No Strings Attached Read online

  I got the rundown before I ever stepped through the doors.

  After handing over a clean bill of health, there are no questions asked.

  Everyone is anonymous.

  No names.

  No professions.

  No small talk.

  Perfect anonymity.

  That’s what draws people there: one hundred percent no strings attached.

  I thought it wasn’t going to be a problem.

  But that was before I saw her.

  “What happened?” Sebastian asks, balancing his stick against the pool table.

  I sigh, leaning back in my chair. “Nothing. I didn’t do anything, but I thought maybe we’d hang out for a while… have another round,” I admit, but just hearing those words come out of my mouth makes me realize where I went wrong.

  I got attached.

  In those thirty minutes of bliss, I allowed her to do more than fuck me. She got under my skin. When our eyes met after she took my blindfold off, something passed between us. I felt it and I know she did too. There’s no way she didn’t. The connection was palpable, like another entity in the small room.

  And I want more.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” I assure him. “I wanted to, but I didn’t. She said she had to leave, and she did. That’s it.”

  “You know if you see her again, you can’t act like you have some claim on her. There’s no caveman bullshit at the club. It’s her prerogative, man, just like it’s yours. That’s the beauty of it. No strings attached—”

  Gritting my teeth to hold back the growl of frustration I feel ripping its way up my throat, I interrupt him. “Yeah, I got it. I know all of that.”

  “So, you wanna go give it another shot? Maybe you need to fuck her out of your system?” he offers.

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  As he goes back to knocking balls into pockets, he asks, “She was that good, huh?”

  “Fuck, yeah,” I say, the wistfulness in my voice betraying me, exposing all the things I’m not saying. Shaking my head, I try to clear the thoughts of her as they flash through my mind. The way she felt in my hands. The way I fit inside her. Her smell. Her taste. Those deep chocolate eyes. That wild brown hair. The contrast between the lacy dress and those fucking combat boots.

  I want her.

  She intrigues me.

  I want to know more about her.

  Sebastian walks over, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Listen, dude. Sometimes you hook up with someone who completely rocks your world. It doesn’t happen to everyone, and it rarely happens more than once. Someone like her is an enigma. She got under your skin. I get it. But you’ve gotta drop it. Let it go.”

  Pinching my bottom lip between my fingers, I turn my attention to the window. “Yeah,” I say in agreement, but I don’t mean it. I don’t want to do any of that. I kind of hate that she got under my skin, but now that she’s there, I want to keep her there. Maybe I will go back to the club. Maybe she’ll be there. Maybe I can talk to her. “I’ll go back with you this week.”

  “There ya go,” Sebastian says, slapping me on my back. “Hop back in that saddle and ride ‘em.” Winking, he grins as he pretends to gallop around my office.

  He’s so fucking ridiculous, but I can’t help laughing at his antics.

  “I’m not getting back on the block again, though. Not this week. I think I’ll just sit back and observe, have a few drinks.”

  Sebastian shrugs, picking his pool stick back up. “Whatever you think, but I’m tellin’ you, another woman, a different pussy… that’s what you need. It’s just what the doctor ordered.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “So, did you think about it?” Sebastian asks loudly over the music playing. The lights are down, and bodies grind against each other on the dance floor. This is the pre-party to the big show. A little warm-up, if you will.

  “I’m just gonna hang back for tonight,” I tell him, letting my eyes roam over the people, searching for her.

  Sebastian eyes me with a knowing look. “Don’t do anything stupid. Remember what I said.”

  “No strings attached,” I say, nodding my head. “I get it. Don’t worry.”

  I really don’t have any plans of doing anything to compromise the agreement. I just want to see her, and I need a few drinks. It’s been a crazy week at the office.

  The advertising industry can be stressful sometimes, or maybe Sebastian and I just make it that way. Everything in our office always turns into a competition, and we’ve had season tickets for the Texas Oilers on the line the last few months.

