Claire Daniels glanced around Decadent's crowded dance
floor, with its pulsating colored lights and equally
pulsating bass beat, and wondered what the devil she was
doing there.
Okay, so she didn't actually
wonder. Instead,
she blamed her best friend, Alyssa, for dragging her there,
dateless, on New Year's Eve.
"Blow toy?" An Adonis of a guy in a tight black
T-shirt with
Decadent stamped across it in cracked,
white ghetto-style letters held something out to her, a
suggestive smile on his mouth.
"Excuse me?" Claire lifted a single eyebrow in the
haughty gesture that she'd perfected at the age of
eight, after spending too much time watching
Star Trek
reruns, and then camping out in her bathroom until
she'd been able to convince her facial muscles to move
in such a way.
"For midnight," the guy said, his half-smile
suggesting that he knew exactly how far into the gutter her
thoughts had been. "A noisemaker."
"Oh. Right. Sure. Thanks." She snatched the gizmo,
gave it an experimental toot and then smiled up at the
Adonis. "Great. Thanks. This'll be fun." Her
words were clipped and rushed, designed to get him to go
away so that she could get back to her originally scheduled
misery at being alone, in a bar, on New Year's Eve. The
date night to rival all date nights.
Honestly, she shouldn't have come.
Adonis-boy melted into the crowd, and Claire scanned the
room, looking for Alyssa so that she could tell her friend
she'd had enough and she was going to go home. At least
at home she could cuddle under a blanket and get all comfy
in sweatpants. At least at home, she wouldn't feel like
an idiot come midnight when everyone else was locked in a
passionate kiss, and she was standing around twiddling her
thumbs.
Alyssa, however, was nowhere to be found. But, frankly, that
wasn't terribly troubling. Because what Claire's
gaze lighted upon could only be described as eye candy of
the most
decadent sort. Tall and lean, and decked
out in Texas formal, his jeans just tight enough to give a
woman a serious appreciation for the man underneath, and his
starched white button-down still perfectly crisp despite the
heat generated by the crush of bodies in the room.
Even from where she stood, she could tell that his eyes were
blue, and at the moment, they were scoping out the club, as
if he was a monarch surveying his kingdom. And, oh, yeah, he
looked like royalty. From the way he held himself, to the
rogue-ish, I'm-the-dude-in-charge stubble that graced
his strong jawline, he was so perfect that if he were a
picture Claire would swear that he'd been digitally
enhanced. The man was the visual equivalent of a Ben &
Jerry's overdose, rich and wonderful and utterly bad for
you.
Down, girl.
Then again, why?
The guy was hot. He was looking her way. And she was single
and, at the moment, very, very available.
She took a step in his direction only to be stymied in her
quest to go after what she wanted with gusto when a burly
guy in a Decadent T-shirt approached Mr. Texas Royalty. They
spoke for a few minutes, and then her gorgeous fantasy of a
man followed the burly guy in the opposite direction, his
expression stern.
Security, she assumed. Which meant that Texas
Royalty was either working security, too, or he'd just
been kicked out of the club.
Either way, it did her no good. If he was security, he was
working. And if he was kicked outโฆ Well, she was primed for
a wild night with a hot man, but she
was hoping to
keep her crazy fling on the semi-responsible side. Hooking
up with guys who got kicked out of dance clubs was not on
her list of top ten smart things to do.
Too bad. Mr. Texas Royalty was seriously easy on the eyes.
And right then, dammit, yes, she wanted a man. Wanted to get
up close and personal. Wanted to work off some of the sexual
frustration that had been building and building since
she'd broken up with Joe. It had been months and months
since she'd gotten naked with anyone other than her
handheld shower-head, and she was really craving a man's
touch right now.
You could have had one, Claire.
She grabbed a Jell-O shot from a passing waitress, then
snarfed it back, snorting. Oh, yeah. She could have had a
man, all right.
Joe. Her ex. The man who'd
dumped her after almost a year of dating, and thenโwhen
she'd foolishly called and suggested they have a drink,
just to see if there was any way back for the two of
themโhe'd suddenly decided that sex was a great little
reconciliation tool.
And stupid her, she'd almostโ
almostโfallen into
bed with him. Then her self-respect had kicked in, and
she'd marched out, not even bothering to slam the door
behind her, leaving Joe looking baffled, his pants down
around his ankles.
Yeah, well, buddy. Next time think about that before you
dump me.
On the morally superior side of the equation, she was
feeling pretty good about herself. On the sexually primed
and then denied side of the equation, she been as taut as a
wire ever since and wondering if maybe she hadn't
punished herself as much as she'd punished him.
"You did the right thing." That from Alyssa,
materializing beside her holding a flute of champagne, which
she passed to Claire, who took it gratefully, despite being
able to still taste the Jell-O from the shot she'd just
downed.
"Is it that obvious what I'm thinking?"
Her friend smiled. "Only because I know you so well."
Claire sighed, then took a sip of her champagne.
"It's not fair, you know. We make a Christmas pact
to go after what we wantโ" She lifted the flute,
sloshing a little as she pointed to Alyssa. "And we both
know that what we wanted was men. And you end up with the
man of your dreams, and I ended up with Joe, his pants
around his ankles and me rushing out the door."
