Page 6 of Our Little Cliche

Chapter Six

CYRUS

The crowd at Trixie’s Bar in Canmore has simmered from several hundred reading fanatics to under fifty or so within a few hours, so I take advantage of the free second and stretch my arms behind my head, decompressing my spine after sitting and signing books for so long.

The place had been packed. Booming with girly giggles, laughter, glasses clinking and semi-decent music in the background. Now I’m finally given a moment to breathe and rest my voice after repeating the same monotonous Hello, what’s your name? Thanks for coming, since I got here.

“Congratulations again, Stone,” Quinn says, slapping the back of my shoulder.

I repeat the same gesture with the same amount of pressure, almost sending the old bastard flying across the room. “Thanks. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

The launch of In The Shadows has been a knockout, and we only have three books left in the pile. These readers have come from far and wide for a copy of my book, most of whom are now enjoying their night drinking bar side or in the restaurant with their book-ish friends.

“Don’t mention it. Want a martini while it’s quiet?” he asks.

My mouth salivates, and I flex my brow playfully at him. “Do I look like someone that would ever say no to a martini?”

He scurries off and no sooner a stray approaches my table. She’s a combination of nervous and excited. Her face flushed like a tomato. “Hello there,” my voice is deep from overusing my voicebox, and I can tell it makes her even more nervous.

“Hey handsome.” Oh here we go, again, another thirsty one. “Just this one please. Can I ask if you can customize who you sign it to, please?”

“Sure…” I hesitate saying it since I have a rough idea where this is going.

“My name is Jules, but can you sign it to your good girl?”

I suppose this is what I get for writing smut. “Of course, coming right up,” I say, beginning the three hundred and somethingth signature of the night.

“Don’t be scared to add your number, too, hmm.”

Was that a rhetorical question?

All night these women have been sticking to me like ants to honey, hoping and praying that I take one of them home. Just because I write about filthy, erotic sex doesn’t mean I’m ready to bend anyone over with their hands tied behind their backs.

I don’t want just a quick fuck.

I haven’t had a quick fuck in… who knows how long. But nonetheless, these women are not my type. Beautiful, yes, but the next woman I lay with, simply put, will be the same woman I spend the rest of my life with, and truth be known, that has to be one pretty fucking special lady.

I laugh, choosing not to shut her down and hurt her feelings with a no, how dare you, what am I, meat? I say, “Dangerous woman. Dangerous,” with a wink. When I lean over to hand it to her, something catches the tiniest corner of my eye. “Here you?—”

Here and now time stops.

Who the fuuuuck is that?

My eyes lock immediately to a short, golden-blonde woman in a beanie, dusting herself off from a light coating of snow at the entrance. She’s lugging a small, coral colored suitcase, and a canvas tote over her shoulder.

I cannot believe what I am seeing, so I take off my glasses and quickly wipe them against my sweater.

She is the most stunning creature I have ever laid eyes on, and I’ve seen over three hundred tonight alone.

From afar I can see that her face is mottled in red from the icy winds outside.

The woman’s frizzled, plaited locks fall under the fluffy beanie, and her jeans hug her waistline.

Where is her sweater? She must be freezing!

It’s seventeen degrees outside. She’s not even dressed for a fifty Fahrenheit day .

She mustn’t be from here. And I don’t think she’s homeless, she’s far too pretty to be on the streets.

I frown momentarily, trying to observe her further. I’m almost certain I’ve met her before.

My skin tingles with an unidentifiable amount of heat.

Thankfully, the table is my barrier between the reality of my tented pants and embarrassment.

I can’t put my finger on it but my entire body feels as though it is reacting to this woman like a string is attached between her and I, and she’s reeling me in.

Why do I feel like I know her?

Why does she look so familiar?

Reality hits me, and I know in an instant why.

She is the one I’ve been writing about in my new novel. She is identical to the main female character.

“Um, hello?” Jules tugs at the book that I apparently haven’t let go of yet. I say nothing when I release it. I don’t even look at her as I’m too busy staring at the reason my pants are now too tight.

I manage to re-adjust myself after Jules leaves so that my teepee isn’t noticeable and move to stand at the top of the stairs, looking down at this spectacular woman.

Studying her attentively as she struggles with her luggage up the stairs, I tilt my head, debating whether I’m witnessing a drunk walk, or a two-left-feet type of walk.

Assuming it’s the latter of the two as she doesn’t look intoxicated.

Without looking where she’s going, she begins to cart her bag up each flight of stairs…

backwards. Grunting and groaning with difficulty.

I don’t think for a second that this girl could make that look any more awkward, even if she tried to.

The feeling of torturing myself comes to mind, because I know I should be helping her, but at this point in time the woman has bedazzled me so much all I can do is stand and stare.

On the last flight of stairs, her bag snags on the carpet.

“Agh, come on, ya bloody bastard!” she sneers, tugging it with aggression.

I detect an accent, but I can’t quite place it.

Her efforts to pull the luggage only causes her to trip on thin air, and with one great big oomph she slams straight into my abdomen, sending her bag, and its contents flying halfway down the stairs.

