Going for Four: Counting on Love, Book 4 (28 page)

And she was going to prove it.

“I intend to make some new friends tonight, though,” she told the bartender.

He gave her a smile. “Honey, you step out on that dance floor and they realize you’re not just a voyeur, and you’re going to have so many friends you won’t know what to do.”

“A voyeur?” she asked.

“The people who like to watch stay up here with me. And a lot of the people down there like being watched.”

“Ah.” Well, she liked watching. It was a turn-on too. “But I want to be in the middle of it.” She wanted hands on her, mouths on her, people who didn’t care who her brother was or if she was a forever kind of girl or who baked brownies with her to
keep
from getting physical with her.

“Being in the middle can be fun,” the bartender said with a wink.

Hmm…he was cute. She wondered if he ever fraternized with the clientele.

“I’m going to do it,” she decided out loud. “I’m going to go out there.”

“You’ll be very welcome, I’m sure,” he told her with a smile.

She would be. That was one nice thing she’d already noticed about the club. Everyone seemed equal. Everyone was getting all the attention they wanted. Dress or pant size, hair color, ethnicity and experience didn’t seem to matter. So what was stopping her? That was obviously what Frigid was all about—letting go, feeling good.

But she was a smart girl too. She’d seen Emma and Isabelle throwing their inhibitions to the wind…and the trouble it could cause.

She was going to call in some backup before she left her barstool. She didn’t intend to go anywhere but the dance floor, but she’d never let herself really go before. Who knew what might happen?

She pulled out her phone and started to automatically dial Cody’s number. In fact, it rang once before she realized what she’d done and hit the End button. Dammit. She couldn’t call Cody. Fuck. She sighed and thought. Who could she call? Cody was her best friend. He was her go-to for…everything. She hadn’t had this issue before. Her sisters were the only other people she really spent time with. She couldn’t call Amanda. Amanda would not think Olivia throwing all caution to the wind in a place like Frigid was a good idea.

Though Amanda had been here before.

Olivia filed that interesting thought away for later—her responsible, sometimes judgmental, I’m-always-right oldest sister had been to Frigid.

She could call Emma. Emma would love a place like Frigid. But Emma was pregnant. She could not ask her pregnant sister to come sit at a bar and wait for her to get done making out with strangers on the dance floor at a sex club.

She couldn’t call Isabelle. Because of her fibromyalgia, Iz tried to be in bed by ten o’clock most nights and definitely tried to avoid places like Frigid with its loud music and crowd of people.

So…there was only one person she could call. He’d come and take care of her. This would raise his eyebrows, for sure, but he was the most laid-back, least judgmental person she knew.

She dialed. “Ryan?” she asked a moment later.

“Liv?” her almost-brother-in-law asked. “You okay?”

It was hard to hear him clearly, and she wasn’t sure if that was because of noise on his end of the line or the noise of Frigid
.
“Want to come hang out with me for a little while?”

“Where are you?”

“Frigid.”

There was a long pause and she wondered if she’d lost him.

“Ryan?”

“Yeah. I’m here. You’re…
where
?”

“At Frigid
.
The club.”

“With who?” he asked, clearly shocked.

“By myself.”

“You’re there
by yourself
?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yes. That’s why I was hoping you’d come down here.”

“Why are you there?”

“Long story.”

“Does Cody know where you are?”

“No. Cody doesn’t need to know where I am every second of the day.”

“Have you told
him
that?” Ryan asked. Then he said, “Never mind. Yes, of course I’ll come. Stay put. And…”

She waited, but he didn’t say anything more. “And what?”

“Keep your clothes on.”

She grinned. “Well, hurry.”

She disconnected, grabbed the third shot from the bartender and tipped it back. Then she saluted him with the glass and said, “Into the middle of it. My friend Ryan’s on his way.”

The bartender gave her another wink. “Have a good time.”

She slid off the stool, smoothed her skirt and headed for the dance floor. She’d been watching for a while. If there were rules beyond
show up and move
, she hadn’t noticed.

The moment, literally, that her foot hit the dance floor, a guy slid up in front of her. He didn’t say anything, which was a relief. She didn’t need any more small talk. She didn’t need to know his life ambitions. She didn’t even need to know his name.

He settled his hands on her hips and pulled her close. Olivia wrapped her arms around his neck. And they began to move.

He was big and solid, good-looking, smelled nice. Those were all the qualifications she needed at the moment.

She closed her eyes and absorbed the feel of it all—the heat in the air, his hands on her hips, his body pressing against hers.

He was aroused. She noticed that right away. It would be difficult not to—they were practically glued together and he had plenty to show off in that area.

His hand spread over her ass and he began rubbing the material of her skirt over her hip in tantalizing circles. Tingles of awareness danced through her. Thank god. She had to know that she could be turned on even without knowing that he loved dogs or that he had Sunday dinner with his grandmother every week. This wasn’t about liking him or connecting with him on any level other than physical.

They continued to move and he ran his hand up and down her back. That felt good too. He had big hands and he was clearly confident. She liked that.

Olivia pulled back and looked at his lips. She suddenly wanted to kiss him. Just to kiss him. She didn’t love him, she didn’t have any expectations of him, he didn’t know a thing about her. It was about dancing and kissing. But it needed to be good kissing.

She went up on tiptoe and put her lips against his.

He welcomed it. His hand cupped the back of her head and he pressed into the kiss, his tongue licking along her bottom lip.