  Mr. Stephens promised them to us if we steal the McDavid account out from under our competition. I really want those tickets. They’re supposed to have a good season next year. I also want to show the losers at Friedman and Associates who’s boss.

  So Sebastian and I have been going above and beyond to land this account. We’ve even slept a few nights at the office this past week. We both deserve a night to blow off some steam.

  I must say, I’m a little jealous that Sebastian will be getting pussy tonight, and there’s a good chance I won’t.

  Maybe I should reconsider and go on the block.

  Sure, I could go to a normal club and pick up a girl, but then I’d have to call her and take her out on a date. The reason I agreed to come here with Sebastian in the first place, besides his incessant begging, was because I just needed to get laid. I thought I was looking for what this place offered. I didn’t expect to get this worked up over a one-night stand.

  When did I grow a vagina?

  I take a deep breath, slapping my hand down on the bar. Sebastian’s right. I need to fuck her right out of my head. Turning to find Cindy and ask her to put me on the list, I see her.

  She’s traded the white lace dress for a red one. It dips down between her tits, almost to that smooth stomach I explored with my tongue. Her hair is pulled up off her shoulders, exposing her long, slender neck.

  My mouth begins to water as my dick stiffens in my pants.

  I watch her mingle with the crowd. A guy walks up to her and offers her a drink, but she declines. She lingers by the side of the stage, but she doesn’t interact much. When the lights flicker to let everyone know the bidding is getting ready to begin, I make my way around the back of the room, squeezing between people until I’m standing right behind her.

  I’m so close I can smell the same subtle, sweet smell I’ve dreamed about since last week. It’s intoxicating. I want to run my nose up her neck and inhale her until I’ve had my fill, and then I’d like to taste her again.

  But first, I need to talk to her.

  I glance around to see who’s watching, but I know Sebastian is getting ready to go up on stage, so I don’t know what I’m worried about. No one else here cares who I’m talking to, but my stomach feels nervous.

  She must sense someone standing close behind her, because before I have a chance to lean in and say anything, she turns around. When recognition hits her, she squints her eyes and furrows her brows as her jaw tightens. “Hey,” she says, looking me up and down.

  “Hey,” I say with a dip of my head and a slight smile, hoping to ease any reservations she might have. It usually works like a charm.

  Turning back around, she takes a small step closer to the stage, away from me, which in turn makes me take a step closer to her. I just want to be near her.

  “So,” I say quietly, leaning in closer. “I meant to ask you the other night what your name is.”

  “I wouldn’t have given it to you.” She looks over her shoulder. “It’s not part of the deal.”

  I mean to laugh quietly, but it comes out much louder. This woman is so damn sexy. And the fact that she plays hard to get makes me want her even more. “I know it’s not part of the deal, but I just figured that since we—”

  “Let me guess,” she interrupts, whipping around to face me. “You figured that since we fucked, you deserved to know my name?” Her eyebrow
raises and she purses her lips. “Well, here’s the deal. I bid on you. It’s what I wanted. So you don’t get to figure anything. Now, leave me alone.”

  A lady’s voice comes through the speaker we’re standing next to as she introduces the first person up for bid. When a hand goes up in front of my face and I realize she’s bidding on him, my heart begins to pound in my chest. Someone else raises their hand, upping the bid, and I begin watching every hand that goes up, hoping they’ll outbid her.

  When a busty blonde ends up winning the war, I let out a sigh of relief.

  As the second guy comes up on stage, she bids again. It ends up being a battle between her and a woman on the other side of the room. I see her glance across at the woman and then back up at the guy on stage. I don’t know what comes over me, but when she lifts her hand to bid again, I reach up and pull her arm down. The woman down at the other end wins the bid, and the one in front of me is now shooting daggers with her eyes.

  “What the fuck is your problem?” she spits out, a little louder than I would like. A couple of people standing nearby look over at us. She grabs my arm, and I immediately give in to her, loving how my body feels when she touches me.

