The Infatuation (Josh and Kat #1 , The Club #5) (21 page)

Rejected.

Yeah. That’s it. I feel rejected more than anything
else—even more than jealous.

And that’s just plain stupid.

But I can’t help it.

All night long—or, actually, even before coming to
Vegas—I’ve been feeling like Josh and I have some sort of special
connection, something with potential to turn into something
serious. Something maybe even beautiful. And now I can’t help
thinking that’s exactly what Jen thought she had with Josh, too.
Maybe Josh makes every girl feel like girlfriend-material, simply
because he’s so damned gorgeous and charming? Jen was clearly
clueless about the way Josh really felt about her—am I equally
clueless, too?

The shooter at the craps table rolls a nine, and
everyone breathes a sigh of relief.

Goddammit, why don’t I have my purse or phone? Or at
least my effing shoes? Classic Kat. I cross my arms in a huff and
wobble in place with the effort.

Shit. I feel kinda bad for how hard I punched that
mean girl in the teeth, even though she was a total bitch. Did I
really have to go
quite
that nuclear on her ass? Couldn’t I
maybe have just thrown a cherry bomb at her? Or maybe even, like, a
dart? I put some horrible words into Josh’s mouth—words that
probably shattered her heart, if, indeed, she’s got one buried
underneath those spectacular breasts.

Jeez. Maybe I don’t have a heart of gold, after all,
no matter what Sarah says.

I wipe my eyes. They’re suddenly burning like crazy.
I can’t seem to swallow that huge lump in my throat. Maybe I’m just
a bitch through and through.

“Kat.”

I turn around. It’s Josh, holding my shoes and purse
and looking incredibly relieved to see me.

Without even thinking about it, I throw my arms
around his neck and squeeze—and he encircles me in his strong
arms.

He kisses me on the cheek. And then the ear. And
then the neck. I brush my lips against his jawline, aching for him
to kiss me like I’ve never been kissed before.

But he doesn’t.

He pushes a large swath of wet hair off my cheek.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You went fucking psycho on
me.”

I shake my head.

“Come on, Kat. Talking lets the feelings out.”

“I’m just drunk,” I say, squeezing him with all my
might. “Ignore me—I’m not acting like myself. Just, please, forget
this ever happened. I’m not mean, I swear.”

“Forget this ever happened? Highly unlikely,” he
says. “A man doesn’t soon forget the sight of a bare ass like yours
marching down a hallway.” He nuzzles his nose into mine but, again,
he doesn’t kiss me, not that I can blame him.

I kiss his cheek. And then his ear.

He shudders at the touch of my lips.

“Josh,” I whisper, my heart aching. I want him so
bad, it hurts.

After a moment, Josh pulls back from me and looks
deep into my eyes, rubbing my cheeks with his thumbs. “I guess this
settles it, huh?—you really
do
have a vagina.”

I smile. “That wasn’t clear to you when you stuck
your fingers inside it on the dance floor?”

“Could have been smoke and mirrors—you never know.”
He pushes more wet hair off my face. “You just kicked Jen’s ass so
fucking hard. Oh my God. You absolutely decimated that girl.”

“I should have warned you—I’ve got a bit of a
temper.”

“You did warn me. I just didn’t realize you meant
you were a trained fucking assassin.
Jesus
.”

“I shouldn’t have done that to her. She’s a bitch,
but she didn’t deserve that. It’s just that I was just so
effing—”

“
Jealous
,” he says, finishing my sentence for
me. “Just so effing
jealous.
”

I exhale and nod. “Yeah.”

He holds my face in his hands. “Well, you’re in
luck. Because I happen to be a sick fuck and I thoroughly enjoyed
watching you go batshit crazy with jealousy over me.”

“You did?”

“Oh yeah,” he says. “It gave me a raging hard-on,
you might have noticed.”

I grin. “Oh, you had a hard-on? Hmm. I didn’t
notice.”

He laughs. “Or maybe I just had a raging hard-on
from ogling your smokin’ hot body. Jesus, Kat. You’re fucking
incredible.”

“You’re pretty incredible yourself,” I say.

There’s a long beat.

“You still sticking with your stupid jihad?” he
asks. “Or are you ready to let me take you back to our hotel and
make all your dreams come true?”

“
Jihad
,” I say, swallowing hard. Damn, it
pains me to say that. I wish he could understand what I’m really
saying to him. At this point, it’s not about his application
anymore.
I want him.
And I won’t settle for getting anything
less than of all of him now.

