Truth or Dare (4 page)

Why had that guy even pissed her off so much? Did he remind her of Trevor? Not really, they looked nothing alike. Besides, they barely exchanged any words. Irritated with herself for dwelling on it, she dropped her head into her hands. She conjured up the hazy image of him standing before her.  

There was no denying the sexual attraction. 

It had to be the timing.  

Using the wall for support, she stumbled to her feet. She moved slowly, hesitantly, and made her way into the kitchen. Hands shaking, she grabbed for the whiskey sitting on the counter top. She didn’t bother to get a glass, just took a long swig.  

Luna leaned against the counter, staring out at the heavy rain pelting the window. The sound was soothing. Absently, she wondered if she was becoming a drunk like her late father. No, one night of going over the edge did not make her an alcoholic.

 A flash of lightning followed by an explosion of thunder startled her. Luna let out a breath.

Her phone vibrated on the counter. It was Marcus, making sure she made it home safely. She replied she was fine and would call him tomorrow. The last thing she wanted to do was get into a conversation with him about what was really bothering her. She was so drunk she might just spill her guts.

Slipping off her shoes, she tore off her clothes and crawled into bed, pulling the blankets firmly under her cheek. 

For a long time she stared up, watching the shadows dance on the ceiling. Once in a while a flash of lightning would illuminate the room. She desperately wanted to shut down her mind and get some much needed sleep. Instead, she replayed that horrible day over and over. Two huge losses in one day. 

Her face crumbled. She gave up trying to rein in her chaotic emotions and let the tears fall freely. 

***

Luna awoke groggy, her head pounding. With aching muscles from sleeping on the lumpy futon, she looked around the dark room. Of course it was empty. She needed to get a cat or something. Rubbing her swollen eyes, she hesitantly sat up and noticed the empty bottle of whiskey laying on the futon beside her. Groaning, too tired to get out of bed, she decided to just lay there for a little while longer.

A slant of light came through the window. The rain had stopped. 

Shit, what time was it?

She ran her hands over her face and attempted to run her fingers through her hair, but it was a tangled mess. Without looking at the clock, she knew she was late for work. Where was her phone? 

Pulling herself up, Luna closed her eyes. She was lightheaded; needed to get something to eat. 

Finally, she stood up and grabbed her robe, cinching it loosely.

The room spun as she padded into the kitchen, grabbed a brown sugar Pop-Tart, and turned on the kettle to make instant coffee. Holding onto the counter, she pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead. Her mind was a little fuzzy of the details from last night. She remembered going out with her sister and Marcus. The time between going out and getting dropped off escaped her. Once her mind cleared, she remembered what had caused her drunken despair.
June twenty-fourth. 

A simple date on the calendar. 

Why hadn’t she asked for today off? Because she didn’t realize how deeply the anniversary would cut her to the core. She’d really thought she’d gotten past it. 

She poured herself a cup of coffee adding sugar and milk. 

Reaching into the cabinet, she grabbed a bottle of Excedrin and swallowed three pills, washing them down with coffee. Once she finished eating, she moved into the bathroom. She looked like a train wreck; her hair was a snarled mess. That’s what she gets for falling asleep with wet hair from the rain. There was a slight red rim around her eyes and a bluish hue underneath. Her face was pale, and not the good kind of porcelain pale. She’d have to work some magic with make-up today.

Reaching in and adjusting the water, Luna shed her robe and stared at herself in the full-length mirrored door. She looked like death warmed over. 

“I’m sorry, I’ve never wanted to be a father,” he told her, as he placed the money down and like a coward practically ran out the door. 

Her reflection disappeared because of the steam, but that was fine with her. She couldn’t stand to look at herself today. 

What the hell did she have to show for her life? Sure she was a free spirit and all that jazz, but where the hell had that gotten her? She’d given herself freely to too many men and what did she have to show for it? Nothing, she was alone. 

She didn’t even have an education or career she could be proud of. 

