It’s the intrigue.
Casey Markham is the most puzzling person I think I’ve ever met. She’s gorgeous beyond compare, but I didn’t find her to have much of an ego. She’s independent and self-assured, somewhat of a flirt but also an immensely private and controlled person. I’ve talked with her enough to get a peek at a razor-sharp mind and yet she tends bar for a living, making me wonder whether she has aspirations in the making or failed attempts to meet them.
She’s positively fascinating and while I want to fuck her again, I more than anything want to find out why she’s the self-proclaimed queen of one-night stands. That shit does not jive in my book because women are notoriously stuck on romance and love, connecting with their minds and hearts. Men are all about the fucking, thinking with our dicks most of the time.
It’s true and I admit it.
But Casey isn’t typical. She’s aloof in her feelings, and I’ll never forget what she said to me before she left. While I disposed of the condom, Casey used the bathroom. When she came out, I attempted to pull her onto the bed so she’d lay with me a bit until I could recharge, but she skittered away from me with a stern shake of her head.
“I have to get going,” she said as she started getting dressed.
“No fucking way, Goldie,” I told her firmly. “I’m not done with you yet.”
“And yet, I’m done with you,” she said with frost in her voice and determination in her eyes.
I blinked at her in surprise, because what fucking woman talks like that, but then narrowed my gaze on her suspiciously. “You promised me a night. Remember Queen of the One-Night Stand?”
“I said you could have me,” she corrected with a chuckle. “I didn’t promise an entire night. Besides, I don’t do sleepovers.”
What the fuck? That’s something I would normally think… using my inside voice, of course.
I scrubbed my hand through my hair in frustration. Normally after a meaningless fuck, I was trying to figure a way to get the woman out the door without a fuss. Here I was trying to get her to stay, and I’m guessing it’s because the fuck wasn’t so meaningless to me.
By that time, Casey was zipping up her shorts but her posture remained stiff and resolute. Sensing that this was not a woman who could be swayed, I gave a sigh of resignation as I turned toward the door. “Come on. I’ll give you a lift back to your car.”
“No need,” she chirped as she bent over to grab her purse off the floor. “I called a friend who lives close by. She’s picking me up.”
Well, fuck. There went my chance to spend just a little more time with her while I drove her back to her car, maybe using said time to try to figure out a way to see her again.
Casey then gave me a sweet smile as she stepped up to me. She rose up on her tiptoes and brushed her lips against my cheek. “Goodbye, Tenn.”
When she stepped away, I searched her eyes for something… anything that would give me a clue as to what this woman was all about. I got nothing back but a vague and polite smile, effectively telling me the door had been closed tight against me.
Casey started to turn to the door, but I found myself muttering out loud as I reached my hand out to grab a fistful of her hair at the back of her head, “Fuck that, Goldie.”
I reeled her in toward me, taking heart from the way her eyes flared and sparked with interest. Pulling her right back up on to her tiptoes, I leaned down just a bit, until her face was just inches from mine. “I don’t buy it,” I told her simply.
“What’s that?” Her words came out in a whisper as her hands rested against my chest.
“This act you got going on,” I murmured while my eyes roamed over her face for some glint of the real truth. I looked hard… I looked long, and for a moment, I thought she’d deny me.
And that’s when I saw it.
I saw a small flash of sadness ripple through her blue irises, and it was so naked and in such contrast to the effervescent woman before me, that I dropped my hands away from her and took a step backward.
Casey quickly schooled her features and then leveled me with another cool look. Her shoulders squared and her chin rose up a notch. “No act, Tenn. This is all there is to me.”
Fat fucking lie, Goldie. Fat fucking lie.
But I didn’t say that to her. I merely gave her a nod of my head and made a sweeping motion toward the door. “Then I guess you have a ride waiting for you.”
She stared at me a moment before turning on her heel and walking out of my room.
Fascinating woman, that Casey Markham. She has some part of her locked away… something that she’s protecting and thinks is untouchable. Whatever this is—this thing she’s hiding—I’m like a kid in a candy store with grabby hands and I want to touch it.
The knock on my hotel door spurs me off the bed where I had been lying on my back while I mused about Casey. I cross the small room and open it up, expecting Kyle to be standing there.
“Ready to roll?” he asks.
I grunt my ascension as I step out the door and pull it closed behind me. “Where we headed?”
“Over to Manteo,” he says as he follows me down the outside stairwell that leads to the parking lot. “That chick I was with the other night said there’s a great bar over there that serves po’ boys and cheap beer. She’s going to be there.”
I grunt an acknowledgment, remembering the woman Kyle was with the other night. We had gone to some dive bar we stumbled across when we had been out cruising around and ended up getting so trashed, I had to cab it back to my hotel. I had found Kyle fucking said chick in the men’s bathroom, right up against the wall. I turned my body around quickly to avert my eyes and said, “I’m heading out, man.”