“Good?” he asked with a grin when I finally opened my eyes.
“Awesome,” I breathed. “I freaking loved that.”
“The kiss or the ride?”
“Um, both?” I’d seen kisses in movies that looked pretty impressive but they should’ve hired King to show them how it was really done. My knees were still shot, or at least I told myself they were so that I had an excuse to keep my hands fisted in his tee.
“Yeah?” His grin expanded, impossible bright. “Cool.”
“Yeah, cool,” I said, unable to do anything but grin back at him like a fool.
“So, pool. You play?”
“Never,” I admitted.
I was seriously pathetic.
But King only continued to beam down at me. His excitement was so contagious that it obliterated my momentary self-hatred.
“Glad to be the one to teach ya, babe.”
“Me too.”
He chuckled as he pulled me tight into his left side under the long reach of his arm slung across my shoulders. I fit perfectly there, small in the crook of his long, strong body, cradled there like I already meant something to him. He smelled like heaven, like fresh air and laundry. I dragged a deep breath into my lungs and giggled when he stared down at me with a raised eyebrow.
I shrugged a shoulder, trying to play it off. “You smell amazing.”
“So do you, babe, but I’ve known you ‘bout an hour so I was gonna wait to sniff you that obviously until at least the second date.”
I choked because I was embarrassed but I laughed because he’d just improved on perfection by being funny on top of everything else. He tugged me even closer as we walked across the lot, either because he wanted me closer or because he was aware that walking on gravel in high heels was as seriously precarious exercise. Either way, it made me want to swoon.
“Now that we’ve passed that beginner shit, I’m warning you, I’m going to have my nose at your throat a lot taking hits of that sugar and spice smell you got going.”
I laughed as he pushed open the door to the dark bar. Music rushed out to meet us, wrapping me in one of my favorite Elvis songs, Jailhouse Rock, that made me want to dance.
“Fan of the King?” my mysterious biker asked me as he ushered me over to the bar.
“My dream vacation is to go to Graceland,” I said in answer.
He laughed. “Glad to hear you got good taste in music, babe.”
I nodded absently but my mind was busy processing the scenery.
The interior of the bar was warm but not unbearable and tinged blue, green and pink from the wickedly cool neon light art that hung around the one huge room. Smack dab in the middle of the space was an enormous wooden bar, brightly coloured and beautifully artistic graffiti scrawled across the base of it while the large podium in the middle was shelved with row after row of liquors and shining glassware. To the left was a kind of gaming area with two burgundy red felt pool tables, three dart boards, a Pac-man arcade game that I immediately had to play and two of those mini basketball hoop arcade games that I’d only ever seen at the fair. On the other side, a small raised stage that was currently empty and most of the seating, and a little dance floor between the tables and the stage. The walls were black with those cool neon lights twisted into an assortment of images like guitars, flamingos and also cool sayings like “wild at heart” and, the biggest one across the main wall behind the bar that said, “shut up and drink.”
It was, without a doubt, the coolest place I’d ever been to.
“Wow,” I mumbled as King led us directly to the bar.
He grinned as he once again lifted me by the hips to place me on a stool. “Cool, right?”
“Very,” I agreed.
“What can I get you?” he asked, leaning in so that I was caged between the bar and his long, lean body by the arm he braced on the counter.
I tried not to sniff him again but it was hard.
“Gin and tonic?”
“Is that a question or your drink order?” he asked me, eyebrow raised.
“Um,” I hedged. William had always ordered my drinks for me. If it was a casual before-dinner drink, it was always a gin and tonic; if we were at dinner, it was always wine or champagne. “I don’t really know what I like. I don’t drink very often.”
His right eyebrow joined the left high on his forehead. “You’re how old? By the time I was fifteen, I knew I was a beer and whiskey man through and fuckin’ through.”
“That’s early,” I pointed out, to take the spotlight off of me. “You know you are six times more likely to develop alcoholism if you drink before the age of 15.”