Sighing, she stepped into the narrow shower and stood there for at least twenty minutes. Even the pulsating hot water couldn’t make her feel whole today. Maybe she should call into work. As if she could afford to do that. She was barely scraping by as it was.

About thirty minutes later, Luna eased her car into a parking space at the mall, more than an hour late for work. Gathering her purse, she opened the door. As she stepped out of the car, she noticed the stifling heat.

By the time she made it to the automatic doors, her clothes were already sticking to her. She should have worn something lighter. 

She inhaled deeply, pushed her shoulders back, held her head up high, and sauntered into the air conditioned mall, her heels clicked loudly on the tiled floor. She had a reputation to uphold. A few people waved, and one of the dorky arcade kids nearly tripped over himself, rushing out to meet her. He was barely seventeen years old, still covered in pimples and seriously thought he had a shot with her. It was almost comical. 

“Hey, Luna, can I walk you to the store?”

Glancing over, she shrugged. “It’s a free world, Nate.” 

“You remember my name?”

Luna rolled her eyes, she could tell him it was on his name tag, but that wouldn’t be very nice.

Speaking quickly, he stumbled over his words, “You look great today. I mean, not that you don’t everyday. You look great everyday, is what I meant.”

She gave him a big smile. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that today.” The sad truth was she really had needed to hear it. 

The kid’s face flushed red, clear up to the tips of his ears. 

“This is my stop, thanks for the escort.” Luna left the kid standing there with a goofy look on his face. 

When she walked into the clothing store, Maggie the manager, looked up and sighed. “Luna you’re late—again.”

“Am I?” Luna grabbed her phone and looked at the time as if she hadn’t know she was over an hour late. She shrugged and tossed the phone into her bag. 

“Keep it up and you’ll be out of a job.”

Somehow Luna highly doubted it. She outsold everyone and always made her monthly quotas. It might not be the best job in the world, but she was good at it. If there was one thing she knew, it was clothes and how to flatter the body. Once in a while she thought about opening her own boutique, but never made it past the dreaming stage. 

Okay, this was good, it had been a good idea to come to work. Already her mind was on other things. She’d hit a rough patch that was all. She was still in control. 

“We got a shipment in today, take care of it,” Maggie yelled over her shoulder as she headed toward a customer. Luna cringed when she saw the orange dress she recommended to the woman. Not only was the cut all wrong, but the color would wash her out.

 
Not her problem. 

She spent the rest of the afternoon in the back room, sitting on the floor while sorting and tagging the new clothing. Her foot had gone to sleep, and now tingled with pins and needles. She worked quickly and methodically, trying not to think too much.

Maggie peeked her head in. “You need to take your dinner break.”

Great, she only had four dollars and seventy-five cents on her. Barely enough for a cup of coffee. 

She picked up her phone and texted Marcus; he only lived ten minutes from the mall. 

I’m on break if you’re free. 

Still at work myself.

No worries. 

You okay? You seemed down last night.

:) I’m fine. Just PMSing.

Damn, girl, TMI. 

You love it. Talk to you later. 

Luna slid the phone back into her purse and did a quick mirror check before making her way down to the food court. She had an hour to waste. Maybe she had enough money for a kid’s meal. 

 Chapter Five

“Fancy meeting you here,” a deep voice whispered in her ear.

Luna spun around and looked up, her breath catching in her throat. In an instant, a shitty day was starting to look a whole lot better. One of the hottest guys
ever
stared down at her. His eyes were pale blue with specks of gold, bright against his tan skin, his square jaw bristled with a five o’clock shadow. He wore a white T-shirt that stretched over a lean torso and thick arms. He looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place his face. How the hell she could forget the face of a god was beyond her. 

Twirling a lock of her red-gold hair around her finger, Luna cocked her head to the side, and her eyes trailed the full length of his body. Every square inch was arrogantly masculine. “Do I know you?” 

He ran his fingers through his hair and looked embarrassed. “I’m an idiot. You’re the twin?”

She glanced up at him with a curious expression. “You know my sister, Grayson?”

“I wouldn’t say I know her. I bumped into her at a bar last night and she basically told me to go to hell.” 

