they were brothers.  Where Dylan’s features were soft and blond, this man was a chiseled, harder, darker version of him.  Serious trouble.

The man’s dark eyebrows were pulled together and light pale-gray, almost colorless eyes, stared fiercely into mine.  Raw and primal, as if I was being hunted.

Hunted?  For a moment, terror surged through my body.  Could this man have been sent to hurt me?  Did they find me?  As quickly as the thought came, I debunked it.  No one was going to be coming after me. There was no way of knowing where I was or that I survived.

No, this man who was staring at me like that wanted me.

Squeezing my thighs together against my moist panties, I shivered uncomfortably. I wanted to gag at the pathetic nature of my discomfort.  Whenever I had listened to other women say silly things like, “Oh, it was love at first sight,” or “I felt sparks right away,” I always laughed.  I guess I just never felt that.  There were other things, more important things than men in my life.  There wasn’t such a thing as love at first sight.  I didn’t even believe in lust at first sight.  I was a true believer of hotness at first sight, but that’s about it. I’ve felt love and lust before. But this, what I felt while this dangerous man fucked me vigorously with his eyes, it was insane.  Intense. It might have been the first time in my life that being a woman had made me feel good.  Okay, it made me feel like a porn star, and no man had ever made me feel like that.  There, I said it.  We’re all adults here, right?  I mean, I shouldn’t be ashamed. I’ve already told you my panties were wet, so my dignity was out the window.

He was still staring at me. Even though I quickly looked away, I could feel his eyes on me, as if they were burning an impression against my memory.  Touching every one of my nerve endings with the rough dangerous caress of his eyes.

Then he just dropped his head down low, spoke to Dylan for another few minutes, ran both his hands through his hair, drained his drink, and stalked out of the bar.  My insides ached to run after him and just pretend to bump into him, just to see him up close, and to see those eyes stare at me like that again.

Just watching him walk to the door had my pulse beating harder.  His gait and long, strong strides had me biting down on my lip.  I smiled to myself thinking that, maybe for the first time in my life, I might have been acting like a normal healthy sexual woman.  I shook the thoughts from my head.  It was nice to feel good, to feel confident, and to believe in myself again, but I wasn’t ready to deal with men any time soon, especially one that looked like he should have a triple X rating tattooed on his forehead.  This was one of those men a woman would probably shrink in heartbreak from, weeping loud and bitterly into their extra-large-super-sized apple martini glasses.  What am I talking about?  It was silly and immature of me to think I could judge a man by his likeness and not by his character, foolish and naive.  I was not by any means a foolish girl, who fluttered away on whims and heady needs.  Heady needs? Maybe I needed a vibrator; it had been way too long.

“Hey, Lainey,” Dylan said, as he slid behind the bar and grabbed a bottle of tequila.  “What put that smile on your face?”

“Oh, nothing,” I said as I wiped down the bottle of whiskey I was stupidly smiling at.  “That gentleman you were sitting next to, just now, that was a relative, right?”  Oh Lord, why was I asking questions about him?

Dylan rubbed the back of his neck and sighed.  “Yeah, he’s my brother, Kade.”

“It’s sort of eerie how you look the same, yet completely opposite.  He’s like the darker version of you,” I laughed, playfully.  Is he married?  What does he do?  Is he intelligent?  Is he playful?  Does he like long walks on the beach and can you give him my number? Shut up and don’t ask!  Being in the woods this long is making me crazy, and I’m definitely buying a vibrator.  That should have been the first thing I packed when I left!

Dylan didn’t laugh with me.

His eyebrows furrowed and his lips tightened into a small scowl.  “He’s definitely a dark version of something.  Listen, stay away from him if he ever comes in here again.  He probably won’t anyway, but if he does, just ignore him.  He’s tainted with a ton of issues.  He’s a loner anyway, doesn’t date, and doesn’t enjoy being around people, sorry love.  He’s pretty savage.”

Okay, he’s not making any sense.  I was just asking if they were brothers, not to set me up with him.  I didn’t ask any of those questions out loud.

“I wasn’t saying I was interested in him or anything, I had just noticed the resemblance, that’s all.  What’s wrong with him?”

Dylan chuckled, full out laughed, and then all the seriousness drained away from his features as his eyes fixed on mine. “Nothing, love.  He’s like a living-breathing-yet-emotionally-dead J. D. Salinger, but with more secrets.  I think he just finds his own mind so much more interesting than anyone else’s, that he locks himself away because he doesn’t like distractions.  And he’s got major trust issues.  Savage.”

“J. D. Salinger?  So, he’s a writer?” I asked.

“Yeah, but he’s more of an arsehole, so just steer clear of him.  He could be intentionally hostile to people most of the time just to keep everyone at a distance.  Vicious and savage.”

Third time.  That was the third time he said savage.  Dylan walked away, leaving me standing there, even more curious than before our talk. I wondered if he had drunk too much tonight.  Obviously, Dylan knew nothing about women, because he just intrigued the hell out of me with his warning.  Men were so clueless sometimes.

I spent the rest of that night wondering about Kade, and the reasons Dylan gave me to stay away from him.  However, I ended up wasting my time wondering if I’d ever see him again, because within twelve hours, he was sitting in his dark corner, alone, watching me, again.   Dressed in a crisp white button up shirt with the sleeves rolled up, his suit jacket flung neatly over the back of the booth, he looked like he was waiting for an important business meeting, yet his attention was all on me.