He's about five people away from me. A girl is pressed into his side, her mouth close to his ear, her fingers playing lazy patterns on the collar of his shirt while she talks to him. His arm sits around her waist loose and easy, the kind of hold that says she's been there all night and he's not thinking about it anymore. Behind them a guy stands with his back slightly to the bar, big, built like someone whose job description doesn't involve sitting at a desk, and his eyes move across the room in a way that isn't casual. He's watching everyone and no one at the same time.
But I'm not looking at either of them. I'm looking at him.
He's not doing anything. He's just standing there with a glass in his hand, not drinking it, just holding it while the girl talks and the music plays and the whole club moves around him. He's still in a way that doesn't make sense here, in this noise, in this crowd.
He hasn't seen me and there's no reason he should because I'm just a girl at a bar in a red dress waiting for water and he has a whole woman pressed against him and I need to stop looking. The bartender puts a glass in front of me and I drink the whole thing without taking my eyes off him and I'm embarrassing myself and I know it and I can't stop. My brain is doing something unhelpful where it keeps zooming in on details — the way his thumb sits against the girl's hip, the line of his jaw when he tilts his head slightly to hear what she's saying, the way his shirt sits across his shoulders. He hasn't smiled once since I've been watching him but he doesn't look bored either, he just looks like someone who's comfortable being wherever he is without needing the room to know it.
I go back upstairs. I dance. I try not to think about him and I think about him the entire time. Lucia grabs my hands and spins me and I laugh and I'm thinking about him. Sara passes me a drink and I take it and I'm thinking about the way his arm sat around that girl's waist .Valentina says something I can't hear over the music and I nod along and I'm thinking about him, how it pulled at me from across the room like gravity, and I want to scream at myself because this isn't me. I don't do this. I don't fixate on strangers in clubs.
But I can still feel the image of him behind my eyes like something burned into a screen and the more I try to dance it out the more it stays.
"I'll be right back," I tell Lucia.
"Where are you going?"
"Bathroom."
I don't go to the bathroom.
I go downstairs. My heart is doing something ridiculous, hammering against my ribs so hard I can feel it in my throat. The girl isn't next to him anymore.
He's alone at the bar. Phone in his hand, scrolling with his thumb, his drink mostly untouched next to his elbow.
I walk toward him and every step feels like a dare I'm making with myself. This isn't me. Marcus came to me. People come to me and I decide whether to let them in and that's how it's always worked because it's safe and I can control it. I don't walk up to men I don't know. I don't put myself out there first. I don't—
I'm in front of him.
He looks up from his phone. Puts it away slowly, sliding it into his pocket without looking away from me, giving me his full attention in a way that makes my skin warm. His eyes move over me once, not fast, not slow, not hungry, just taking me in like he's figuring out what just showed up in front of him.
"Dance with me."
My voice comes out steadier than anything happening inside my body right now.
He picks up his glass, takes a sip, watching me over the rim the entire time. He's making me wait and he's doing it on purpose and I should be annoyed but I'm not because the way he's looking at me over that glass is making my stomach flip in a way that I haven't felt in so long I almost forgot what it was.
He puts the glass down and stands and he's taller than I thought, even in Lucia's heels I have to tilt my head up, and he steps toward me close enough that I can smell him — something warm and expensive and underneath it just , clean, him.
"Lead the way."
I turn and walk toward the stairs and I feel him behind me the whole way up. Not touching me but close enough that I swear I can feel the warmth of his chest against my back through the gap between us. I weave through the crowd on the second floor, deeper in, where the lights barely reach and the music is heaviest, and when I find a space I turn around and he's right there, closer than I expected, looking down at me with those dark eyes.
I put my hands on his shoulders. His hand lands on my hip and his fingers press into the fabric warm and firm and my breath stutters but I cover it by moving first, letting the bass guide my hips. He matches me without trying, his thigh sliding between mine and the pressure of it sends a pulse through me that I feel between my legs and I have to swallow hard because we are in public and I'm already losing my mind.