Wherever she is going, or coming from, she sure is packed lightly. Struck with intrigue, I see a couple of pink and other pastel colored romance books, scattered around a few pairs of lace underwear, jeans and a few thin looking tees.

“Ah, far out. I’m so sorry, I didn’t see?—”

She freezes, her stare rolling slowly from her eye level, which sits at the lower part of my chest, upwards… and upwards, until she reaches my eyes.

Fuck, she does have an accent. British? No, Australian, maybe?

When I look directly into her eyes, I lose myself in the windows to her soul, and it’s like the world stops spinning.

People are in my peripheral vision, but they’re just a blur.

Her eyes are as blue as the ocean, so calm, and yet they hold a million untold stories that I would go to lengths unknown just to hear.

The blonde beauty remains breathless as her gaze holds contact with mine, neither of us moving. I don’t even know if I’m breathing. I tower over her, which makes it that much more exciting. She’s so… exquisite.

Stupidly, I make the mistake of assuming I can hide the fact that I just glanced at her breasts. How could I not? Her nipples are pinched tight, and absolutely not un-noticeable in the pathetic excuse of fabric she’s wearing, and what I say next makes me want to hit a wall. “You look… cold.”

Stone, you fucking fool.

Have you no shame? Manwhore.

Manwhore!

Dirty, sleazy motherfucker.

“I’m-I’m,” she stutters, realizing what I had done. Her face quickly changes from a cold induced flushed shade of red, to a blushed peach like her bag. It’s cute. She’s adorable.

A smile splits the side of my face. “A nice drink to warm you up, then?” I nudge my head toward the bar behind me. She bites the bottom of her lip and smiles.

“Oh, um. Yeah—” She holds the yeah for a moment in hesitation, looking at the bar, then at the spilled clothes before coming back to me again with a defeated expression. “—Nah, sorry. I’m just here to meet… someone, but thanks.” She takes a nervous step back.

Someone else?

My jaw tenses.

Who?

Something inside of me didn’t like that idea. Jealousy? No, that didn’t seem like the right word, I’m not the type. Protective? Maybe, but why? I don’t even know the girl.

She scurries to collect her belongings from the floor, with no realization of her surroundings as she hasn’t noticed I’m squatting beside her.

“You have good taste,” I say, handing her the black laced thong with a book that’s written by one of my good friends, Izzy Wentworth .

Her facial reaction changes from a frazzled, peachy tone to a pale white I can’t believe he said that color .

Fuck, I meant good taste in literature! Not the…

lingerie. In a panic, I recover, quickly adding, “The book.”

“Oh. Umm, yeah. She’s my favorite author.”

“She’s a good friend of mine.”

Her eyes widen with excitement. “You know her?!”

“Yes. She and I met in college, the both of us studied literature together.” I don’t mention that I’m an author since she reads books like Izzy’s, the poor girl would be fucking traumatized if she read mine.

“Wow, that’s amazing. Oh, cheers.” She takes her stuff from me with a skittish giggle. When our fingers collide, static electricity shoots lightning bolts through my veins, right down to my length, then to the tips of my toes, tingling my brain in its aftermath.

Who is this woman?

“Thanks again, and sorry about all…” She gestures her hands to where the clothes spilled, then to me.

“This. Have a good one.” She clears her throat and stands, attempting to step to the other side of me at the same time I shift aside for her.

And then again, bumping into each other each time before I finally grip her by the shoulders to halt her.

She draws a crisp inward gasp, holding her breath for a beat or two before erratically picking up the pace.

I raise my brow in a don’t hold up on my account kind of way when she looks at the bar again and doesn’t move.

I have no idea what it is about her that’s got us both frozen in time, but eventually she turns on her feet, and I get a scent of her.

Not perfume. Not body soap. Her . And it stains my brain like a negative photograph.

I’m standing there all dopey looking with my shoulders hunched over, and my eyelids halfway down, breathing her in deeply like an aphrodisiac.

No, like a vampire— high on the scent of blood .

Sending even more electric waves buzzing in my brain and a vibration to pound in my chest. It’s intense. Captivating.

How can someone smell this…

This…

Luring?

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it reminds me of the first morning pour of an espresso: that compelling smell that caffeine addicts feed off of, and I know here and now that I need more of it.

Of her.

“Another time then, miss…?” I say, holding the end of the sentence in question as an attempt for her to address her name, but she doesn’t.

She looks over her shoulder back at me, with a soft smirk, “Maybe.” I watch her hips sway as she saunters away to the bar.

Lord have fucking mercy .

A large grin purses on my lips, because now I’ll get to enjoy thinking of her when I write my book. I’ll make sure to change a few things when I get home tonight, to have the main characters meet exactly like we did.

It’s not like she’ll ever read it, she’s for sure the cliché romance type, so she’ll never know that I only gave her one of the laced thongs I had collected from the floor. There may be a possibility that she misplaced the other.

A red one.

And it may or may not be stowed in my pocket right now.

Am I stupid?

I can’t let a woman like her walk away. I can’t let her leave. I need to?—

“Mmmhmm,” Quinn groans. How long he had been standing there I didn’t know but at least he’s come with goods—my martini. I guzzle it down, olives included without letting it touch the sides before tossing the glass back at him. “And who was that?”

Mine, that’s who.