Josh looks genuinely disappointed. “It’s not fair,
you know. You don’t have an application to give me in return.”

“If I did, I’d give it to you,” I say.

He mulls that over for a moment. “I thought you only
get jealous with boyfriends.”

Something in the way he just said that makes my
heart race. “It was the truth when I said it. I’m sorry. This has
never happened to me before.”

He touches the cleft in my chin for a long moment
and I close my eyes at his sensuous touch.

After a moment, he removes his finger and slowly
licks the indentation in my chin with a languid flicker of his
tongue.

My knees buckle and my clit zings. I stick out my
tongue, yearning for his warm tongue to intertwine with mine, but
he pulls back. I let out a shaky breath. Holy shitballs, that was
sexy.

“You hungry?” he asks softly. “Suicide-bombing can
really work up an appetite.”

I shift my weight. Blood is flooding into my crotch.
“Yeah, I’m starving.”

He looks at his watch. “We’re supposed to meet up
with our
Ocean’s Eleven
crew in just a few hours—no sense
sleeping before then, right? Let’s go back to our hotel and grab
some breakfast, maybe gamble a little—we can crash after we meet
with everyone.”

“Yeah, sounds good. ‘Sleep when you’re dead,’
right?”

“‘Go big or go home,’” he says, smirking.

“YOLO.”

Josh touches the cleft in my chin again, his
sapphire eyes sparkling at me. “That’s right, baby—you only live
once. So don’t fuck it up.” He pauses, his eyes looking deeply into
mine. “What am I gonna do with you, Kat?” he whispers. “Huh? You’re
a goddamned runaway train.”

I shrug and wipe my eyes. “I know. I’m off the
tracks.”

He exhales softly and slips his hand in mine. “Come
on, Madame Terrorist. Let’s get you back to the hotel and get some
food into you before you pass out—or, God forbid, injure some more
innocent bystanders.”

Josh

Kat’s drunk but beautiful head is resting on my
shoulder as we sit in the back of the taxi, heading to our hotel. I
grab her hand and look out the window at the pre-dawn zombies
shuffling down The Strip. My eyelids are beginning to feel heavy.
My head is beginning to pound. And yet I feel like I’m walking on
air, sitting here next to Kat, holding her hand.

“Who’s Grace?” Kat suddenly asks.

“What?”

“The tattoo on your chest. You’ve got the dragon on
you arm, so I can only assume the tattoo on your chest is the
ever-regrettable ex-girlfriend-tattoo.”

“‘Grace’ isn’t a person,” I answer smoothly, like I
always do. I don’t give a shit how “honest” I said I’d be with
her—I don’t bare my soul about that particular tattoo to anyone,
and certainly not to a woman I’m interested in. If Emma taught me
anything, it’s that laying myself completely bare to a woman is a
colossally bad idea. “It’s a reference to the phrase, ‘But for the
grace of God go I,’” I continue. “It’s just a simple way of
reminding myself to be humble and not take anything for
granted—something I regularly need to be reminded of, it
seems.”

She absorbs that for a moment. “No ex-girlfriend
tattoo anywhere?”

“Nope.”

“You’ve got ex-girlfriends, though, right?”

“Sure.”

“Anything that lasted more than a month?”

I scoff. “My longest relationship lasted three
years.”

“Wow. What was her name?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Emma.”

She squints. “You don’t have a current girlfriend,
right?”

“I already told you I fucked Jen in New York last
week. I wouldn’t have done that if I had a current girlfriend—and I
most certainly wouldn’t be sitting here with you.”

She smiles. “Just checking.”

I squeeze her hand. “I’m not a cheater,” I say.

She nods. “Good to know.” She touches the tips of my
fingers. “Okay, so no to girlfriend tattoos; yes to dragons. How
about YOLO wrapped in barbed wire?”

“Oh, great idea for my next drunken mistake.”

She laughs. “Please don’t.”

“What do you care? You’re not the one who’s gonna
have to look at it for the rest of your life.”

There’s an awkward pause. That came out kinda weird.
Shit. Now I feel like I should say, “Unless, of course, it turns
out you
are
the one who’s gonna have to look at it for the
rest of your life.” But then that would be an even weirder thing to
say. Shit. I look out the car window, my mind racing. When it comes
to Kat, I keep finding myself saying shit I shouldn’t say and
having thoughts I never, ever have.