And it was…hot. She gripped his neck harder and arched closer. This was what she wanted, what she needed. She needed to know that her body could react like this to someone without knowing if they had a single thing in common or that there was any future beyond this moment. There was no future here. It was all about how he could make her feel right now.

And it was working. Really, really well.

His fingers curled into her butt and she opened her mouth to him. His tongue stroked in along hers. He tasted of liquor and tobacco. So he was a smoker. She didn’t care. She really didn’t. She wasn’t the girlfriend who would be asked to run to the store for more cigarettes, and she wouldn’t be around to worry about him developing COPD.

“Let’s go upstairs,” he said against her mouth, his hands stroking over her body, making her hot and tingly.

She didn’t know what exactly was upstairs, but she had an inkling. And she wasn’t totally opposed to the idea.

“I’ve gotta have you,” he said, then kissed her again.

That was good. There was a definite thrill that went along with driving a man crazy.

“Want you bad.”

But…he didn’t even know her name.

Olivia groaned mentally even as she tried to drown in the kiss. She wanted his lips and hands to overshadow everything else. She didn’t want to
think
.

But she still did. Even as his lips moved down her neck and elicited goose bumps that made her nipples hard, she was thinking.

Dammit.

She knew exactly what was about to happen.

She was about to change her mind about all of this.

She sighed.

She didn’t want to make out with or sleep with or date other guys. She thought she should. Maybe. But she didn’t
want
to.

Dammit.

“I’m not going upstairs with you,” she told the man fondling her.

He looked confused as she stepped back, and his hand fell to his side. “You want to go to the couches?”

She glanced at the couches. It was true that there was
a lot
going on there. “No. I, um…need to go home.”

Or something.

Hell if she knew.

Ryan should be here soon. Maybe they’d go get a milkshake. That seemed like the proper, goody-goody kind of thing she would do.

“I’ll take you home,” her dance partner said, though the way he emphasized “home” made it clear he didn’t mean her condo.

If only she could melt at that. He was good-looking. He had good hands. His kisses had turned her on.

Seriously, dammit.

“I’ve got this covered.”

She looked up, over the top of her partner’s head.

Mac Gordon, one of the paramedics from St. Anthony’s, frowned down at the man she was dancing with.

Whoa.

Mac was a big guy. He was a good five inches taller than her new friend, looked hard as a brick wall, and had a deep voice that was impossible to ignore. Beside him was Dooley Miller. He didn’t look as serious as Mac did—though Dooley very rarely looked serious at all from what she knew of him from Trudy’s. Still, the two stood with their arms crossed, staring at her dance partner, and the man, understandably, stepped aside.

“Whatever,” was his only parting comment.

She stared after him.
Whatever
? They’d had a moment. They’d
kissed
. And all he said was
whatever
? Wow. Talk about humbling. It seemed the only man insisting on being involved in her life for any length of time was her bossy, stubborn brother.

Awesome.

Mac and Dooley moved in on either side of her.

“You okay?” Dooley asked.

She felt her eyes widen. “Yeah.”

She was fine. She was mixed-up and frustrated, but these guys couldn’t help her with any of that. She was, pretty much, as far as they were concerned, okay.

“You want to keep dancing?” Mac asked.

She couldn’t help a tiny grin at his look of discomfort. Mac was built like a WWE wrestler, not a dancer. She could tell he really hoped her answer was no.

She headed back for the bar, choosing to stand at the far end where they could talk.

“What are you doing here?” It occurred to her to be embarrassed about where they’d found her. Neither of them seemed particularly fazed by the establishment or what was going on all around them though.

“We were with Ryan when you called,” Dooley said. “Team meeting.”

“Team?” she asked, puzzled. Mac and Dooley didn’t play for the Hawks.

“Paramedic meeting,” Mac clarified.

He and Dooley were on one of St. Anthony’s best crews. They knew her brother and Ryan, the other best crew, really well.

And everyone knew that all of St. Anthony’s paramedics loved to see one of their own squirm. They’d probably heard her name, Frigid
¸
and seen Conner’s face and realized they simply couldn’t miss this.

“You all left the meeting to come here?” she asked, glancing around, trying to locate Ryan.

Mac lifted a shoulder. “Yeah. The meeting was at Trudy’s.”

She rolled her eyes. Of course it was. In spite of their informal “meetings” and the constant competition and ribbing between the crews, the paramedics at St. Anthony’s were the best in the city and respected by everyone who worked with them, including the firefighters at Fire House Three.

“Besides,” Dooley grinned. “I’ve never been inside Frigid.”

Mac nodded. “Sara can hardly be upset if I came inside to help a friend, right?”

Olivia smiled. She knew Sara, Mac’s wife, and Morgan, Dooley’s wife, from Hawks games and Trudy’s. She was pretty sure both women were very on to their husbands, no matter what their stories were.

“Sure, right,” she agreed dryly. Though she knew Sara and Morgan had nothing to worry about. She’d seen Mac and Dooley with their wives. They were very devoted, protective, clearly smitten. She loved that word—
smitten
. She wanted someone to be smitten.

Someone. Anyone. Hell, she’d be happy if someone would bring her a cup of coffee just because he was thinking of her. In spite of Cody and Conner’s warnings.

“Did Ryan have too much to drink or something?” she asked. She knew the “paramedic meetings” always involved beer. At least.

“No, he’s good.” Mac looked over at the door. “We came along because his hands were kind of full.”

“Full?” Olivia asked. “Please tell me my sister isn’t here.” She really didn’t want Amanda to lecture her about going to a sex club alone.

“Worse,” Dooley said.