He pulls me closer until my chest is flat against his. I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt, steady and slow while mine is racing so fast I'm sure he can feel it too. My fingers grip his shoulders harder than I mean to and I feel him respond, his hand spreading wider across my lower back, pressing me into him until there's nothing between us but fabric.
I turn in his arms, press my back against his chest, and his arm wraps around my stomach pulling me flush against him. I feel him hard against me and the breath leaves my lungs in a way I can't control. My head tips back against his shoulder and his mouth drops to my neck, hovering so close I can feel the heat of each exhale on my skin but he doesn't kiss me. I'm going to lose it because the anticipation of his mouth is worse than the actual thing would be.
I roll my hips back into him, slow, and his grip tightens on my stomach. I do it again and his lips finally make contact, brushing the curve of my neck so lightly it could almost be accidental except he does it again, and again, dragging his mouth up toward my ear, and I reach behind me and find the back of his neck, my fingers sliding into his hair, gripping, and he exhales against my skin and that sound goes through me like a current.
His fingers find the hem of my dress where it ends on my thigh and he traces the line there, back and forth, fingertips on bare skin, his thumb drawing slow circles on the inside of my leg. My hips stutter against him and he pulls me tighter like he wants to feel every reaction I have against his body.
"What's your name?" My voice comes out wrecked. He did that to me with his hands and his mouth and he hasn't even kissed me yet.
His lips press against the spot just below my ear, a kiss, soft and deliberate, and he stays there when he answers.
"Leonardo."
I feel his name vibrate against my neck and my fingers tighten in his hair.
"Bella."
His hand slides from my thigh up to my hip and he turns me around to face him. The movement is sudden enough that I grab the front of his shirt to steady myself and our faces are close, too close, his nose brushing against mine. His lips are right there and I can feel his breath mixing with mine and I want to close the gap so badly my whole mouth is tingling. His eyes are heavy, dark, looking at my lips like he's having the same argument with himself that I'm having with myself.
"You always walk up to strangers like this?" His thumb traces along my jaw, slow, and his voice has dropped lower than before.
"You always say yes?"
His mouth pulls at one corner. "No."
I don't know how long we dance like that. Time does something useless when his hands are on me, it stretches and folds and I couldn't tell you if we've been here twenty minutes or an hour. My phone has buzzed in my bag at least three times, Lucia probably, and I can't bring myself to check because his forehead is against mine and his breathing has changed, it's not calm anymore, not steady, and knowing I did that to him is making me feel powerful in a way I haven't felt since I don't know when.
"Do you want to leave?" I say it against his mouth, my lips almost touching his, and I feel him tense.
He pulls back just enough to look at me. His hand cups the side of my neck, his thumb running along my jaw.
"You sure?"
I nod.
He takes my hand, laces his fingers through mine, and walks through the crowd. People move out of his way and I don't have time to think about why because we're already at the stairs and the big guy is there at the bottom like he already knew this was happening and the door opens and the night air hits my overheated skin and a car is already waiting at the curb.
He opens the back door. I get in and the leather is cool against the back of my thighs and the inside smells like something clean and dark. He slides in next to me and the door closes and everything just stops. The bass, the crowd, the noise, all of it gone like someone sealed us into a different world. It's just us and the quiet hum of the engine and the city sliding past the tinted windows.
The car pulls into traffic.
His hand returns to my thigh, his palm warm on my bare skin, and his pinky starts tracing a slow circle on the inside of my knee. He's looking ahead through the windshield, his profile lit by streetlights passing in gold and white, and he looks calm, composed, like his hand isn't making me come apart next to him.
The circle moves higher. His fingers spread across my inner thigh, pressing gently into the soft skin there, and my leg opens slightly because my body is responding to him in ways I don't have control over anymore,his fingers sliding higher, and the heat between my legs is unbearable now.
"You're doing that on purpose," I whisper.