“So what’s the deal with the dragon on your arm?”
she asks, thankfully filling the awkward silence.

I clear my throat. “Ah. That was my very first
drunken tattoo, though certainly not my last. I’m kinda known for
drunken tattoos, actually. It’s sort of a thing with me and my
friends.”

She laughs. “Can’t wait to see your collection up
close some time.”

“Oh, you will.”

My heart is pounding in my ears.

“So what’s the deal with the dragon?” she asks.

“Ah, the dragon. I’d love to tell you I got it for
some profound and intellectual reason—dragons have all sorts of
meaning and symbolism, especially in Asia—but since you and I have
agreed to play the honesty-game, I’ll tell you the truth: I
stumbled into a tattoo parlor in Bangkok, drunk and high as a kite,
and thought, ‘Dude. A dragon would be so rad.’”

She laughs.

“Reed got a tattoo that night, too—but not a dragon.
His is way, way cooler than mine, actually—which isn’t surprising,
since he’s way cooler than me.”

“Reed was in Bangkok with you?”

“Yeah. After my first year of college, I traveled
the whole summer with Jonas, all over the place, and for a short
bit of our trip, some of my buddies joined us.”

“You like to travel?” she asks.

“I love it. You?”

“I haven’t done a lot of it, but I’ve loved it when
I’ve gotten the chance. My parents took the whole family to Mexico
for their anniversary when I was a teenager. And then we went on a
Caribbean cruise for Christmas a couple years later. That was super
fun.”

I make a face.

“You don’t like the Caribbean?”

“I don’t like cruises—unless, you know, you’re
talking about a private yacht. That’s the only way to travel by
sea.”

She scoffs. “Oh, well. Who doesn’t demand a private
yacht when traveling by sea? Duh.”

I cringe.

“It’s not like I have stock in a cruise line or
anything,” she sniffs. “I was just saying I was happy to get to go
somewhere out of the country, that’s all, like most normal people
would be. And, by the way, my dad’s a pharmacist and my mom has her
own little interior designer company, so it was a really big deal
for them to take five kids on a week-long cruise.”

I feel my cheeks burning. “I’m sorry,” I say. “That
was really snobby and out-of-touch of me to say. Sometimes my inner
douchebag oozes out. Please forgive me.”

But she’s not done with me yet. “I guess you better
get another tattoo to remind yourself to be humble, huh? Because
the ‘Grace’ one doesn’t seem to be doing the trick.”

There’s a really long pause, during which I feel
like my tongue is literally tied into knots along with my stomach.
She looks out the window of the cab, apparently gathering herself,
her cheeks bursting with color, and I stare at her profile,
marveling at her beauty. How is it possible she keeps getting more
and more attractive to me? Usually, a beautiful woman like Kat
becomes less and less physically attractive the more I get to know
her. I mean, with someone like Kat, you’d think there’d be only one
way to go from here, right? But, nope, I’m more and more drawn to
her with each passing minute.

“I’m sorry,” I say earnestly. “I’m a total douchebag
sometimes. I know this about myself. Please always call me on it.
So few people in my life do.”

“Oh, I will.”

“Obviously.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what you think it means: that you will
obviously
call me on my shit. No more, no less. That’s all
it means.”

“Oh. Yeah, well, that’s true. I will.”

“Jesus. You’re insane.”

“Sorry,” she says. “I can’t even blame you for being
out of touch, honestly. I mean, how are you supposed to know what’s
normal? Just look at your effing shoes, for crying out loud. How
much did those things cost?”

I look down at my shoes.

“More than a thousand bucks?” she asks.

I flash her an annoyed look.

“I thought so.” She shakes her head. “You never
stood a chance.”

“Again, you lick my balls and punch ’em at the same
time.”

She laughs.

For a moment, we look out the window at the
rat-haired horror shows dragging their sorry asses down The Strip
in the pre-dawn light.

“Oh, look at that poor girl,” I say pointing to a
young woman who unintentionally looks like an extra in the
Thriller
video.

“Poor baby,” Kat says. “Doing the Walk of Shame in
Vegas
is like reaching the Super Bowl in the sport.” She
shakes her head. “I’ve done the walk of shame a time or two
myself—but never in
Vegas.
I’ve got my
standards,
for
crying out loud.”