His Secret Desire

4

The bartender remarked, c*****g his head to the side. “Enjoy.”

I nodded at the man before facing the drink. I was really about to do this.

After taking a deep breath, I picked up the glass and let its contents flow down my tongue, into my throat. It burned a little.

“Careful. That one doesn’t ease you in.” A man's voice softly hummed through the air. I raised my head up to see that the man who had bought me the drink was seated next to me. He had a look on his face, like he was trying to hold himself together, or clinging onto the last bit of sobriety left in him.

However he was surprisingly put together, wearing a plain black shirt with the first two buttons undone, so he was still far from that. But I didn't care. I didn't want to talk to anyone. “I didn’t ask.” I muttered.

“No. You didn’t.” he replied. He had a cool french accent—the type that Jessany would fawn over for days. I ignored him and fixed my gaze at the glass. It was either I did or I didn't, and I had already done it, so there was no stopping now.

I took another gulp of the drink and let it sit in my throat for a while before finally swallowing it. But for some reason the man was still seated next to me, staring quietly—almost as if he was judging me. That was the last thing I needed. “I’m not in the mood for conversation.” He let out a breath, “Then don’t have one.” I paused and took a glance at his perfectly sculpted face.

Was he trying to tease me? “You’re talking.”

“I am.” He raised his glass slightly, “You’re free to ignore me.” I held his gaze for a second and it felt like I was being teased by a teenager by the way he looked at me with a ghost of a smirk on his face. I took another sip and continued,

“Are you always like this?”

The man smirked, “Not always. Just when it’s obvious someone came here for the wrong reason.”

I let out a quiet breath, “And what’s the right reason?” His grey eyes flicked to the glass in my hand, as if he noticed something. “Enjoy the drink.” He said, “You’re treating it like a punishment.”

I gripped the glass slightly tighter. I knew I wasn't doing the right thing. “Maybe it is.” There was a pause. I watched him study me from my periphery before he took a sip of his own drink. “First one in a while?”

“Is it that obvious?” I muttered.

“You're acting like you're afraid of what it's going to do to you” he said, matter of factly.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“When you're in a place like this…”

“Not all of us can handle being out of control.” I retorted, biting my tongue so that I didn't say too much.

“Coming from you.” His eyes slowly grazed my frame, "You look like you barely have anything under control.”

I gave a tight-lipped smile and turned to face the drink in my hand. “Comforting..” I mumbled under my breath.

“None of us do.” the man continued.

“So is this what you do? Buy women drinks and insert yourselves into their personal misery?”

“Not all women; Some of them do it for attention.”

“Who would want to do this for attention?”

"Trust me, a lot of them.” He took a sip of his drink with his eyes never leaving mine. For a second I found myself lost in his gaze, like they were pulling me toward him so that I would never leave, but I quickly snapped out of it. Pull yourself together, Renee, I cautioned myself.

I wasn't going to do this again. Not today. “Are you really not going to share?” the man asked, his head tilted a bit to the left.

“If I wanted to, I'd have gone to therapy” I replied, looking elsewhere. Anywhere but him. “At the end of the day, we're both strangers at the receiving end. Only one of us is doing it for free.”

“But you don't really care, do you?”

“You're drinking a free martini.” he chuckled, his fingers brushing my elbow as he gestured to the drink. I subtly shook it off. ‘Pull yourself together, Renee’. “This isn't exactly helping…”

“Only because you're holding back.” He replied. A second later, I heard the sound of glass against wood as the man slid his drink to me.

It was vodka.

Plain vodka.

“I really shouldn't…”

“It's only one night,” he muttered. He was right. It was only one night. What was the worst that could happen? Besides, I had already broken my sober streak anyway. Might as well.

I took a gulp of the drink and let it burn my throat as it went down to my stomach. “Feeling better?” he asked. I was going to say yes, but that would've only been half true. I felt numb, like nothing else mattered but there and then, and it was an all too familiar feeling. A feeling I'd been trying to avoid for the longest time because I knew what happened the last time I didn't ignore it. “I shouldn't be doing this…” I said more to myself than him. Before he could protest, I was already walking towards the door.

As soon as I got out the cold air whipped my face. I leaned forward and ran my fingers through my hair. The world was spinning around me, like I was going to collapse anytime. So much for trying to forget. I couldn't drive home like this—not if I wanted to get home alive.

I needed to call Jessany. It was always going to be her: It wasn't like I had anybody else.

“Thought you might need this,” a familiar voice said, holding my phone out. The man had followed me outside and now I was standing in the dark, cold alleyway alone with a stranger. Jessany would kill me if I ever told her this.

My instinct was to snatch it and turn, but before I could, he stepped closer, and I felt his presence envelop me. A split second later, his lips were frozen on mine. He pulled away and studied my face with those hypnotic grey eyes, waiting to see how I'd react, but I'd already broken my promise to myself. What was another bad decision? I tugged him closer, ignoring reason, and our lips met again, deeper and urgent, just because.