I don't normally drink, in hindsight I'll say that I didn't text him, vodka texted him, I was simply the vessel typing the message.
Addie: I miss your bite marks
I didn't actually expect him to answer. It had been years since we'd talked, I might not even have the right number any more. I was hoping though. Ok, I was praying that he, like me, held onto the same number in hope that one day I'd try and contact him.
I smiled at a friend who was calling me over from the dance floor and slipped my phone into my bra. Two songs later, when I was spinning about with some preppy football player with more muscle than skill, my phone buzzed. Twice.
Lucas: I could fix that for you
My heartbeat instantly kicked up a notch. Lucas was everything my mother told me good girls don't want. Possessive, jealous, angry, but he had this way of making me feel desired above anything else. When Lucas gave me his full attention, the world slipped away and I felt like the most beautiful woman and the most important thing in his universe.
With him I hadn't been good, but I'd been honest. He'd learned all those kinky little things that drove me mad and he'd taught my masochistic little mind to love them, and to love him too. He never made me feel uncomfortable or embarrassed about the things that turned me on, and he'd played into them all, seemingly just as turned on as I was.
Breaking up with him had been the hardest thing I'd ever done, second only to staying away from him in the twenty four unbearable months since.
Lucas: I've missed that little moan you make when I sink my teeth into you.
I was standing on the dance floor trying to pretend he hadn't messaged me back when that last text came through. The preppy bar fly I was trying to tell myself I liked, looked shocked when I glanced down at my phone and pulled away from him like he was suddenly fire and I was afraid of being burned.
There was no way I could let him touch me, not when my body was humming for someone else. Not just someone else, Lucas, always Lucas.
Pushing my way through the crowd, I made it back to the table that my friends had reserved for our little party. I stared at my phone forever, trying to think of something clever and sexy to write back, but Lucas impatient as ever beat me to it.
Lucas: Where are you Kitten?
My breath caught in my throat at his name for me. God, he had this way of making me wet without so much as touching me. Hovering by our table, my hands shook and my heart raced as I typed my reply.
Addie: Julie's birthday party, we're out dancing.
He'd hate that, I didn't need to ask. Lucas believed that bars were cesspools of lust and std's. Any time I'd gone out with the girls while we dated I'd put up with a list of strict rules, hourly check ins, and a shower after before he would touch me or let me touch him. Lucas had a thing about germs, and strangers touching his things.
It was one of the reasons they'd all banded together and had my intervention. An almost successful attempt to convince me that he was a control freak who was all wrong for me. Too bad I'd never had the courage to tell them just how right he'd been in so many ways.
My phone rang and Lucas' picture flashed up on the screen, and I sank into a seat. I stared at it for a few rings, eventually answering it, bringing the phone to my ear in what felt like slow motion. It was hard to hear yourself think with the DJ blasting 90's hip hop so loud my teeth vibrated, but the second Lucas spoke all I could hear was the deep rumble of his voice.
"I didn't think you would answer," he said. There was a moment of silence as I struggled to find anything to say, but that wasn't new. Lucas had spend the five years we'd been together pulling me out of my shell. Tonight, it seemed, would be no different. "Hello Kitten," he purred through the line.
My body exploded in a quick burst of lust and longing. Licking my lips, I had to clear my throat before speaking, "Hello Lucas." I sounded out of breath, possibly desperate, it made him laugh.
"Have you missed me as much as I missed you?" He asked. In the background I could hear a door slam and an engine rumble to life.
"More," I whispered under the music. Part of me hoped it was too quiet for him to hear, but his growling reply told me otherwise.
"That's exactly what I wanted to hear, I don't care it's the alcohol talking."
It might have been the alcohol talking, but it wasn't. The alcohol only made it possible for what I actually wanted, when I was honest with myself, to outweigh the things that people told me I should want. Ie: him versus the grinning preppy headed my way.
"Hey beautiful," the preppy called out sliding into the seat next to me. "I was starting to think you'd abandoned me."
"Who the fuck is that?" Lucas growled into my ear. I shivered instinctively and pulled away from the arm the preppy slung across the back of my chair. "Get rid of him Adelaide," he snapped, "get rid of him now."
Preppy seemed oblivious to my discomfort, and leaned in a little closer. "Damn girl, you smell good enough to eat." His megawatt smile and perfectly shaped, kissable lips might have weakened the resolve of any other woman. But this was me we're talking about, and the only mouth I wanted anywhere near me had the thin, often scowling lips and slightly crooked teeth of the now livid man on the phone.
"Adelaide," Lucas warned, again I heard the slamming of a door and wondered where he was. "He better not be touching you," the threat wasn't new. Three years ago before the end of "us", he would have said 'touching what's mine', not 'touching you', and if I was honest, I would tell you it hurt that he hadn't.
My heart pounded wildly in my chest as I slid off the chair and stood. I gave preppy a small smile and pointed at the phone, "Sorry, I'm talking with my man," I said, "he's on his way."
Preppy gave me a surprised look, but didn't object as I pushed my way through the crowd again and headed to the bar. The phone was still pressed against my ear but I heard nothing under the thrum of the club. When I couldn't bear it any longer I closed my eyes and whispered, "Lucas?" The line went dead and the ache in my chest grew to an almost unbearable level.
I sank onto a barstool and stared out at nothing, fighting back this fresh heartache that was flooding my system. I sat there alone for ten minutes, constantly glancing down at my phone, checking my texts on the off chance he'd replied and I just hadn't noticed.
"You look like you could use a drink darlin'," the bartender called out leaning towards me across the bar. He matched the hipster theme that carried through from the management and staff to the customers. With a handlebar moustache and tattoos, I guess he was cute. He had a nice smile, and bright blue eyes that scanned me with interest, but all I could think was that he was too young and too nice for a woman like me.
"Vodka seven please," I called out feeling defeated and alone, just as a pair of hands came around to rest on the bar on either side of me, and a familiar weight settled in against my back.
"I'll take a whiskey, straight up." My eyes fluttered shut as his breath danced across the bare skin at the nape of my neck. One arm moved long enough for him to reach into his pocket for something, and I heard the bartender ask if he wanted a tab. "No, we won't be here that long," Lucas promised, I couldn't help but shiver in response.
I was lost in the warmth of his body and the memories that surged to the surface just by having him so close after so long. His arms were braced on either side of me, his mouth and teeth scraping across every inch of bare shoulder they could find. Promising the very thing my body was screaming for but falling short of delivering.
"What? No hello?" He murmured against my ear, "you aren't curious how I found you?" He nipped at my ear lobe and I shivered involuntarily, pressing back into him a little more.
"Hello Lucas," I replied softly. I felt him spin me around until I was facing him, but I couldn't bare to open my eyes. It would be just my luck to find this was just a dream, or to find there was hatred in the stormy grey eyes I'd spent every night of the last two years dreaming about.
He was still braced on the bar, forcing me to lean back against it as well. My hands were clenched in a death grip on my lap and my knees were shaking from their place between his legs. God, he smelt just as good as I remembered, like coffee and Cedar.
