Read Foreplay: The Ivy Chronicles for Free Online Page B

chest. “And he was eyeing you. Did you see that?”
    I shook my head, unconvinced, but my heart beat a
hard rhythm in my chest.
    “Slip him your number.”
    My gaze swung to her. “What? Just like that?”
    “Well, you’ll know if he’s interested by his
reaction. Maybe he’ll call. Or he won’t. Either way, you can get this thing off
the ground or move on to someone more receptive.”
    I bit my lip, contemplating. The only problem was
that I had decided it would be him. He would be my test subject. If he wasn’t
receptive I didn’t feel like moving on—I didn’t want to. And where did that leave me?
    Sighing, Emerson dug around in her purse.
    “What are you doing?” I demanded, looking in his
direction and confirming he was heading back our way.
    Shaking her head, she pulled out an eyeliner pencil
and snatched a thin square napkin off the stack sitting on the bar. Lightning
fast, she scrawled my name and number.
    I felt my eyes bulge. “Stop! No!” My hand dove for
her arm, but she angled herself away from me, standing on her tiptoes and
stretching out her arm.
    “Here you go,” she called just as my fingers
clamped down on her wrist.
    “Em, no!”
    Too late. I watched as long, masculine fingers took
the napkin from her. My gaze followed that hand up to the bartender as he set
our drinks down single-handedly. Bile rose up my throat.
    I heard Emerson’s voice beside me as though from
far away. “This is her number.”
    Her . Me. The girl with
the face as red as a tomato.
    His gaze moved from the napkin to me. Those silvery
blue eyes fixed on me. He flicked the napkin in my direction. “You want me to
have this?”
    He waited, his expression blank. The ball was in my
court. Without giving me the slightest indication of whether he even wanted my
number, he was asking me what I wanted.
    I stammered out the words. “Uh, n-yes. Well, sure.
Whatever.”
    Lame. I felt like a thirteen-year-old girl. My face
burned.
    “She wants you to have it,” Emerson insisted from
beside me.
    If possible my face grew hotter. He leaned forward,
setting his elbows on the bar, his gaze fastened on me with searing intensity.
“Are you giving me this?”
    Apparently whatever wasn’t going to work for him.
    The air ceased to flow in and out of my lungs. I
felt myself nod dumbly. Emerson elbowed me discreetly. “Yes,” finally spilled
from my lips.
    He straightened. Without another word, he slipped
the napkin into his pocket, took the money that Emerson handed him for our
drinks, and turned away to another customer.
    With one hand on my arm, Emerson dragged me away. I
risked another look back at the bar, searching for him among the multitude of
heads bobbing up to the front of the counter for their drink order. I spotted
him. He was pouring more beer, holding the lever down. But he wasn’t looking at
what he was doing. He was looking at me.
    H e so
wants you.”
    I glared at Emerson as I took a pull from my
longneck, forgetting that I wasn’t a fan of the taste. I was too annoyed. “I
can’t believe you embarrassed me like that.” As the words spilled out of me, I
deliberately trained my eyes on her to keep myself from glancing at him across
the room again.
    “We had to get things moving. Nothing was going to
happen if you just ordered, paid, and moved on.”
    I frowned, leaning one hip against the pool table.
I refused to admit she had a point. Or that maybe he would call me now. He had
put my number in his pocket, after all. Or was that just simple politeness? To
spare my feelings. Maybe he’d thrown it away already.
    “God.” I lifted my fingers and rubbed at the center
of my forehead where a dull ache was forming.
    She patted my back. “I know. It’s hard being a girl
who actually emerges from her dorm room and talks to sexy boys.”
    The guy beside Emerson nudged her, bumping her hip.
“Hey, hot stuff, your shot.”
    Turning, she lined up her pool stick and prepared
her shot, earning a lot of stares when she