Ondine resisted the urge to slap the smirk off of Jared's face as he slowly moved his lips away from her cheek. She had a stunned expression on her face, she was sure, but that didn't give him the right to look at her the way he did, like he won round 1 of their proverbial boxing match. She forced her eyebrows to unknit and smiled sweetly at him.
"Oh, so you're Jared. Nice to meet you. You know, I'd think you were really good looking if you weren't such a jerk on the phone," she rolled her eyes and guided her eyes elsewhere but his face.
Jared's smile faded as Ben snickered into his fist. Jared was a nice guy...to people he'd known for years. Lately though, he'd been temperamental, like he's always on the defensive, probably because while his parents were supportive of him, they're not really big fans of his big decision to quit school and pursue music full time. He felt like he had to validate himself and his decisions all the time, and he just didn't think he needed the additional stress when he was doing something he loved to do.
"Excuse me?" Jared finally found his voice.
"Well, if I recall correctly, I was one of the last people to retrieve my bag off of the carousel, and the one I got was the only yellow one there, meaning you must've taken mine first. But no...you acted like it was such an inconvenience for you to make a switch that would have literally taken 30 seconds. I'm sorry, Mr. Hot Shot drummer, but that was not cool. You shouldn't treat people that way," Ondine continued to say, even though everything that came out of her mouth still sounded sweet.
"Ames," Shey warned her friend. Ondine sometimes had the tendency to run her mouth and turn all filters off, especially when the other person was rude to her first.
"What?" Ondine mouthed to her friend with a shrug.
"You know what?" Jared started to say with a huff, getting close to Ondine.
"What?" she challenged him, not backing down, looking up at him with steely eyes.
"Time out!" Ben suddenly blurted out. "Ondine, do you want anything to drink? We have water, soda...vodka tonic?" he smiled at her playfully, trying to cool down her sudden temper.
"Sure, vodka tonic sounds refreshing," Ondine turned her attention to Ben and allowed the other man to guide her to the makeshift bar in the dressing room with a hand on the small of her back.
Jared just watched as Ben led the beautiful but volatile woman away from his presence. He had screaming matches with Clarisse all the time, but those fights just annoyed him. Ondine didn't raise her voice once, but the quiet way she jabbed at him was sexier than any fight he had ever experienced with Clarisse. He had make up sex with Clarisse after most of those fights, make up sex that were adequate, but nothing to write home about, and now he really wanted to know if Ondine was a spitfire in another aspect of her life besides putting jerks like him in their place. He wouldn't mind if she took charge in the bedroom, would welcome it, even.
Soon, more women filled the dressing room for the impromptu after party: women in short, clingy dresses that looked cheap and tacky, but easy to rip off. They were hanging out with Jared, Tommy, Jackson, the lead singer, and Lucas, the lead guitarist. The band and their manager were surrounded by a bevy of beauties...all but one. Ben was sitting on the plush velvet couch preoccupied by just one beauty, one beauty who monopolized his time. Jared watched as Ondine laughed easily at something Ben said, throwing her head back in glee, exposing the throat Jared wanted to pepper with kisses all of a sudden. Her hand rested on Ben's thigh, making Jared gulp down a double shot of whiskey as his eyes narrowed into slits. Don't get him wrong, he and Ben had been friends since they were tots, having grown up with parents who were very close family friends, and he liked Ben just fine, but right now he didn't like his friend very much. This was the first time they were attracted to the same woman. Wait, what? Did he just admit he was attracted to Ondine? Yes, Jared decided. He just wanted to bed her, tame that wild attitude of hers even if only then and in that situation.
He walked over to the mini-bar and poured himself another shot of top shelf whiskey straight. Ben walked up to him and mixed up another vodka tonic for his fast becoming lady friend. Jared leaned on the counter, slowly sipping his whiskey, just regarding the smile that never left his friend's face.
"Hey," Jared spoke up.
"Hey," Ben replied.
"What's with you and the witch?" Jared took another sip.
"Oh," Ben stole a glance at Ondine who was now conversing with her friend Shey. "She's great! She's funny, personable...she's obviously gorgeous."
"And a witch," Jared also looked in the direction of Ondine and downed his shot before refilling once again.
"Hey, she's not. You guys just started off on the wrong foot. Anyway, I better go back there before she gets too thirsty," Ben raised his glass to Jared and sat back down towards a grinning Ondine.
Shey stood up from her seat when Lucas asked her to dance. Jared took this as an opportunity to walk over to where Ben and Ondine sat engrossed in their conversation. He was almost near them when a sultry blonde woman wearing a skintight, cleavage bearing red dress blocked his way.
"Hi, sexy. You were amazing. I've always loved drummers," she teasingly ran a red painted finger up his chest.
"That's nice," he said, bored.
"Well, I just think drummers are good at keeping rhythm," she purred in his ear, the double meaning of her words not lost on Jared. "I'm Svetlana."
"Svetlana..." Jared mimicked. "It's nice to have met you."