Suddenly, it came back to her. She must have really been drunk last night to forget someone as tasty as this … even if his pick up line was beyond lame. Luna bit her lip and laughed, surprised and slightly freaked out by the way her heart rate kicked up several notches simply by his nearness. “Actually, that was me.”

He glanced down at her, his blue eyes steady. “Oh, I get it. You’re messing with me?”

Smiling coyly, Luna shrugged. “Maybe a little bit. As I recall you sorta pissed me off last night.” 

She would never admit she’d drank way too much and the night was pretty much a blur, but she did recall he irked her by saying she wasn’t
that
hot. True, she’d been bitchy and probably deserved it, but she would have fun making him squirm a bit. 

He didn’t smile back. Instead, his intense eyes locked on hers. She felt as if he were memorizing every detail of her face, which made her feel something she couldn’t ever recall feeling—self-conscious. She almost touched her face to make sure there wasn’t something on it, but she didn’t want to give away her nervousness. 

“What’s your name?”

She was disturbingly aware of the space between them. After a lengthy silence, she finally said, “Luna.”

“Luna,” he repeated, and his voice sent a shiver down her spine. She loved the way her name sounded on his lips.

His eyes never wandered from her face. “Tell me, are you as much trouble as you appear to be?”

Luna leaned in and purposely lowered her voice. “That’s the rumor.”

His icy blue eyes flared, making her knees weaken. What the hell was it about this man that threw her completely off kilter? It was clear he was not the sort of man that would allow her to wrap him around her little finger. 

Perhaps that was what piqued her interest so much. 

Maybe he was just what the doctor ordered to get her out of the funk she’d been in. A challenge. 

Or maybe she should run like hell.  

Out of the corner of her eye she saw people milling around, but all she could focus on was the man before her. She couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off him. She wanted to shift her eyes away, but she couldn’t. It was absurd. 

She’d never been so drawn to a man in all her life. Sure he was hot, but so were countless other men. He had some kind of magnetic pull. It was troublesome to say the least.

“I’m Hunter by the way, just in case you were wondering.”

Hunter.
How fitting. That’s exactly how she felt, like he was the hunter and she was the prey. 

“If my memory serves me right, last night you called me a dickwad.”

Luna’s laughter filled the room. “It seemed fitting at the time.”

His eyes glinted with amusement, but his face remained still, sending a small thrill through her.

A slow smile spread across her face. “Hunter, it just so happens you’re in time to buy my dinner.” 

“Lucky me.” He placed a hand under her elbow, sending a jolt through her as he led her to the back of the line. 

Luna kept sneaking peeks at him while he ordered. Ink snaked up both of his arms, with lots of colors and tribal symbols. She wanted to ask him what each and every one of them meant, but there would be time for that later. Without a doubt, she knew there would be a later. There was no way she could let a sexual attraction like this slip through her fingers.

She placed her order, grateful she didn’t have to order a kid’s meal for dinner. 

He carried their tray to the back of the fast food joint. Not exactly the best choice for a first date, but the circumstances had dictated. He pushed her chair out with his foot and Luna eased herself down. Neither of them seemed to be able to take their eyes off the other. Becoming conscious of the silence, she tried to think of something clever to say. Reaching forward, Luna grabbed a fry. “So what brings you to the mall?”
That’s the best you got?
Inwardly, she groaned at her lameness. 

“I guess that would be you.” A sexual undercurrent laced his words.

“Me?” Luna raised an eyebrow and grabbed for another fry; she had to keep her hands occupied. 

It took him a long time to reply. “I was driving down the road aimlessly and saw the sign for the mall, so I pulled in.” 

Luna laughed. “And what does that have to do with me.” 

“You’re here and I’m here. Do you really think it’s a coincidence we both happen to be at the mall at the exact same time?”

Luna sat back in the chair. As much as she’d like to believe it was fate that thrusted this sexy beast into her path, she really did think it was a coincidence. “Seeing as I work in the mall, then yeah … I think it was a chance meeting.”