Free ANightatTheCavern by Anna Alexander Page B

walking her fingers up his chest.
“Well, when? I’d love to meet up with you again.”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Well, call me sometime.” She withdrew a business card from
the side pocket of her purse and ran the sharp corner of the paper across his
lip, down his chest and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans.
    Holy shit. Tears burned Miranda’s eyes as the girl cupped
his cock and gave him a light squeeze before turning on her heel and slinking
away with an extra wiggle in her step.
    Oh. Right. That was why she had left Jorges behind without another
glance. Apparently the powers that be thought she’d be oblivious to a gentle
reminder of why they weren’t a good fit and needed to slap her upside the head
with proof.
    Somehow she found the strength to remain sitting upright
when all she wanted to do was crawl under the desk and mentally berate herself
some more. God, had someone slipped her hallucinogens or was she just that
brain dead? How was she supposed to compete for his affections when women
appeared out of nowhere and publicly fondled him? Did she even want to compete?
Gah, just the thought of having to bear witness to his admirers made her sick
to her stomach.
    Maybe if she closed her eyes, she could pretend that her
self-esteem hadn’t taken a major hit. Dear Lord, please let this agony end
soon.
    “Sorry about that,” Jorges said from the other side of her
desk. “Some people just don’t understand personal space.”
    “It’s none of my business.” She staggered to a stand and
held her notepad to her chest like a shield. “Well, anyway, it was nice to see
you again, but if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”
    “Wait, wait, wait.” He stopped her with a hand on her arm
that he promptly dropped when she flinched as if his touch caused her pain.
“When’s your lunch break? I want to see you again.”
    Acid churned in her belly and her lips quivered. This was
one of those Band-Aid moments in life where you were faced with the choice of
tortuously peeling away the uncomfortable object a millimeter at a time or
ripping it off in one quick, painful tug.
    With her family staring at her from across the room as if
she were an episode of bad reality television, she made her decision. “I don’t
think that’s a good idea.”
    “Why not?” He turned to follow where her unwilling gaze
tracked the progress of the Swedish Bikini twins as they left the store. “Oh.
Look, Miranda, I know what that must have looked like. It isn’t what you think,
well, mostly, but I swear, I didn’t know one of them was engaged. I—uh—” He
growled and ran his hands through his hair. “Look, I just…just—”
    “Gave them what they needed,” she finished in a soft voice.
“I know. You’re good at that.”
    The tears returned with a vengeance, but she refused to let
them fall. “Thank you for checking up on me, and as you can see, I’m fine.
Don’t worry, I still think Saturday was the best night of my life. Goodbye,
Jorges.”
    Another word and the dam stunting her humiliation would
crumble. With her head held high she forced her feet to march away in a strong,
smooth rhythm.
    “Who’s that?” Megan asked.
    Miranda didn’t need to glance at her sister to know to whom
she was referring.
    “Nobody,” she croaked then cleared her throat. “Now, where
were we?”

Chapter Six
     
    Nobody. Miranda had called him a nobody.
    Never before had he felt the need to apologize for who he
was or how he lived, but with a single tear clinging to her thick mink
eyelashes, Miranda had made him feel…dirty.
    No matter how many times he forced his mind to block out the
hurt he’d seen on her beautiful face, his chest tightened and his skin crawled
with the need to scour his body down to the bone.
    As he walked past the bar of The Cavern, he wondered if the
club had always appeared so desperate. It was as if all this time he had been
walking around with beer goggles on that made the dark and sad