She wants it bad. I can tell.

That short dress riding up high on her thighs, the top of it cut low. It's enough to give me a sampling of the goods while still making me curious. She giggles at my joke as she licks the sugar from the rim of her lemon drop. Sweet drinks like that always lead to good things.

It was a risk bringing her to this as our first date, but nothing gets a girl to put out like reminding her of marriage. Problem is, it's taking forever to seal the deal. I'm three drinks in and starting to get impatient.

I glance at my watch and see it's 11:11. Already? Damn. What does a man have to do to get laid in Manhattan? "It's 11:11," I say to her in a flirtatious voice. "Make a wish."

She smiles and closes her eyes. She's either wishing for my dick or she's an idiot.

When she opens her eyes again, her pouty, little mouth turns up into a smile. I know what that means. "What did you wish for?" I ask.

"I can't tell you that, silly." She bats my arm playfully with her hand. A little touching? She so wants it.

I catch her hand and hold it in mine. She looks up at me from beneath long lashes. Her fake nails are shaped like claws and have about a million crystals glued on them. Girls who pay that much money for hand glitter are always DTF.

"I'll tell you what I wished for," I say. I watch the pink appear on her cheeks. I lean a little closer and brush my lips over her ear as I whisper just one of the dirty, dirty things I want to do between her thighs. Her cheeks are a vibrant red when I lean away. "Make my wish come true?" I ask.

She scoffs and slams down her glass. "You're a fucking pig." She stands up and grabs her bag.

"What? No, wait! I was kidding?" That last part probably shouldn't have been a question.

She glares at me over her shoulder as she walks away. Watching her ass move under that little skirt makes my balls ache with despair. Fucking hell.

A familiar chuckle sounds near me. I look over to find Teagan laughing at my misfortune. "What?" I growl at her.

"Having a bad night?" she flashes a mischievous smile over her glass.

I glare at her, refusing to acknowledge her accusation with a response. "What are you still doing here?"

"Watching you crash and burn." She laughs. "Make my wish come true?" she mocks me. Her laugh turns into a cackle.

"Shut up," I say with a laugh. I'd take it personally, but Teags never fails to throw a punch when any of us screw up with women. I guess being the only girl in our group of misfits gives her the right. I slide onto the stool next to her and signal to the bartender. "What are you drinking?"

"My favorite drink after every breakup. What-the-fuck-ever."

I chuckle and ask the waiter for another round. I give her a once over. "Having a bad night, too, I see."

"Psh. No," she says with a twist of her face that illustrates her lack of sobriety. "I'm great." I give her lie time to fall apart. "I mean, yeah, I just broke up with my boyfriend two hours before this party, but it's fine. His replacement is arriving tomorrow by nine PM." She turns her phone and shows me her vibrator purchase on Amazon. The girl is a damn mess.

"Looks like we're both going to make good use of these free drinks tonight."

She clinks her glass against mine. We down our drinks and I signal to the bartender for another round.

"Hey," she starts again. "Weren't you dating that redhead from NYU?"

"Well, yeah, but that ended a couple of months ago."

"Shit, I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I think I dodged a bullet with that one. Well, I dodged a lamp, actually. And a textbook."

She snorts. "I know you deserved the textbook, but I'll need more details to defend the lamp."

I shrug. "We went to her place for the first time and it looked super familiar. Her roommate came home and I figured out why."

"Let me guess. Because you had been there a few months before?"

I give her a guilty smile. "More like a few days."

Teagan bursts into laughter. She covers her mouth with a hand and tries to compose herself. "Yeah, you deserved the lamp, too."

I laugh with her at my own expense, the alcohol starting to erase my shame. "I didn't mean to. We were chilling, then she wanted more and I ghosted and started seeing someone else. Someone I thought I hadn't met before." Saying it out loud makes me realize the error of my ways. "Why do I default to being a piece of shit?"

"Maybe because you are a piece of shit?" she responds. I give her a sideways glance but I can't stop myself from smiling. When she's right, she's right.

