Page 1 of Glitter

Chapter 1

Flashing, glittering light was all I could see. Even between the pulsing strobes in the club, my eyes retained the afterglow of brightness. I should probably turn away, give my poor eyes a chance to rest—reset themselves and readjust to the relative dimness of the rest of the club’s interior.

I should do that. Really, I should.

It would be the smart thing to do.

I just didn’t want to.

Because turning away would mean turning my back to the packed dance floor. And I couldn’t do that. Not when it meant I’d have to also tear my eyes off the gorgeous, stunning man dancing in the middle of that writhing mass of humanity.

Bright, strobing lights beamed down on the dance floor, beckoning the club patrons to join the throng, to move and grind and sweat to the techno beat underlying the unending stream of pop song after pop song. The illumination, in theory, was cast on all of the dancers in equal measure, and yet, one of them shone brighter than all the rest. A glorious, angelic vision of glittering loveliness.

If he’d had a shirt at some point, it was long gone. Meaning that I, and everyone else in the club, were treated to the sight of slender arms and a bare, slim torso above the waistband of baggy, slouchy jeans precariously clinging to sharp, narrow hip bones. With the rhythmic, filthy bump and grind of his hips as he danced, I could only conclude that the only thing keeping those pants up was magic.

Sweat gleamed enticingly on the subtle curves and dips of his lean muscles and, in the spirit of the club’s name, the pale expanse of his skin was liberally decorated in random swathes of sparkling glitter—vibrant pink to match the shade of his artfully colored hair.

I don’t know how long I’d been watching him—the passing of time had become completely immaterial the moment my eyes had landed on him. I couldn’t even guess how many people were pressed in all around him or what they looked like—all I saw was him.

My sparkling angel.

My glittering, twinkling, dazzling, glimmering, shimmering, dazzling angel of luminosity.

And I couldn’t stop. I didn’t want to stop.

My inability to wrench my gaze off the vibrantly beautiful man on the dance floor wasn’t that surprising. How often in one’s life were you lucky enough to be in the same room…the same city…the same state…as somebody who was so supremely visually stunning?

Of course, my eyes were drawn to him. Of course, my sight was stuck on him—his every move, his every breath, and each and every expression that flitted across his impossibly lovely face.

What was surprising was that, at some point…something had turned his attention in my direction. And now…he was looking back.

Time still had no meaning. And if the songs blasting through the sound system had changed from one to another, my brain couldn’t focus enough to latch onto the transition. So, I had no idea how long my glitter-sparkled angel’s pale-appearing eyes had been trained on me.

But trained on me they were.

His hips swayed seductively back and forth, his arms rose and fell to the muddled lyrics I couldn’t make out, and his head bobbed up and down with the beat of the music, but his eyes…those beguiling, intriguing, and strobe light-illuminated eyes…were looking right at me.

No, that couldn’t be right. I knew what I looked like. I was self-aware enough to know that while I wasn’t a hideous troll, I wasn’t…I wasn’t… There was no possible way a man as pretty, as stunning, as out of my league as that glittery angel-on-earth was looking at—

One hand slowly traced up the smooth, pale, pink-sparkled plane of his stomach, then continued up between small, raspberry-blush nipples, up a slender neck, and over the elegantly sharp edge of his jawline, until his fingers caressed the lush plumpness of his lower lip. Gorgeously pink lips pursed, and then, palm-side up, his hand was in front of his tempting mouth as he blew a kiss directly at me.

My eyebrows flew up and my eyes bugged out of my head in surprise. Even though it probably made me look like an idiot, I couldn’t prevent myself from helplessly mouthing the question, “Me?” while my own hand raised and pointed at my own chest. At least I did manage not to foolishly turn around and see who else near me he might’ve been aiming the gesture at.

The answer to my silently mouthed question came in the form of a singularly raised immaculately groomed eyebrow and a smirk curling up one corner of his lips.

My heart beat a staccato rhythm in my chest to rival the bass undertones of the club’s music. I was mystified, elated, and downright petrified at this inexplicable invitation to approach the supremely divine, glitter entity in the middle of the dance floor.

Thankfully, my feet were smarter than the rest of me and accepted that invitation, moving me toward the dance floor—and the sparkling angel—before my doubts and insecurities could cudgel my heart and mind into thinking it would be a bad idea.

If the moment had truly been magical, the other people standing just along the periphery of the dance floor and those dancing near my angel would’ve miraculously parted and melted away into the background, easily allowing me to pass. But as it was, I bumped into a few men, wove around a few couples that blocked my path, somewhat politely asked a few to let me through, and outright wiggled and squirmed my way between several more until I could even get close to where I’d last seen the vision of glittery deliciousness dancing.

All the while, terrified that he would’ve lost interest by the time I reached him, or worse, have completely vanished as though he’d only been a sparkling dream.

But when I reached the center of the dance floor—huffing and puffing and covered in a great deal more of sweat than I’d been when I’d begun my journey—there he was. Still undulating and sinuously moving to the thump, thump, thump of the music playing. Still shimmering and sparkling under the dance floor lights. Still wearing a sassy, flirty half-smirk. Still looking as sumptuously pink—from the ends of his curly, dyed hair, to the makeup gracing his eyelids, cheeks, and lips that I could make out now that I was close enough to him, to the several hues of pink, gleaming glitter dabbed and smeared across his chest, his arms, and dusted along the crests of his high cheekbones and the delicate ridge of his elegant nose.

And still looking right at me, with a clear light of interest shining in his ethereally pale blue eyes.

Despite what my own, rather boring and average, dark blue eyes were telling me, I still had trouble believing that this creature, this shimmering angel, could actually have turned his attention on me. I choked out a pathetically garbled, “Hi,” half-expecting that this entire moment would poof away as soon as the sound tumbled from my mouth.

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