  Forcefully, she pulls me to the back of the room before she spins around and faces me. Her eyes are full of fire as she squares her shoulders. “You don’t get it, do you?” she asks with a wicked smile on her face.

  “I just… I didn’t want you bidding on that guy,” I tell her, stumbling over my words, trying to make my actions seem like they make sense. “You can have me for free. You don’t even have to bid.”

  “Oh, my God.” She rolls her eyes and glances up at the ceiling, as if she’s trying to rein in her fury. “Listen,” she says, putting her hand on my chest and pushing me back. “This is obviously not the scene for you. Leave before I have Kirk escort you out,” she demands as she motions to the guy standing by the door with arms as big as tree trunks.

  When I see that she’s serious, and not wanting the wrath of Sebastian if I were to get kicked out of the club, I slowly step back and nod my head in acquiescence. Turning, I walk out the doors.

  It kills me to walk away from her, knowing she’s probably going to end up bidding on some lucky motherfucker and he’s going to get a taste of heaven—my taste of heaven.

  I leave wanting her more than I did last week, and that’s saying a lot.

  Chapter 3

  “What the fuck, dude?” Sebastian asks as he hangs from my door frame. His scrunched forehead and eyebrows tell me I have disappointed the beast.

  “I got cold feet.”

  Lie.

  “Bullshit.”

  “There weren’t any women there that looked attractive, so I bailed.”

  Lie.

  “Bullshit.”

  “Fine,” I groan. “I just wasn’t into it. Once I got there, everything felt wrong. I didn’t feel like going through with it.” Frustrated, I abruptly stand up and let my chair roll into the wall behind me.

  “So, let me get this straight. All you had to do was put on a blindfold, walk up on stage, and get laid. How could you not feel like it? You’re speaking some broke-ass language. It doesn’t compute.” He folds his arms over his chest and stands there, waiting for more of an explanation.

  Sometimes, Sebastian acts like a fucking girl, always wanting details and shit. And talk about micromanaging. Holy fuck. This dude is the king. “She was there, wasn’t she?” he asks, quirking an eyebrow. “She was there, and you got spooked. Please tell me you didn’t try to talk to her again.”

  I stand there, facing off with him, trying to think of something to say to get him off my dick.

  “Holy shit,” he says, taking my non-response as a response. “You did, didn’t you?” He begins to pace the floor in front of my desk. “Did they kick you out? Did she have you kicked out?”

  “No.” I roll my eyes, thinking back to our confrontation and how fucking sexy she looked when she was pissed off.

  “Okay, okay. That’s good. What did she say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Lie.

  “Really? She didn’t say anything at all?”

  “She asked me to leave,” I say quietly, staring out the window of my office. I’m not ready for his psycho bullshit. It’s just a fucking club. He acts like he’s going to get excommunicated from pussy or something.

  He scrubs his face, squeezing his eyes shut. “Maybe you’re not cut out for this after all.”

  “That’s what she said,” I admit, sitting back down in my chair and leaning my head against the wall. “I still can’t believe she told me to leave. I thought maybe once she saw I was just a regular guy that she might want to talk to me, maybe have a drink… go on a regular date.”

  “Some girls don’t want regular,” he says, leaning over my desk. “She’s there for a reason. You should’ve stuck to the rules. Who knows? You might’ve gotten lucky, and she might’ve bid on you again.”

  Would she? Just thinking about it makes my heart beat faster and my dick stir in my pants. Maybe I should give it one more shot, go up on stage, give her a chance to bid on me again.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Sebastian says, backing away from my desk. “But I think you should probably give it a few weeks before you go back. If she said anything to Kirk, he might have you on the blacklist. Let the dust settle, and then you can give it another shot.”

  Nodding my head in agreement, I let out a frustrated sigh. I need a few weeks anyway. I need to figure out if I even want to go back. Plus, I’m too buried in work to be buried in pussy. I need to keep my head on straight and land this McDavid account. And snag those Oilers tickets.

  I can smell the peanuts and Cracker Jack from here.

