Shirley Valentine Goes to Vegas. Michelle Betham

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СКАЧАТЬ buckled underneath me. ‘You got it, sweetheart. Let’s get out of here.’

      He continued that rapid pace he seemed to favour as we exited the hotel and headed out onto the Strip, its bright lights and noise giving everything an unreal, almost fairytale, atmosphere. It was as if I’d, somehow, stumbled into someone else’s life and I was just looking in from the sidelines. But the excitement that was bubbling away in the pit of my stomach, I couldn’t ignore that. I didn’t want to. I was in a place I’d always wanted to visit, with the kind of man I’d always dreamt of. So I was grabbing this experience with both hands and not letting go. Not until I had to.

      ‘Okay, sweetheart, here we are.’ We’d stopped outside a building not far from the hotel; an unassuming place with a small entrance way and stairs that seemed to descend forever down into darkness. ‘It’s a hidden secret, this is. One of the best clubs in Vegas. I come here all the time; it’s my kind of hang-out. And I’m guessing it might be yours, too.’

      ‘You think you know me that well, huh?’

      He turned to face me, smiling slightly. ‘I think I’m getting there.’

      I shook my head, but I was also laughing. It was crazy, to be this comfortable in the company of a man I’d only just met, but that’s how I felt. ‘Well, let’s see if you’re right, hmm?’

      He laughed too, letting go of my hand and sliding his arm across my shoulders. Overly familiar maybe but, hey, I wasn’t complaining. This was Vegas and whatever happened here, it stayed here, apparently. Not that anything wasgoing to happen. And even if it did…

      I slid my arm around his waist, leaning into him as his thumb slowly stroked the back of my neck, turning that tiny shiver I’d felt earlier into a long, languid tingle running slowly up and down my spine. Okay, so maybe this was crazy. A little unreal. But I was going with it. You only got one life, and I’d promised Finn – I’d promised myself – I was going to start living mine. Even if this hadn’t really been the start I’d planned. Or expected.

      We headed into the building, making our way down the stairs, the sound of heavy rock music coming from somewhere below, my fingers gripping the material of Eddie’s t-shirt for dear life because the stairs were so steep, and not that easy to navigate in my choice of footwear. It was only when we were about halfway down that I loosened my grip, although I didn’t let go of him completely. I was enjoying being this close to him. Adam and I, we’d never really been the hand-holding, waist-hugging type of couple. And now I realised what I’d been missing, that comforting feeling of closeness. It was nice. I liked it.

      ‘You holding up okay there, darlin’?’ Eddie asked, letting his thumb wander over the back of my neck again. God, that felt so good!

      I nodded, once more concentrating on those stairs. We seemed to be descending more than I could count now, until we finally came to a long, black-walled corridor, a corridor that, thankfully, seemed to be leading us to the entrance of the club. Once there Eddie had a word with a tall, well-built man at the door who seemed to know him rather well, and after a lot of laughter and genial back-slapping – during which he never once let go of me – we eventually headed inside.

      The club itself had a dark, almost dangerous, atmosphere, yet, I didn’t feel in any danger. Nothing felt threatening, and that was probably because I’d been to clubs like this before, with Finn and our friends. They’d taken me to so many places I’d never had the chance to experience before, from biker bars, like this one, to rock gigs, pub lock-ins and house parties that ranged from wild all-nighters to chilled-out evenings spent listening to Pink Floyd and eating great food with good friends. So this world, it wasn’t completely alien to me. It was still quite new, but not completely alien.

      Loud, thumping rock music pulsated from what I could only imagine were concealed speakers, because I couldn’t see any anywhere, filling the space with a vibe I couldn’t describe, but I liked it. I craved it. Because this was a place where nobody seemed to care what anyone else thought. The people here were dressed in everything from denim to leather, skinny jeans to short skirts, and tattoos certainly seemed to be something favoured by the clientele, which suited me just fine. The walls, like the corridor outside, were mostly dark, the prominent colours being a deep, almost blood-red and black, all of them decorated with images of rock stars, reapers and huge swirling snakes wrapped around bloodied thorns. I felt like Alice walking into my very own warped kind of wonderland.

      ‘I knew you’d like it here,’ Eddie murmured, his mouth so close to my ear I could feel his breath on my neck. And that shiver returned. It was growing stronger with every visit.

      I gripped his waist tightly again as we walked over to a booth at the side of the room, my head turning this way and that as I tried to take it all in. He let go of me as we sat down, and I continued to stare out ahead of me, watching everything with a slight sense of awe. It was like another world; one I was quite happy to frequent.

      ‘I’ve ordered beers. That okay with you?’

      I turned my head to look at him. ‘Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. I’m not really a champagne kind of woman.’

      He slid his arm along the back of the couch, finally taking off his dark glasses and slipping them into his jacket pocket.

      ‘Are you always this perceptive when it vomes to women?’ I asked, shuffling my body around slightly, pulling my legs up underneath me, tucking them in, resting my elbow on the back of the couch, our arms touching, just a brief second of contact but enough to cause goose bumps to form.

      He smiled, pushing a hand through his hair, although it was refusing to stay back off his face tonight. But I quite liked that just-got-out-of-bed look that he was managing to pull off quite magnificently.

      ‘I’ve always thought I was rather good at reading people, if that’s what you mean.’

      I could have listened to him talk all night. Constantly. I’m sure if he was to sit there reading a take-out menu to me I’d still find it incredibly sexy. He had a way of rolling his tongue that was just so hot! ‘So, do you think you can read me?’ I asked, trying desperately to stop imagining what else he could do with that tongue.

      ‘I know you’re looking for something.’

      I smiled at the pretty, dark-haired waitress as she set our drinks down on the table in front of us before I let my eyes meet his, and all I could do was stare at him. Again. Because I didn’t really know what to say to that.

      ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, breaking the stare and bowing his head. ‘I’m pushing too much.’ He slowly raised his gaze, our eyes locking once more. ‘None of this matters tonight.’

      ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘None of it matters.’ Did any of it matter at all? But maybe he was right about tonight. It was too early, too soon – it was pointless getting into any kind of deep conversation about our pasts and who was looking for what when this was nothing more than some chance encounter I really should just be making the most of, while it lasted.

      I felt his fingers slide between mine, and I looked at our joined hands, blinking a few times as I tried to force feisty Lana back out of hiding. I needed her right now, because I had a feeling that, tonight, I was either going to do something I could end up regretting for a very long time, or something I might actually enjoy. If I let myself. I just wasn’t sure which it was going to be. Either way, it was going to be something completely out of character – for the old me, which was why I needed feisty Lana back.

      ‘And in answer to one of your earlier СКАЧАТЬ