Page 16 of Never Date A Player
She called him?
Lewis’s gaze shifts from the creeper’s hand in my hair and he glares accusingly at me.
This isn’t my fault. Mira’s the one sending out girl signals, luring in men. I want nothing to do with this.
For some reason, accepting a ride from Lewis is a bad idea. I know this, yet I can’t bring myself to care. Better a ride from him than getting pawed by forty-year-olds. And no way will these polished club guys stick around with Lewis approaching. He’s in agitated mountain god mode, the energy he’s giving off intense.
I’ve only seen Lewis wear collared work shirts, like earlier when he was with Mira at the other casino. Now he’s all casual ease, a fitted heather T-shirt snug on his biceps and chest, and it’s doing funny things to my internal temperature.
Maybe close proximity to Lewis isn’t such a good idea.
Cute Creeper stands abruptly. He nudges his friend and nods toward Lewis. White Loafers mumbles something about meeting up with friends and heads off toward the bar with his buddy.
I let out a breath. Sweet relief.
“Ready?” Lewis says in a clipped tone, eyes focused on Mira.
Mira slips out of the booth and reaches for his arm. He doesn’t give her a chance to latch on. He walks ahead, his long limbs eating up the distance to the exit. I wobble to my feet and Nessa does too.
Mira and Nessa do a good job keeping up with Lewis, but something is wrong with my equilibrium, and it’s slowing me down. I pick up my pace to catch up and nail my hip on the corner of a booth, bouncing like a pinball into bodies trolling the dance floor.
That’s gonna bruise.
A warm, masculine voice chuckles above my ear. “You okay?” The body attached to the voice appears to be holding me up.
I am officially trashed.
Waiting for the room to stop spinning, I answer, “Fine. Just bumped my hip.”
I no longer see Nessa or Mira. Only Lewis remains, glaring—in pretty much the same threatening manner he did with Cute Creeper—at the guy holding me. Lewis’s focus slides to my face, worry lines creasing his brow as he takes in my angle. There’s a chance I’m leaning against my rescuer like the Tower of Pisa.
Out of the blue, my rescuer hightails it away. And as if someone has shoved that last inch on Pisa, I stumble.
Son of a bitch.
Through a series of spastic moves that include gripping the sleeve of the girl beside me and grabbing the shoulder of yet another random guy, I manage to remain upright.
The haste in which my rescuer departed might have something to do with the large Native American storming over, nudging bodies out of the way.
Lewis wraps his arm around my waist and hauls me to his side. Heat, the scent of him, steals the air from my lungs. A shock of tingles spirals down my stomach and thighs and I curve into him, a low moan escaping my mouth.
My eyes go wide, and I glance up, praying he didn’t catch that.
A knowing grin curls his lips, the sexiness of which amps the charge between us. He heard.
I made it a point to stay away from Lewis, which I realize might actually be impossible. Putting aside the reality that we have friends in common, Tahoe isn’t a major metropolis.
Lewis tightens his grip and carts me out the door and across the casino. I place all my focus on not embarrassing myself with unwanted guttural sounds, which means I trip about a thousand times because I can’t do two things at once at the moment. Mira and Nessa are halfway across the parking garage by the time we catch up.
Mira nears a truck and looks back. Her lips disappear, eyes glinting as she takes in Lewis’s arm around me. It would be safer for all of us if Lewis stopped touching me before I launch myself on him, or before Mira claws me to death.
He presses me against the side of the truck, his hands raised as if to say, Stay. The parking garage spins for a few seconds and then levels out as he opens the passenger door. Mira scrambles in next to the driver’s seat, then Nessa after her. I wiggle in last.
“Where do you live, Gen?” Lewis asks as he pulls away from the lot.
I give him directions and zone out until the familiar crackle of uneven gravel alerts me that I’m home.
Lewis puts the car in park and I open the door, hoping we can just forget about the stumbling, and the moaning, and the incidents of this night. “Thanks for the ride.”
