She was now turning sideways to face him, flashing her best flirty grin, and he felt . . . absolutely nothing. Nada. She was the exact replica of most of the women he picked to fuck for a few hours, and he wasn’t interested. Maybe it was the whole skin thing. Yeah, that had to be it. She’d turned him off by being too . . . tan. He angled his seat away from hers, and she stalked off.
“Man, I can’t believe you just blew Ashley off.” Jason laughed. “I’ve heard that she goes above and beyond. I’d kill for a shot at that.”
Mark shrugged, not in the least sorry. He was looking for something different tonight. After another thirty minutes, a brunette took the place of Ashley. This one looked to be a few years older, and she was a knockout. He was considering speaking to her, when she reached out and touched his arm, stroking up and down. He was immediately turned off. She was too forward. He didn’t like aggressive women. At least not tonight.
Things continued along the same lines for the next couple of hours. Jason was openly staring at him in confusion, probably questioning his sexual orientation by this point. He didn’t want to examine why, but no one appealed to him tonight. This was surprising because he’d been hard more often than not since Crystal crashed into his life. Why wasn’t he doing something about it? Just thinking of her again had him pulling his phone out and checking his Twitter account. “An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises.” Mae West. #Angel.
“Damn,” he hissed as his cock strained against his zipper. She was killing him. He hadn’t lied to her when he’d admitted to wanting to fuck her more than he ever had another woman. It was fast becoming an obsession. Just picturing those plump lips of hers sucking his cock was enough to make him blow his load in this very public bar. Before he could embarrass himself, he dropped some money next to his drink and made a hasty retreat.
As soon as he walked in the door at home, he picked up his iPad and Googled quotes. There was no way he could sleep until he replied to her little tease. A grin spread across his face as he found the perfect one. “When I’m good, I’m very good. But when I’m bad, I’m better.” Mae West. #Angel.
It was already close to midnight, but he stayed up another few hours in hopes that she’d respond. When she didn’t, he thought it was probably for the best. He’d have begged for her address, and then gone there and fucked her until she couldn’t walk for a week. Unless he was very wrong, sex with Angel wouldn’t be a onetime thing. That was reason alone enough to stay away from the woman who was rapidly turning his life upside down.
• • •
Mark was edgy and wired the next morning after tossing and turning most of the night. Denny dropped him at the gym with threats to leave his grouchy ass stranded if he didn’t exit in a better mood. He stopped at the juice bar to buy a bottle of water. He was paying when someone clapped him on the back. He jerked around, still in a foul mood, to see Seth Jackson giving him a questioning look. Mark felt some of his tension drain as he greeted his friend. Seth ran the Oceanix Resort in Myrtle Beach and had been a friend for years.
They had been talking for a few minutes, when his friend and coworker Jacob Hay strolled up to join them. Jacob was vice-president of operations for the DeSanto Group, as well as Mark’s right hand. He divided his time between their headquarters in Charleston and Myrtle Beach, with a liberal amount of travel in between.
Mark broke into a grin, as Asher Jackson was next through the door and immediately walked over to punch him in the shoulder. “I didn’t know you were in town again,” he said after they shook hands. At one time, he and Ash had hung out a good bit. They ran in the same circles and had similar . . . interests. Hell, they’d even shared those interests a few times in the past. If Mark was considered a hit-it-and-quit-it, as Denny often called him, then he wasn’t sure what that made Ash. The other man had some strange hang-ups, and if women wanted to spend time with him, then they had to accept those aspects.
“For a few weeks.” Ash nodded. “I try to get down and see Mia as often as possible,” he added slyly, while watching his brother Seth for his reaction. Mia was Seth’s girlfriend, and the guy was crazy about her. Mark saw her occasionally at Danvers, and she was a beauty.
Instead of looking jealous, Seth just laughed. “My woman is perfectly happy and satisfied. She thinks of you as the brother she never had, Ash.”
Giving a wolfish grin, Ash said, “I’m trying to encourage that. She gives her hugs more freely to family members.”
Jacob grabbed a towel off a nearby table and wiped his face before asking, “So what’s up with all this Angel stuff on Twitter? My assistant seems to think you’re doing some kind of Internet dating now. Who’s cryswebber?”
Dead silence settled between them as Seth and Ash joined Jacob in staring at him. Well, hell. Social death by hashtag—how original. “Er—it’s nothing. Just joking around with a friend.” Mark began edging away, trying to break the focus of the group. Who knew that so many people followed his fucking Twitter feed?
“Crys Webber,” Seth repeated slowly before snapping his finger. “That’s not Crystal Webber from Danvers, is it? Declan Stone’s sister-in-law?”
“Not sure,” Mark said vaguely. “Are we going to work out today or stand around chatting?”
Both Ash and Jacob were looking at him in surprise, while Seth looked uneasy. “Crystal’s a good friend of Mia’s. From what I gather, she’s rather—innocent, for lack of a better word.”