Christ, he even smelled good. Like herbs and the sea. As if he spent his days split between the ocean and the oregano covered Cypriot mountains. Maybe he did. As I ran my gaze over him again, it was obvious he was a dude who spent ninety percent of his time outside.
Rough hands.
Warm skin.
Kind eyes that didn’t laugh at my apparent inability to claw words out of my throat.
He reached across and uncapped the water bottle he’d pushed my way. “Drink. It’ll help.”
I finally found my voice. “With what?”
“With whatever’s got you wound so tight.” The man gifted me a sunshine grin. “If it’s something awful, you probably can’t change it. If it’s something that feels worse than it is, you can afford to let it go for a few hours.”
“Wise words.”
“Selfish words, actually.”
“How do you figure?”
That warm hand reached for me again, this time to rub a soothing stroke up and down my tense forearm. “Because you’re hotter than sin already, but somehow I know you’ll be a different soul when you smile.”
My lips twitched with disbelief, nervous humour spreading through me, betraying the stoicism I was usually so good at. “I don’t smile much.”
“I can tell.”
“How?”
The man shifted on his stool, tipping his water bottle to his lips, taking a long drink before he answered me, and I became instantly fixated on how his throat worked as he swallowed. On the auburn scruff that covered his jaw. The lean, corded muscle of his arm. Something inside me switched—that lightbulb I’d been searching for. I mean, Jammo was a good-looking lad, but this dude?
No words came close to how I felt as I stared at him.
Spellbound.
Enraptured.
Aroused beyond belief.
“You have a serious face.” The dude eventually lowered his water bottle. “And your whole posture is locked up. Not saying it’s a bad thing, but I reckon there’s more to you than most people ever notice.”
“Or I’m as uninteresting as I look.”
The man’s stare intensified, if such a thing was possible. He screwed the cap back onto the bottle and pushed it away. “That’s not what I said. And I don’t much care what people look like anyway. It’s how you feel, right? Like this . . .” He dragged his fingertips along my arm again. “I felt that as soon as I saw you, and it had nothing to do with your appearance.”
If there was a compliment in there somewhere, I was missing it. But I didn’t mind. He’d left his hand on my arm and my body was rebelling against every thread of control I had. Goosebumps covered my skin and my nervous pulse tripled.
Lacking any better ideas, I took his advice and drank the water while he watched me, and my usually stagnant imagination played a game with my nervous system. Allowing me to picture a world where he was as transfixed by my throat as I was with his.
I set the bottle down, not daring to move my other arm—or even look at it—in case he remembered his hand. Say something. “What’s your name?”
Brilliant. Though, I supposed it could’ve been worse.
Couldn’t tell why the dude took so long to think about it, mind. Or why I noticed the fleeting flicker in his gaze. Maybe I’d messed up by asking him a personal question. Maybe that wasn’t allowed. But Christ, for whatever reason, I was hooked on his answer.
“Folk.”
“Hmm?”
The man grinned again. “Folk. It’s my name.”
“Folk? As in . . . uh, Folk?”
A low laugh rumbled between us, as gently masculine as the rest of him. “That’s the one. Wanna tell me yours?”
Greene, the name I answered to most often, snared in my throat, the other one I’d earned on deployments jammed behind it. They called me Decoy because I was a good wingman, but that wasn’t who I was tonight. I didn’t want to be the man who watched everyone else have a good time. I wanted to be me.
I held out my hand. “Seth. Nice to meet you.”
Folk took my hand, wrapping his fingers around mine in a firm grip, his other hand still on my arm, even as he rose from his stool and tugged me to my feet. “Nice to meet you too, Seth. Listen, I’m not here long, so can I give you some advice?”
He had the kind of face that was ageless. He could’ve been twenty-five—like me—or ten years older. But the wisdom in those blue eyes riveted me, and I couldn’t look away as Folk leaned in, his shoulder brushing mine, his electric touch soothing the abrasive angst I’d carried since I was fifteen and I’d popped wood over the wrong classmate.
His lips came so close to my jaw I felt his breath on my skin. “This thing that has you all tied up, waiting for it doesn’t get any easier. Sometimes, you have to let it find you.”
He pulled back without waiting for an answer, and I felt the loss of his nearness everywhere. The oppressive heat of the bar evaporated and I felt cold. Like I’d lost something I’d never get back unless I did something extraordinary. Something that I’d come here to do, and yet this stool and my solitude had become my sanctuary anyway.
Until he walked in.
And now he was walking out.
Folk tossed some money on the bar and turned away, treating me to the sight of his lean, muscled back. His tanned upper arms. The curl of his golden-brown hair at the nape of his neck.
The exit was to the left. The doors to the back rooms were straight ahead. I braced myself to watch him veer sideways and walk out of my life forever, but at the last possible moment, he spun to face me again, beckoning me with the hand still imprinted on my arm. “Stop waiting, Seth. I found you.”
My brain reacted with a slow blink.
But my body was aeons ahead, unfolding from the stool and taking three steps before I remembered to pay for my beer.
I chucked a handful of cash behind me. Notes. Coins. Could’ve been a hundred Euro for all I knew, and despite the prospect of a messy divorce looming over me, I didn’t care. Money was things, not feelings. And how I felt in this moment was everything I’d spent so long searching for.
Folk took my hand and led me to the double doors at the back of the bar. Then he guided me in front of him so I could slip through first.
I stepped into a corridor. Nerves assaulted me again. Harsh and sharp. Fear clawing my gut while my heart pounded so loud I was surprised they couldn’t hear it in the nightclub. Only that warm hand in mine kept me from vibrating through the floor and dissolving into the earth’s core.
Dramatic. But I felt dramatic. Detached from reality, however hard I clung to it with my clammy, shaking fingers.
There were half a dozen doors in the corridor. Some shut, some half-open, like a fitting room in a department store. The one at the end was next to the fire exit, and it called to me before I second guessed myself.
What if—
“This one,” Folk murmured at my back, steering me towards the room. “That way you can escape if you change your mind.”
“About what?”
“About this.” Folk’s hand shifted to my back, sliding down my spine to rest at the base, and the room came up on us faster than I was prepared for.
The door was open.
I moved through it before I knew what I was doing. Found a space in the corner of the small, dimly lit room and spun to face the man behind me.