Inviting him to the club had been a mistake, but he was there and I wasn’t going to say no.
I wanted to taste madness.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Freddie
ANDIE WAS A red temptress standing alone in the club, and I wanted to devour her. Her dress was nothing, some fabric tied behind her neck and little else. No bra. Bloody hell. Her back was completely exposed and as I walked closer, I dragged my gaze down her spine, getting my fill of the tan skin I wasn’t allowed to touch.
I’d spent enough time memorizing her body to recognize it, even behind the mask. She was beautiful. Blonde hair hung loose across her shoulders, silky and long. Gray eyes and long lashes stood out against the red lace. I didn’t stop myself from touching her back. She was looking up, watching me in the mirrors when I stepped close and whispered hello.
“You look beautiful.”
She didn’t reply. She twisted around and faced me, dropping her gaze from the ceiling so she could meet my eyes. There was a darkness there that she usually kept hidden. Her playful, cheeky smile was tucked away. Instead, her full lips held the promise of a smirk—the kind that told me she and I wouldn’t be spending the night as friends.
“Do you need a drink?” she asked, eyeing my empty hands.
I nodded and led us to the bar. It was crowded—the whole place was, really. I stayed close to Andie, tucking her into my side so I could feel her body there beside mine. She didn’t protest, though I could sense a stillness inside her, a fight over whether she should let this happen. I didn’t give her enough time to think it over.
“Is anyone waiting for you?” I asked after placing my order with the bartender.
She shook her head but kept quiet, eyeing the bottles of alcohol behind the bar.
“Do you want to have a dance?” I said, though I prayed she’d say no. I hated dancing in front of other people. To me, if you did it right, dancing was intimate and raw—something better reserved for private rooms and dark corners.
She shook her head again.
The bartender slid my drink across the bar and I took the glass in one hand and Andie’s arm in the other. I led us away from the bar before she could ask where we were going, and I found the first flight of stairs that could lead us toward a place I wasn’t sure we were ready to find.
The second floor was packed with annoying drunk tourists and locals, so I kept hold of her and took her up another flight, all the way to the top floor. There were no questions or protests from Andie. When we were nearly up the second flight, I glanced back to find her eyes on me, confident and curious.
“I haven’t been up here yet,” she said, eyeing the space tentatively.
The music was still as loud as it was on the first floor, thanks to speakers blasting in every direction, but the crowd had thinned enough so that it wasn’t hard to find an empty spot.
They’d used tinted bulbs to cast the space in red light. The other floors had been dark, but this was different, red and smoky and intoxicating. The fragments of glass were closer than ever. When we sat and I pulled Andie to the soft leather seat beside mine, I glanced up and took us in from above. My gaze caught on her thighs. Her dress had ridden up when she sat, and she was trying to tug it down, to no avail. I smiled and turned back to her, leaving the mirrors for later.
“Want a sip?” I asked, holding my drink up to her.
She shook her head and took a pull of her own drink. It was after that, when she’d swallowed and worked up the confidence, that she turned to me with a question.
“Why are we doing this? We should go back down with the others.”
She sounded resolute in her decision and yet she didn’t move. I had my hand wrapped around her waist and I tugged her closer, pulling her into my side.
“Just a bit longer,” I said, studying her eyes behind her mask.
The entire time at the gym, I’d been wholesome and restrained. I’d helped her work out and I’d kept my distance as much as possible. It’d been painful at times, and I’d left feeling more frustrated than I had in years. I had contemplated staying home and letting Andie run off to the club by herself, but I wasn’t that selfless. I knew that the second she walked in, she would never make it back out alone. I should have let that happen. It might’ve made life easier on the both of us, and yet there I was, stealing her away to the third floor and dipping close to whisper against her hair.
I knew I’d done the right thing by showing up. I’d only been there for half an hour and I’d already seen the full effect of Andie in her red dress. The bartender had bobbled the bottle when he’d passed over my drink. Most blokes on the stairs had tripped as they watched her slide past. There was a guy, even then, who kept his eyes glued to her from across the room. He was leaning on the balcony railing, too far away for Andie to notice, but I did.