“Oh, my god. He just looked you up and down like he had a filthy fantasy he’d been holding onto just for you.”

“Well, then he can pay to watch me perform that fantasy.”

“Are you not even going to look at him? He is…” She faded off into a moan.

After the first ten guys she’d gushed over, I’d stopped turning around. The disappointment of not finding who I wanted plagued my ego. Each of her gasps sent my heart into overdrive, and flashes of what would happen if it was him flooded my mind. Just to be dashed a moment later when all I saw was a mediocre stranger.

Not that I wanted it to be him.

I didn’t. I didn’t. I didn’t.

Maybe if I said it enough, I’d believe it.

Then there’d be another gasp and another ridiculous jolt of hope and another wash of shame.

I didn’t even like him.

I giggled. Him. I didn’t even know his name, and I’d refused all week to ask Carina about him. After we’d almost been caught, I’d left him high and dry, dismissing his attempts to finish what we started. I’d ached from being so thoroughly fucked and just missing my orgasm, but driving away from his slacked jaw had created a victory I hadn’t expected.

I’d won…kind of.

Which is why you’re still aching days later, hoping like a needy little girl for some man to show up and finish what he started despite turning him down.

The struggle was real to keep from hitting my head on the counter, hoping to knock some sense into this portion of my brain I didn’t know existed until him. The one that could usually be shut down by work and life.

“Seriously, Mar. Ung,” she moaned.

I wasn’t going to give in and look but something tickled against my spine, gliding all the way down like a tease promising more if I just took a peek.

It’s not him. He’s probably back to wherever he came from and fucking five women at once. That’s the amount of females it would take to handle his ego. It’s. Not. Him.

However, as soon as I turned, my eyes locked on his.

Thud. Thud. Thudthudthudthudthud.

My pulse thundered in my ears, blocking out the noise of the crowd.

Even across the room, under the dim lighting, my gaze met his as if we were the only two people there. His stare consumed me, squeezing my lungs, stealing my breath. The impact shocked me so intensely that I wanted to look away—give myself a chance to breathe—but he locked me in place.