Chapter 8

• Megan opened her eyes partially. “That’s not very nice of you to say to him,” she said, addressing Oliver.
• “My friends learn to appreciate my bluntness,” Oliver smirked.
• “All of them?” Megan asked.
• “Well, no. But if they can’t deal, they’ll move on. It’s no big deal. Relationships aren’t meant to be static,” Oliver replied.
• “Not even friendships?” Megan questioned.
• “People change. Interactions ebb and flow,” Oliver said, striking a meditative pose.
• “You sound like some New Age humanist,” Megan teased.
• He dropped the pose and leaned against the wall, turning his face towards her. His hair brushed against her cheek. “We can only evolve through learning and growth,” Oliver said with a smile.
• Megan nudged his knee. “You really are a goofy bastard.”
• “I can be,” Oliver said. “But what I said is true. A good bang should help you relax. After you left on New Year’s, I slept like a baby. All of my frustration and anger with my job had been fucked straight out of me.”
• Megan tried to ignore the provocative tone in his voice and shifted on the barstool. “You don’t have to keep reassuring me that I was adequate.”
• “I’m not,” Oliver said, his smile widening.
• “Then why do you keep bringing it up?” Megan asked.
• “Because I like making grown women blush,” Oliver said, looking away.
• “You’re incorrigible. That usually annoys me,” Megan said, taking another gulp of her beer.
• “But I don’t?” Oliver asked.
• “Oddly no,” Megan admitted.
• “Maybe because I popped your cherry,” Oliver said with a grin.
• At that moment, the front door of the bar opened, and a whoosh of cold air blew in. Megan barely felt it between the alcohol and the heat emanating from Oliver’s body.
• He shifted closer just as the thought crossed her mind, and once again his hand dropped to her thigh, high enough for his fingers to brush against her crotch. The wickedness in his grin was dazzling.
• “You didn’t pop my cherry,” Megan said, her voice stuttering with the pleasure that was seeping into her bones.
• Megan couldn’t form coherent thoughts or sentences anymore. She was lost in the sensation of Oliver’s thrusts, the overwhelming pleasure building inside her.
• “You’re—I—I can’t—” Megan stammered, unable to articulate her thoughts as pleasure consumed her.
• Oliver’s eyes locked with hers, and he smirked.
• Megan wanted to wipe that smirk off his face. “Frankly, I can’t really remember our night together. You could be exaggerating about how much I enjoyed your cock.”
• Oliver’s surprise turned into another sly smile, and he inched forward, his hand closing around Megan’s thigh fully. Pressing against her hardening nipples. She was already aroused from the memories of their previous encounter.
• “I could tell you about it,” Oliver said.
• “I bet you could,” Megan replied, her breath catching. “But it’s not necessary.”
• “Seems like it is,” Oliver said, dragging his fingers along the outline of Megan’s hardening nipple, as he slowly parted her tight. “Your body believes me, but you’re saying you don’t.”
• Megan’s eyes widened, and she struggled to find a retort, but Oliver’s touch was distracting. “You assume I’m interested in having you touch me.”
• “It’s not about me in particular,” Oliver said, his tongue flicking out to wet his lips. Megan zeroed in on his wide mouth, the pillowy lower lip. “It’s about sex. Enjoying sex. You didn’t have a good time because it was me. I’m not the magic ticket to your sweet spot. You enjoyed it because you weren’t so anxious about what you were doing or how you were doing it. You let go.”
• “But it was you,” Megan said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I let go with you.”
• “You let go because you were too drunk to care.” Oliver stopped massaging Megan. “I’m not your Prince Charming. I’m a good fuck, but I’m not special. If that’s what you’re thinking, you need to get it out of your head now.”
• The harsh edge to his voice ripped Megan out of the haze of lust that had started to dull her senses. She reared back to put distance between them.
• “I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t implying that it meant anything more than great sex.” She said.
• “Good. Because that kind of thinking is a complication.” Oliver drained his bottle. “And I generally like to keep things simple.”
• “Fine.” Megan slid off the barstool. “That’s fine.”
• “If it’s fine, then where are you going?”
• “To the restroom if that’s okay with you.”
• Oliver braced his arms against the table, stared into Megan’s eyes for a long moment, and then jerked his head at one of the roped-off staircases. Megan turned away and headed toward it without another moment’s hesitation.
• She was embarrassed, and she couldn’t precisely identify why.
• She hadn’t propositioned him, and he hadn’t turned her down. All he’d done was set her straight about what she could expect from him going forward. She should have appreciated the transparency, but it still burned. It burned the parts of her that dredged up the straggling remnants of their night together whenever her thoughts drifted for too long.
• Her continued replaying of the events, trying to replicate the feel of his hands on her with her own, and getting off while thinking about it all, made his words feel too much like rejection even though, if she judged by his hooded looks and questing hands, it wasn’t.
• The staircase led to a dimly lit lower level with two bathrooms situated just outside another roped-off archway. Past the archway, there was a second bar and a dance floor that was nearly pitch-black from lack of light. Megan stared into it, yearning to disappear while she collected herself, and stepped over the tattered yellow rope just as footsteps sounded on the stairs behind her. She moved deeper into the room as her eyes slowly adjusted to the faint pinpricks of light from tiny purple LEDs lining the bar.
• “Chasing after you is starting to become tedious.”
• Megan turned around and pressed her back against the bar. In the flickering LED lights, Oliver looked like a spectral figure stalking toward her from the lit portal of the archway.
• “Then stop chasing me,” she said. “You barely know me. Just because we slept together—”
• “We fucked. There was very little sleeping.”
• “Fine. We may have fucked, but before recently, we’ve never had a full conversation. We’re not friends. There’s no need for you to come hunting me down whenever you think I’m in distress.”
• “Who says your distress is my concern?” Oliver pressed his hands flat against the bar top and fenced her in. “Maybe I just want to effectively have a conversation with you. Even if you’re making it more difficult than I usually have the patience to deal with.”
• “So don’t deal with it.” Megan put her hand on his shoulder but didn’t force him away. “Go find some swinger party and fuck. I’m pretty sure you already have before.”
• Oliver leaned closer until their chests were aligned. “Maybe I have. I don’t see what that has to do with you.”
• “It has nothing to do with me,” Megan retorted.”
• “And yet I have this feeling that you want to be.” Oliver nodded, watching her from beneath a fall of messy dark hair.
• “Maybe.” Megan shrugged stiffly.
• “No,” Oliver said simply. “I think I’ll keep trying to play with you.”
• “Why?”
• “I like you.”
• “You like me,” Megan repeated with a strained laugh. “After you just give me a lecture on me not liking you?”
• “That’s different.”