Across the room

The club is packed, neon lights flashing, music blasting. Stella, Liza and I sway among the sweaty bodies dancing to the beat.
Processing Stella’s latest break-up is much more fun this way. We’ve done the ice-cream-and-ugly-crying girl’s night more than enough times. Tonight, we forget the world and its share of misery. There’s only us in our sexiest outfits, and no fucks left to give about what the people around might think of us.
Second mojito down, I’m floating, my skin buzzing as my gaze wanders around the club. My heart skips a beat. His blue eyes stare back at me. Anthony.
The last time I saw him was in high school, years ago. He’s not the same pretty boy he was. He’s a man: square jaw, broad shoulders, charismatic presence. Yet, still the same piercing blue gaze that made me swoon even then.
And that piercing gaze is locked on me.
Leaning against the bar in a black shirt, a beer in hand, his mouth lifts in a seductive smile, and he mouths a simple “hi”.
Every inch of my body tingles at the sight of him. I need fresh air.
I catch my friends’ attention and gesture toward the door. Liza grabs Stella’s wrist and drags her toward the exit as I follow. The hair on my neck prickles. I can sense Anthony’s stare on me, and when I turn my head in his direction, he’s not only watching me, but he walks to meet me halfway.
My heart accelerates as he slides with ease between the oblivious clubbers. He stops a few feet away, between my friends and the door. His stare doesn’t leave me when Liza and Stella brush past him and keep walking.
My body slows down on instinct, like a magnet drawn to him. So many years have passed, and he still has that effect on me.
“Hi Zoe,” he says, but the music is too loud for me to hear his voice. I can only read the words on his lips.
He leans in to speak in my ear. His hand snakes around my waist to rest on my lower back, and he pulls me flush against him. “Nice to see you here.”
This time, I hear his voice. Deep, masculine, rumbling inside his hard chest. My breath hitches, my senses overwhelmed by his warmth, his heady fragrance. I pull back to look at him, our nose touch, and electricity sparks between us. His mouth crashes on mine, his soft lips devouring. With one hand still on my back, the other reaches the nape of my neck, holding me to him as I hold on to his shoulders. His tongue slips inside my mouth, eager and passionate. His fingers tangle in my hair. His body presses harder against me.
One last sweep of his tongue on mine, and he releases me, breathless.
Words evade me, my brain in a blissful fog, my body on overdrive.
He chuckles. “Can I call you, sometime?”
Before I can answer, his friends holler his name between whistles, breaking the spell.
I step back and nod with a smile, and we move away from each other.
I turn to the door to find Liza and Stella staring at me, eyes wide, mouths agape.
“What just happened?” Stella screeches as soon as we’re outside. “We turn around for three seconds, and all of a sudden you’re kissing some handsome stranger. What was that about?”
Lost in the whirlwind of sensations that just washed over me, no words come to mind, and I just answer with a dreamy smile.