I tried not to notice the tattoos crawling over his muscled arms or the way it felt when he looked at me the way he was looking at me.
“You’re beautiful, has anyone told you that today?”
I raised my eyebrow. “Does that really work with the girls?”
He glanced over his shoulder at the girls on the dance floor. “I do alright.”
Candi and Bambi were all tongues and entwined bodies grinding on the dance floor.
“Your dinner, no doubt,” I said. “Or are they just for starters, and some other lucky girl is the main?”
Heaths eyes glittered wickedly. “Maybe you?” he suggested. Not put off by my bitchiness, he said, “I could eat you all night long.”
I shot him a look, trying not to laugh. ”Did you really just say that to me?” He looked so unapologetic, I gave in and laughed. “Seriously, how do you get in the room with that big head of yours?”
He smiled and straightened up. “C’mon. Lighten up. I’m just teasing. I came over here to be nice and you were just nasty to me straight away.”
“Because you came over here to bamboozle me with your charm in an obvious attempt to hit on me.”
He raised his hands innocently. “Says who?”
“So now you’re going to tell me you weren’t going to hit on me?”
He smiled, soft and genuine, and his eyes crinkled at the corners. “I’m a lot of things, but I am not a liar.”
When he smiled I couldn’t help but smile back. Dammit. So much for being awesomely immune to his charms. I’d kind of hoped it was my new super power.
“You should do that more often.”
“What?” I asked.
“Smile.”
“Okay, I’ll bite, why?”
“Because you are stunningly beautiful.”
Okay, this guy is good.
I raised my brow. “Why don’t you just get it over with?”
“What?’
“Ask me to sleep with you?”
“Will you sleep with me?”
I shook my head. “Not in this lifetime.”
“Then why make me ask you?”
“So that you will leave me alone.”
“And you thought that would work?”
I shrugged. “It seemed like a good idea in theory.”
“Well it sucked in practice. I still want to sleep with you.”
“And I still don’t want to sleep with you.”
“So we are back to where we started,” he said.
“I believe it’s called a stalemate.”
He smiled and his two dimples flickered in his cheeks. “I’m just going to have to try a little harder.”
I had a distinct feeling Heath had just accepted some kind of challenge.
Before I could respond, Candi and Bambi fell on his lap and were all over him like mold on cheese. He winked at me and I looked away just as one of the band’s guitarists slid into the chair on the other side of me.
“Don’t waste your time with this loser babe, everyone knows I’m the real talent in this band.” He winked at me and threw a soggy beer coaster in Heath’s direction. Heath replied by extending a middle finger.
“I’m Armie.” He smiled and offered me a tattooed hand to shake and I liked him immediately.
“I’m Harlow.”
“Careful Armie, she bites,” Heath warned, looking at us from between the two blondes who were fighting for attention on his lap.
Armie’s brows disappeared under spiky black bangs and he looked at me with a cheeky grin. He hooked his arm around my neck. “Let me get you a drink and you can tell me all about it. Whattaya drinking?”
I had no idea. “Whatever you are you drinking”
“Beer?”
“Sounds good to me.”
When Armie went to the bar I could feel Heath’s eyes on me, despite the two girls cooing on his lap. I glanced sideways and his twinkling eyes met mine. Candi and Bambi were kissing his neck, his jaw, and his ears and running their hands across his chest.
I looked back down at the table and rocked forward on my arms, forcing back a sudden curiosity to see what was under his Guns N Roses t-shirt. When I looked up the leggy blonde in the black dress and boots who I’d seen earlier by the stage was approaching the table. Her face was pure thunder.
Before anyone realized her intent, she grabbed a plastic glass of beer from the table and threw the contents all over Heath and the girls.
Candi and Bambi both squealed as amber liquid soaked them. They leapt up, swearing like truckers, hurriedly trying to fix their appearance and yelling at the blonde.
“You pig!” Black dress and boots seethed at Heath.
Candi and Bambi glared at her with panda eyes and soggy hair. Black dress and boots glared back.
Heath did the unthinkable and started to laugh.
Black dress stalked off while Candi and Bambi rushed to the bathroom to re-do hair and make-up.
“Another one of your fan club?” Jesse laughed.
Zack, the drummer, shook beer from his arm. “I gotta learn not to sit next to you man.”
Heath ripped off his t-shirt to expose a well-defined six pack and more tattoos across his chest. Involuntarily I gasped, inhaling deeply at the beautiful spectacle of a shirtless Heath Dillinger and then quickly averted my eyes. He threw his shirt at Zack who proceeded to use it to wipe beer off his arm.
“What did I miss?” Armie asked returning to the table with two beers.
“Another happy Heath Dillinger customer,” Zack moaned, still wiping up beer with Heath’s shirt.
“She threw Zack’s beer at Heath and his hoes,” Piper explained with a giggle.
“Not again.” Armie laughed as he handed me a beer.
“Again?” I asked. “You mean this is a regular occurrence?”
“When you piss off that many women, the odds are high,” Zack explained.
Heath grinned, unapologetic and raised muscular arms in an innocent gesture. “Hey, I don’t know what her problem was. I never promised her anything.”
Jesse pulled a black Led Zeppelin shirt from his backpack behind his chair, and flicked it across the table. “I want it back.”
The t-shirt landed in front of me and before I realized what was happening, Heath was next to me, his bare stomach leaning across me to reach the shirt, his glorious thick and muscular torso only inches from my face. His six pack was eye level, his Harley Davidson belt buckle only inches from my face. I could feel the heat radiating off his bare skin and a tingle ran up my arm where his jeans brush against me. Then he looked down at me, those gorgeous dimples deepening as he grinned at me.
Something inside me broke. Forever.
For.
Ever.
Feigning disinterest, I rolled my eyes even though my cheeks flushed beneath those amazing blue eyes.
“Oh crap,” Armie murmured, looking through the crowd.
I followed his eyes, and Jesse and Piper did the same.
“Here we go,” Jesse muttered.
The whole table watched as a pretty girl made her way towards us through the throng of people. With blonde curls and large blue eyes, she was pure mid-western America and the picture of pink innocence. Except for the sleeve of tattoos down one arm.
I looked at Heath who was already looking at me. He leaned down. He was so close his mouth was almost touching my neck as he murmured, “That’s Kelsey. Armie’s very own form of kryptonite.”
Armie had already moved away from me slightly and was staring gloomily into his beer. With his heavily tattooed arms, black spiky hair and body piercings he was a stark contrast to the girl making her way towards us. He looked like Satan had left him behind on his way to hell and she was straight out of heaven. Blonde. Shiny. Pink. Vanilla. Cute.
“Hi Armie,” she said shyly, dim light glinting off her shiny pink lips. Suddenly everyone at the table busied themselves, determined not to make her arrival a big deal and to give Armie some space with his girl.
“They are off and on. I don’t know why they break up so much. It’s a shame because they are perfect together.” Heath sat next to me and slipped the Led Zeppelin t-shirt over his gloriously muscular chest. It’s almost a crime to cover up that chest. I watched him lean his huge, muscular arms on the table. “Right now their relationship is in the off position.”