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Casimira
Present-day
Manhattan, New York City
In my defence, Enzo doesn’t look old enough to own a strip club. Let alone one of the best nightclubs in NYC, he can’t be that much older than myself.
He looks like the type to have girls throw themselves at him. I mean, I totally see why. He may be the most attractive man I’ve ever seen and the way people seem to respect him instantly? Jesus. I have a real weakness when it comes to alpha males, unfortunately. The more toxic the better it seems but I am trying to change that, hence the penis hiatus.
The night is going really well, James' stage presence is electric and Hannah looks so happy. We’re in front of the stage dancing when Hannah grabs my arm pulling me off to the side shouting, “Let's go behind.”
“You go, I'm gonna grab a drink. I'll meet you in a sec?” She doesn’t hear me so I mime a drink and make my way back through the crowd, pushing past the sweaty dancers to the stairs so I can go to the VIP bar where it’s much quieter. I order myself a Coke and lean back against the bar pressing the cold glass to my sweaty cheek, it's like a furnace in here. Someone bumps into me and I stumble to the side.
“Sorry!” The guy says in a slur.
I smile and wave him off. “No problem.”
“So she can be polite.” I hear to my side. I turn to see Enzo standing tall next to me, hands in his pockets. The man is effortlessly handsome. He doesn't need to try, it's just there, written in his features and the way he holds himself.
I laugh, more at myself than anything else. “I guess you want an apology?”
His eyebrows draw together and he shakes his head. “I don’t think it would be authentic, so no.” He says dryly.
I groan and cover my mouth. You’d think with my lack of filter I’d get used to how much I embarrass myself but I never do. “Okay good because apologies aren't my strong suit,” I say from behind my hand.
He lets out an amused breath, shaking his head. “Enjoying yourself?” His eyes trail down my body slowly, an objective assessment. Similar to his assessment on the side of the road but with a little less annoyance. Maybe I should go on a few dates. Clearly, I'm a bit rusty because this man is giving me literal crumbs of attention and it’s lighting my body on fire.
“I would ask the same but you don’t strike me as someone who has a lot of fun,” I say.
He narrows his brown eyes in amusement. “Here we are making ‘observations’ again.”
I shake my head and turn my gaze towards the stage below. “You can’t help but make observations, it's human nature.”
I turn back to him only to find him already staring at me. “Well go on, I want to know what impression I’ve made.”
I mean I’ll probably be wrong but one thing I'm not is a quitter. So I take a seat on one of the bar stools and pull my head back to look over him properly like I haven’t already been looking at him any chance I could get. “Armani suit but not an overly flashy style. I would say you don’t like to advertise the fact you have money but you're wearing a Patek Philippe watch, so that’s not strictly true. No wedding ring or tan line on your finger, not married, but you do have a family crest ring on your pinky so that’s clearly important to you.” I pause and he raises his eyebrows, spinning the ring around his finger with his thumb absentmindedly.
“Don’t stop there.” He says with a grin, revealing straight white teeth with sharp incisors. As if I needed another reason to believe this man is a natural-born hunter
That’s the extent of my talents, now I'm just taking a stab in the dark. “You keep your hair short because you want to appear clean cut.” I look down to where his hand is braced on the bar. “The scarred knuckles render that pointless. You have tattoos from what I can see through your shirt, carefully placed so they can be covered by clothing. You want society to believe you're a respectable businessman, but from the blind respect people seem to give you, I don’t believe that for a second.” I raise an eyebrow in return. He gives a small chuckle and runs his hand over his stubbled chin. I track the movement without realising, fixing on how big his hands are, how they would feel around my throat. Jesus Christ. Am I having sexual thoughts? About a man?
I take a swig from my coke partly to wet my dry mouth before saying, “Go on then, tell me how much I got wrong.”
He smirks again, running his tongue over his top teeth. This man is the epitome of a man slut. Someone give him some grey trackie bottoms and the look is complete.
“I wear Armani because they are the best.” I go to object and tell him I prefer Tom Ford but he shakes his head once, stopping me. “Argue with yourself, it’s true.” He’s still smirking as he taps a finger on his watch. “This watch was a present from my little sister, granted with my own money but it’s the thought that counts.” I let out a breath of amusement and he carries on. “I keep my hair short because long hair annoys the fuck out of me and my tattoos are only covered by coincidence, I don’t give a fuck what society thinks.” His voice lowers on the last sentence and the deep timbre does something to my brain, almost making me forget how off I was on my assumptions of him.
I straighten a little, trying to brush off how hot his voice makes me feel. “I find it hard to believe you don’t care at all what society thinks of you.” I glance at the stage where James is throwing his hands up in the air with a big grin.
“I’m a twenty-eight-year-old CEO whose majority of businesses are made up of nightclubs, strip joints and fight arenas. Society will only ever see me how they want to. Why would I try to change that.” He shrugs nonchalantly. “Embrace what you are and it can never be used against you.”
I rest my head in my hand as I lean on the bar to look up at him. “And what is it society sees when they look at you?”
His lips twitch. “That feels like a trick question.”
“It's never a trick question if you know how to answer it,” I say seriously.
His eyes flicker with amusement and he runs his thumb over his bottom lip. “They see a thug turned businessman, a man with no morals.”
