Before Darkness There is Light

3. King

WARNING:
This chapter contains rude language, clubbing, and alcohol usage.

He was even more gorgeous than in the picture I found of him on the Internet. Well, I had to at least know how my target looks like in order to target him!

Now that he was here, I needed to get to work straight away.

"You're not going to drink all six of them, are you?" He propped his head on his elbow and looked at me through the golden locks of hair that have fallen into his eyes.

I tilted my head and smiled at him, seductively. "Are you implying that I won't be able to handle it?"

He raised his eyebrows in amusement and studied me, which made me super uncomfortable.

"No, I'm implying that we share your six shots."

"Hmm." I hummed, whilst tapping my chin mockingly. "That sounds tempting, but I've got a better idea," I said, making eye contact with him again and slapping my hands on the counter, "We're going go have a drinking competition."

Oh, boy. This was going to be so much fun. Did I mention that I got only slightly drunk only on my twenty third shot? Yeah.

He looked at me with a glint of amusement in his eyes, "Are you sure about that? You're a such a lightweight."

"I'll take that as a compliment," I said, flashing him a smile before turning to the bartender and calling him over, I shouted, "Another six for- wait," I stopped and looked back at him. Even though I already knew his name, I couldn't act like I knew it, so I had to ask and get the greetings out of the way. "Sorry, what's your name?"

He paused for a beat before smiling and said, "Dominic."

What now?! What the hell?! Why the hell did he just fake his name? Did he think he was being funny and playing a mutual game? Well, I wasn't about to give it to him.

He probably registered the obvious shock on my face, because he cleared his throat and rubbed his neck awkwardly. "So, um, what's yours?"

I quickly snapped out of my thoughts and flashed him a thousand megawatt smile, "Cassie."

"Cassie..." He tasted my name on his tongue. It did sound good when he said it. "Is that short for something? Cassandra? Acacia? Or is it just Cassie?"

"No, it's neither of those. Its-." I stopped before telling him my full name. If Nathaniel King was playing a game with me, then a game he must have. "- a secret," I said with a slow smile, "In fact, you have to guess it by tonight. I already know that I'm going to beat you in the drinking competition, so if you guess my full name, then you become an automatic winner."

He seemed generally amused, because he leaned in so that our faces were a couple of inches apart. "Bring it on," he breathed.

He did what no other guy was able to do to me before. I suddenly felt something weird in my stomach, like a thousand wings flapping inside my belly. The blasting music in the club seemed to be muffled, as we stared at each other.

It was a foreign feeling but not all together bad. I was lightheaded for a second, and when I blinked, we both had six shots of cranberry vodka sitting in front of us.