"Who says it had to be a
Christmas pact? This
is still the holiday season, right? You've still got
time." Her grin was pure mischief.
"Easy for you to say. You're now firmly entrenched
in coupledom."
"Is that what you want?"
Claire shrugged. Wasn't that the question of the hour?
"Maybe not tonight," she admitted. "Tonight,
I'd be happy for third base in the backseat of a car."
Alyssa laughed. "Been a while?"
"It's my own fault. I didn't have to walk out on
Joe."
"Yeah," Alyssa said. "You did."
"You're right." The truth was, Claire never
should have called Joe in the first place. Yes, she'd
told everyone she'd been devastated by the breakup, but
she'd been more devastated by the fact that her plans
for a family and a future had been so rudely shattered than
by the departure of that particular man. Because it was the
familyโthe rootsโ that she wanted. She'd bought a house.
She chaired two Dallas charity organizations. And her career
was solidly on track.
She'd spent the past two years working for Judge Doris
Monroe of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and she'd
recently accepted a position in the prestigious appellate
law section of Thatcher and Dain. The job was bittersweet,
actually, because she couldn't imagine a better boss
than Judge Monroe. The woman was not only a brilliant
lawyer, she was a savvy woman, and Claire respected the hell
out of her. Hard to believe that in July, she'd be
leaving the judge and entering the private sector.
Her father, a Texas state senator, had wanted her to join
the firm that he'd helped found before he'd entered
politics back when she was a little girl, but Claire was
determined to make her mark on her own. If she joined a firm
where her name was already on the door, it would be after
she'd argued cases in front of the Supreme Court, been
profiled in the
American Bar Journal and the
Dallas Morning News, and could walk through the
front door knowing that she deserved to be there for what
she'd accomplished, not because of who her dad was.
All in all, Claire was settled in her world. She just wanted
someone to share it with. Joe, however, wasn't that guy,
no matter how much she'd tried to pretend otherwise.
Still, hearth and home was nice, but right thenโon New
Year's Eveโshe'd be happy with a slow dance and a
hot kiss. And she'd be even happier with more.
She sighed and swallowed the rest of the champagne in her
flute. "Where's Chris?" she asked Alyssa,
referring to Alyssa's
best-friend-turned-boyfriend-turned-man-of-her-dreams.
"He bumped into a friend. I should probably go find him,
though. Only fifteen minutes to midnight."
Claire frowned. "I think I'll just go."
"Don't you dare. Just have fun. Kiss the bartender.
Dance. Drink champagne."
"Oh, believe me," Claire said. "I'm all over
that champagne plan." She didn't usually drink much,
but between boredom and nerves, she'd drunk at least
three glassesโnot counting the tasty Jell-O shotsโand she
was feeling it, too.
"I shouldn't even be here," Claire continued.
"My mother begged me to drive down to Austin and go to
the celebration at the Governor's Mansion. I could be
mingling with judges. Making contacts. Networking." She
sighed. "Seriously. I should just go home."
"What about our pact? You need to step to it, girl. Go
after what you want."
"Maybe what I want is to get in bed with a glass of wine
and watch
When Harry Met Sally."
Alyssa's expression turned stern. "For one
thing," she said, with a nod to the champagne flute,
"you do not need to be driving right now. For another,
it's New Year's Eve!"
"Hello? Midnight on New Year's without a date is no
fun. Neither was Christmas," she added, though she
wasn't bitter. Really she wasn't. She was thrilled
Alyssa and Chris had finally gotten together. Claire just
wished their pre-Christmas take-control-of-your-love-life
holiday pact had worked out as well for herself.
"I'd let you kiss Chris, but I'd just end up
being jealous," Alyssa said with a wink. "Can't
have that."
Claire gave her friend a small shove in the direction of the
bar. "Go. Find him. I'll be fine. Maybe I'll
accost some poor, helpless man and make him be my sex slave
for the evening," she added, thinking of Mr. Texas
Royalty, aka The One That Got Away.
"There you go. That's the spirit." She gave
Claire a quick hug, then disappeared into the throng,
leaving Claire feeling like a bit of an idiot standing there
all alone with the clock about ready to start counting down.
"Damn," Claire said, wondering if Alyssa would
notice if she went out and sat in her car. She could pretend
like she needed something, wait in the car while the clock
tolled midnight, then come back in after the kissing was
over. That, at least, would save her from the intense
depression associated with chronic datelessness.
Armed with a plan, she stepped out of a nearby door and
found herself not in front of the club but on a flagstone
back patio. Moreover, the inside music was not pumped
outside. Instead, there was a nice classical thing going on
that gave the little oasis a "kick back and regroup"
kind of feel that Claire appreciated.
As far as she could tell, though, there was no way to move
from the patio to the parking lot, and she was about to turn
and go back inside when she caught another glimpse of Mr.
Sin-and-Sex. This time, though, he was chatting with a
cluster of gorgeous women.
Figures. She sighed, and
was debating whether she should go over and count herself
among the groupies, when the cluster of women broke apart
and started moving off in various directions, their parting
creating a straight line of sight between her and Texasโand
he was staring right at her, the heat in his eyes positively
unmistakeable.
Whoa.
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