  Sebastian is standing beside me with a smug, satisfied look on his face.

  “You went to the club last night, didn’t you?” I ask as we strap on harnesses to climb the big-ass wall in front of us.

  We have a lot of things in common. We both love the challenge of working in the competitive world of advertising. We’re also adrenaline junkies and we’ll do just about anything once.

  Our weekend adventures typically require some sort of safety gear—bungee jumping, skydiving, mountain biking, rock climbing—and includes anything that gets our blood pumping.

  It’s why I decided to give the club a try. I’m always up for a new adventure.

  “Yep,” Sebastian says, eyes straight ahead.

  “How was it?” I ask. What I really want to know is if she was there. It’s been over a week since she told me to leave. I decided it was best to give the whole club scene a break. But I’ve thought about her every day since, hoping I might run into her somewhere… anywhere—gas station, grocery store, walking down the street. The fact we live in a big city and I’d never seen her before that night doesn’t bode well for another chance encounter, though.

  Sebastian sighs and shakes his head. “Dude, I think I owe you an apology.” The serious look on his face when he finally turns to look at me makes my stomach drop a little, and not in a good way. Not like when I’m jumping off a hundred-foot bridge.

  “Why?” I ask in a hard tone. I stop adjusting the harness I’m wearing and start climbing up the wall, needing a distraction.

  Sebastian stays silent for a minute. I look back, and he’s still standing on the ground, fiddling with his rope.

  What the fuck?

  “Sebastian?” He looks up at me and starts to climb, quickly reaching where I’m hanging on to the wall.

  His face is sheepish and whatever the fuck he needs to tell me, he better say it quick before I punch him for no good reason. It must be bad for him to have so much trouble spitting it out.

  “I—I was with this girl at the club the other night,” he begins, and it makes me feel sick to my stomach. “She was...” He sighs, shaking his head. “Fuck, Jude. She was everything. And when I left, I started thinking about what you were saying and how you felt. I thought you just weren’
t cut out for the club, but then I met her, and she fucked my whole world up.”

  “What did she look like?” I growl, stalled out on the wall. Thankfully, there’s no one coming up behind us and no one close by, because I swear if he starts describing her—my girl—I’ll kill him, right here, hanging from these damn ropes.

  Realization flashes across Sebastian’s face and he pales. “Jude, dude. I’d never.”

  I know that. I know he’d never intentionally fuck a girl I was into. I know him better than that. But what if he fucked a girl I was into and didn’t know it?

  “Just tell me what she looks like.” The red-hot anger bubbling up inside me is unfamiliar. I’m not usually hot-tempered, but something about the idea of Sebastian, or any other fucker, being anywhere near her pisses me the hell off.

  He hesitates for a second and then says, “She, uh, had these amazing blue eyes… like the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.”

  I let out an audible sigh of relief and shake my head. Did I really just get that worked up over someone whose name I don’t even know? What the fuck is wrong with me?

  “And she’s so fucking tall,” Sebastian continues. “Like, almost as tall as me, without heels,” he says in awe.

  “It’s not her.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath, refocusing my energy back to the wall.

  “Thank fuck.” He throws his head back and hangs off the wall, letting the harness support him. When he looks back up, he starts climbing and I follow in step. “So, tell me about her. I need to be prepared, just in case.”

  I laugh, but there’s little humor behind it. This whole thing is so messed up. Why couldn’t she just tell me her name and let me take her out on a date?

  “She’s shorter, kinda petite, but the way she can level you with her stare makes her seem taller, you know? And she smells fucking amazing… like sugar with a hint of spice. She’s got this wild brown hair that matches her eyes, and both times I’ve seen her she was wearing these beat-up combat boots.” I say the last part and smirk. “She’s unlike anyone I’ve ever met before.” That’s all I’m willing to say to him about her right now. Normally, I’d go on about a girl’s tits or the way she felt when I was inside her. Sebastian and I are worse than a bunch of gossiping girls. We usually tell each other all kinds of shit, but not this time.