The bartender sets down our drinks and we both take a swig. I give her a once over. Her frizzy hair is starting to fall from her updo, her shoes are already kicked off and lying on the floor next to her stool. She's always been zero or one hundred and nothing in between. One minute, she's obsessive about her image—always prim and proper without a single stumble. Then the next, she's laid out, messy as hell, and giving us guys a run for our fuckboy money. She's a lot to handle.

Not that it ever stopped me.

The warm buzz of alcohol is settling in heavy. "How can being in a relationship suck as much as being single?" I remark to get my mind away from dirty thoughts.

"You think I have any idea?" Her rhetorical question makes me smile. "I just broke up with my boyfriend after going five months without an orgasm."

I nearly spit out my drink. "Five months? How?"

She shrugs. "He was perfect in every other way—body, mind, ambition, family. Perfect, Heath. I can't even tell you."

"But his stroke game was weak?"

"Try non-existent," she slurs. I laugh, but that's just sad. "I've never been with someone I liked that much but hated in bed. If I had some side dick, I probably would have married him. Well . . ." she starts to correct herself. "He wouldn't have married me because I would have been cheating on him, but you get it."

I laugh as I nod. "I do."

"Why does it have to be one or the other? It's either you stay in a relationship with someone you barely tolerate so you can get laid on the regular, or you're free and single but waste all your time trying to convince someone to fuck you."

God, she's speaking my language right now. "Yes! All I want is someone to be on my dick on the regular, but not expect a pet name in a month and a ring in a year."

She laughs. "I just need someone who'll get me off and then get off me."

"Someone who'll suck my dick then fucking dip."

"Give me some P in V, then let me pee and leave."

Both of our drunk asses find that funnier than we should. We laugh so long, we're in tears and gripping our stomachs before we manage to stop.

The bartender comes over and cuts into our fun. "Sorry, guys. We're closing up now."

We down the rest of our drinks and stumble our way away from the bar, still laughing to ourselves. Teags doesn't bother to put her heels back on, but even still, she almost tumbles down the stairs when we make it out front. I wrap my arm around her waist and help her down the rest of the way.

"I'll get us a cab," I say to her. She smiles in agreement.

. . .

How we live on the same block and still only manage to see each other every few months is a testament to our schedules. She's busy, I'm busy. We also hate each other, so that probably adds to it.

It takes us a full minute to climb the first flight of stairs toward my apartment. She can't walk straight, I find it hilarious, and both of us keep keeling over while laughing about it. We make it to the landing and she trips. I keep her vertical while she stumbles to the wall and leans against it for balance.

"Fuck, I haven't been this drunk since . . ." She thinks for a moment but starts to laugh rather than finishing her statement. She smells like tequila and her hair is a mess, but she looks beautiful when she laughs.

What? I'm not thirsting after Teagan. Not by a long shot. But . . . she does look damn good in that dress. Fruit always looks better when it's forbidden, but it doesn't take a months-long dry spell to make me want her.

I press my hands to the wall and lean into her line of sight, caging her between my arms. When she smiles at me, I step closer. "What's stopping us?" I ask her.

"The walls and floor are moving a lot right now," she giggles.

"No, I mean what's stopping us from getting it in?" I smile at her, giving her all the charm I can muster in my drunken state. She stares me down, a smirk on her plump lips challenging me to do more. I lean in closer, my mouth hovering over hers, but she still won't give in.

"Do you want to fuck me?" she asks.

I reach down and run my hand up her exposed thigh, loving the feel of her smooth, buttery-soft skin. "I don't not want to fuck you."

She doesn't respond. I watch the desire swim over her face as she tries to suppress it. She's too high-strung to go down without a fight and, oh, how I would enjoy that battle right now.

Her doe eyes look at me from beneath heavy lids. Her hand runs over the nape of my neck before she slides it down to my chest. In a sexy little voice, she whispers, "I can't stand you."

I smile. "Come on." I take her by the hand and lead her up the stairs to my apartment.

_____

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