direction.
“Ms. Davis.”
Greg, who had been making his way back to Victor, looked between him and Mella, then abruptly turned to check on his other customers. Victor’s attentions, still fierce and predatory, didn’t stray from her.
Then the ridiculousness of it all forced her to laugh. They were in a club. She was covered in sweat from dancing the afternoon away, and he was sitting at the bar cool as could be, with what was probably some sort of manly whiskey drink. Their differences couldn’t be more apparent.
“You should call me Mella after all this,” she said and moved closer to him, despite instincts that screamed at her to run the other way. He wasn’t like other men. She couldn’t tease him and walk away and dismiss him from her mind as if he’d never been there.
Victor Raphael nodded. The unforgiving lines of his face and most of his body were wreathed in shadow, but she couldn’t mistake the way he stared at her. He didn’t say anything, but she forged ahead, anyway.
“And I’ll call you Victor.”
“If you like.” His voice brushed like the finest silk over her skin. Mella shivered.
“I do like.”
In the half light of the bar, he was even more fierce than at the fund-raiser. All remaining trappings of civility stripped away to leave this brooding shadow man who seemed to have a lot on his mind and wasn’t about to change his demeanor simply because someone had wandered into his cave. Because Mella was sometimes foolish, she went further into the beast’s lair.
“Why are you drinking alone?” she asked.
“Because I want to.” The words should have pushed her away, but she only leaned closer to hear his voice. “The alternative—” he waved vaguely to the party happening above them “—is not much of one.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
He tipped his head, appeared to consider it. Appeared to consider many things in that one charged moment. “No. Stay. And let me pay for your next round if you’re having one.”
The words were so uncharacteristic of the man she’d met at the fund-raiser that she looked down at his glass, wondering at his welcome and just how much he’d had to drink that he was inviting her to stay with him at the bar. Wasn’t he the one who’d wanted to get down to business and then go home? Had his drink changed his personality? Although she couldn’t talk. This was her third drink, and her blood was just warm enough that she was looser than usual, feeling so good about life that having another drink would take her from nice to naughty. She didn’t want that. She didn’t want to act that much of a fool with this magnetic stranger. A stranger whom she would be working with very soon.
Mella lifted her glass. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m afraid this is it for me. Although I’m not driving, I don’t want to get too blitzed today. I still have some work to get done tonight.”
She expected him to ask about her job, what kind of work she did and how long she’d been doing it, maybe even what school she went to. Those were the usual things people asked when they wanted to either dismiss or devour you in the world.
“It’s a weekend,” Victor said instead. “You should enjoy the rest of your Sunday. Work can wait until an actual workday, can’t it?”
She shrugged. In theory, it could. But the reality of owning your own business often didn’t allow for workdays versus rest days. But she said none of that. “Maybe you’re right.”
Sitting next to him, Mella felt that powerful hum of attraction all over her skin, so powerful that it was almost uncomfortable, putting her body in a higher state of awareness than she was used to. Before now, her interactions with men she liked had been all butterfly delight and the uncomplicated steps of a familiar dance. Mella took a sip of her drink to hide her gulping swallow. She felt him follow the movement of the glass to her mouth.
Remnants of the alcohol clung to her top lip. She licked them away and lifted her eyes to his.
“Although I didn’t say this before, thank you for donating to the charity this afternoon. The money will go a long way to helping them reach their goal, and the project you’ll be working on means a lot to me.”
Victor thumbed condensation from the sweating glass in front of him, his mouth curving faintly up. “You should actually be thanking Kingsley. He’s the one who put Raphael Design Group up for bid. I had nothing to do with it.” His smile turned openly sardonic. “I didn’t even know about it.”
“Oh.” She didn’t quite know how to respond to that. Was he pissed off that his friend had volunteered him? Mella started to pull back.
“But—” Victor tapped the smooth surface of the bar near her hand, reaching out to her without touching. “Despite how we got here, I’m glad to help.”
“I... I’m glad, too.” What kind of friendship did the two men have that something like this was okay?
“It’s not as bad as it sounds.” Victor’s mouth twisted again. “Kingsley just worries about me and my lack of interaction with the larger world.” He made a dismissive motion. “Nothing to dwell on.” His smile appeared. The nicer one. “So, tell me, what are you drinking?”
Mella blinked, mentally switching to accommodate the abrupt change in topic. Okay, she thought. I can do this.
Mella told him. “It’s sweet and strong, just like me.”
A smile darted across his face, briefly crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I’ve never heard of it.”
“Me neither, until recently.” Mella put the cocktail glass on the bar and traced a finger through the condensation in random patterns. “I like to try new things,” she said. “Sometimes I look online or in menus for a cocktail or food I haven’t tried, and then I taste it. If it’s good, I enjoy it until it’s time to try something else.”
“Interesting. Does that habit extend to all areas of your life?”
“Depends on the thing.”
“I see. Not everything will suit you, you know.” His eyes, a deep agate, grounding and challenging at the same time, held hers in a resolute grip.
Mella’s tongue darted out to lick the corner of her lips. “I know. But I want to taste it, sample it, have it again and again until I’m sure it’s not for me.”
Victor hummed a response, eyes on her mouth, gaze getting warmer by the second. Without asking, she knew what he was thinking. Her lips, his body. A comfortable bed. Maybe even a hidden corner of the bar where he could seduce her lips apart, encourage her to kiss him, to lick and suck whatever he had to offer. Her pulse began a fast and delicious tattoo in her throat.
This, Mella knew. It was flirtation with no consequences. She saw where it was going before it even properly started. A man and a woman in a bar. The spark of attraction. She fell into the moves of the familiar dance, unthinking. Practiced. Despite the electric attraction, unusual and disconcerting, that she felt for Victor Raphael, she could do casual like this blindfolded. If he was into that kind of thing. She smirked at the thought.
But things didn’t always go the way
