Stigma

Chapter 2

Jason

The word that keeps floating around in my head is smitten.

I had a pretty general idea of what that word meant, but I went ahead and googled a more exact definition after I couldn't stop thinking it. Oxford describes smitten as being strongly attracted to someone or something. Fittingly, it comes from the root word smite which means to strike with a firm blow. That's how I feel. Like I've been struck with a firm blow.

Men ask me to come home with them all the time. Depending on how much their willing to pay me, I might even take them up on the offer. Except I do my best to steer them to a more neutral territory than their house. But when the stranger with the dark hair and the broad shoulders told me to come home with him last night, I wasn't thinking about how much to charge him, I was thinking about the way it would feel to press my lips to his jaw, to feel the stubble of his barely-there beard. I was thinking about how he would feel underneath me and on top of me and inside me. I was thinking about how I liked his voice, how I wanted to hear it saying things like yes, and more.

I don't really think he's going to come back tonight. The only reason he really has to show back up to a dump like PRNCE is for me, and I'm not vain enough to think he'd come back for me. But it doesn't stop me looking for him. My eyes track everyone that comes in, searching for the dark haired stranger who made me tremble just from his words. My shift starts at nine, and by eleven I've all but given up seeing him.

But then I do.

Just the flash of his hair, the hunch of his shoulders. The glint of mystery in his eyes.

I'm not dancing, I'm standing by the bar with a drink in my hand getting ready for my next set, and when his eyes scan the bar top and he doesn't see me, I swear he looks disappointed. My heart leaps in my chest, an unfamiliar feeling that I try to tamp down before it can get out of hand. I'm too close to the wall, too in the shadows for him to see me, and I want to run to him, but I don't. If he really is interested, if he really came here for me, then he'll do more than just give the bar a cursory glance. I want him to try to find me, to want to find me.

His eyes sweep across the room again, lingering in the corners and at the high top tables. His gaze passes over me before zeroing back in, and then those eyes light up. The corners of his mouth pull into a smile, and my heart does another suicidal jump. He's even better looking when he smiles. It transforms his features into something almost soft, not quite because he's too rugged and chiseled to ever truly be soft, but the smile makes him look less hard-edged. I think about what that smile would look like in the golden glow of a bedside table lamp, looking up at me from his back, his hair spread out across a pillow.

My mouth goes dry at the thought.

He starts to make his way toward me, sidestepping bodies and tables, and he's just about close enough for me to see the freckle under his right eye when someone steps in front of him, stopping him from moving any closer. I can't see all of his face anymore, but I can see the way those broad shoulders tense, the way his hands curl into fists at his sides. The man who got in his way steps closer, leaning in to speak into his ear, and now I can see his face.

It's amazing to think I thought him soft only seconds before. Now he's all sharp lines and tight muscles, his eyes narrowed, his lips twisted into a snarl. He speaks, and his teeth flash. He bites out words that I can't hear and starts to step around the guy in his way, but the guy puts a hand on his chest, up high, close to his neck. It's a threat if I've ever seen one, a warning that the hand could easily move up and take hold of him, wrap itself around his throat.

But there isn't a chance for that to happen. He steps back like he's going to leave, but instead he brings his fist around to knock into the side of the guy's head. From where I'm standing, it doesn't look like he hit him too hard, but maybe he wasn't trying to, because when the man who got in his way turns back to him, the dark, hard-edged man with the great smile punches him in the face.