He moved to go around her, eager to get to his destination since he spied Ondine lean over to hear whatever Ben was telling her, his friend whispering into the woman's ear, his hand around her waist. He excused himself from the blonde, Svetlana's jaw dropped at the brush off. She was persistent though and followed him as he sat down next to Ondine, purposely sitting as close to her as possible, their arms and legs touching even though there was plenty of space. The action caused Ondine to look at him, her eyes visibly cloudy from the alcohol already. Meanwhile, Svetlana wedged herself in between the arm of the couch and Jared, causing him to get physically closer to Ondine. Ondine rose a little from her seat from being jostled, slightly sitting on Jared as she sat back down. She moved away from him.
"Sorry," Ondine said to Jared.
"No, you're good."
Svetlana tried to snuggle closer to Jared, which being as annoyed as he was, caused him to push against Ondine's arm, her drink she was holding spilling all over her. She screamed in shock and stood up, wiping at her romper with her bare hands.
"Gah, why did you do that?!" she screamed at Jared.
"I didn't do anything!"
"Oh really? Well what do you call this then?" she said while pointing to her wet clothes.
"An accident!" he glared at her.
"Tell Barbie over there to just sit on your lap next time if she wants to get closer to you. Or better yet, why don't you two get a room?!" she stomped away, finding Shey to tell her she'll just clean up in the bathroom.
Jared just looked at her in disbelief. She yelled at him in public, embarrassed him in front of all these people in the room. He stalked away angrily, following Ondine out of the room and down the hallway to the direction of the bathrooms. He caught up to her and grabbed her elbow, spinning her, causing her to stumble against his chest. Before she could yell at him again, he covered her mouth with his, his desire for her so strong, he didn't care if she would slap him afterwards. His tongue snaked inside her mouth, probing, searching, tasting. She stopped struggling against him soon enough and returned his kisses, allowed him to hold her closer against him. His hand moved to cup her bottom, his warm fingers grazing the skin up her shorts. She pushed him away, stared him in the eye, and raised her hand to slap his face. He caught her wrist before her hand can make contact. He backed her up against the wall, his own shirt getting wet from her wet romper.
"Let's get out of here," he growled against her ear.
She looked at him with wide eyes, her gaze drifting to his lips. She licked her now dry lips and nodded. She didn't know if she was just really drunk, but she found his take charge attitude wildly sexy. The way he looked at her with those deep, intense eyes made her tingly all over, and she wanted him to kiss her again. It was as if he was a mind reader, he held her by the back of the neck and pulled her face towards his, their lips meeting again for another kiss. He lifted her up, her legs subconsciously wrapping around his waist, her back still against the wall. He carried her out of the club through the back door, their lips still fused together. He let her down as they made their way to the front of the club. He flagged down a cab and gave the driver the name of his hotel. It took every ounce of self control not to hike her up over his shoulder and haul her up to his room.
***
Ondine woke up with a pounding headache, not sure where she was, but felt something heavy draped over her stomach and warm air against her neck. She rubbed one eye with her the hand not trapped and opened it. She looked to the side and saw him...HIM...laying beside her, his naked torso against her. She cursed in her head, trying to patch together what happened. She saw flashes of the night before: kissing in the club; kissing in the cab; kissing in the elevator; kissing in his room. Hair pulled out of her bun; romper unzipped; bra unclasped; panty pulled down. Against the door; on the couch; on the table; on the bed. Once; twice; thrice; four times.
She scratched her head, wincing at the massive hangover she felt at the moment. She heard a phone buzz on the bedside table, even the quiet sound much too loud for her in her current state. She slowly lifted Jared's arm off of her, careful not to wake him. She slipped out of bed, clutching a pillow against her for some decency, and looked around the room for her clothes. She found her underwear first, it was by the coffee table, and quickly put it on. Her bra was thrown on a chair, and she put that on as well. Her romper was by the door, and she pulled it on. She found one shoe under the couch, the other under the bed. She held her shoes in her hand, her clutch in the other. She couldn't find her elastic hair tie so she just had to make do with her hair in disarray. It was only five in the morning, hopefully no one would care what she looked like. She caught her reflection in the mirror hanging over the bed, her lipstick smudged, her eyeliner running down her cheeks. She wiped as much as she could with the facial tissue from the box on the bedside table. His phone on buzzed again, and a text message flashed on the screen. She couldn't help but read what it said, a message from some woman named Clarisse.
Hi lover. I miss you. I can't wait for you to come home. I love you.
"Son of a b..." she cursed again and let out more curse words under her breath.
Ondine silently crept out of the room, not taking a backwards glance at the man asleep on his stomach, softly snoring away in dreamland. She pounded her head with the heel of her palm when she got on the elevator, cursing at herself for doing something so careless and stupid. Only a day ago, she was bawling her eyes out because her stupid boyfriend cheated on her, yet here she was, being an accesory to a jerk cheating on his girlfriend. She rode the subway in a daze, glad that it was relatively empty, not really in the mood for what she perceived would have been judgmental stares at her crumpled appearance, her so called walk of shame. She got in the shower as soon as she got home, her tears finally coming out of her doe-like brown eyes.
Jared woke up a few hours later. He recalled an amazing night, a night full of passion, the best night he'd ever had. He had been right; she was as fiery in bed as she was outside of it. He could still smell her, could still taste her. He reached over, hoping to feel her still next to him, but when he felt nothing but air, he sat up quickly, his head pounding at the sudden movement. He walked around buck naked, searched for any sign of her presence, but she was gone. He sat down on the bed, rubbed his face with his palm. He just pulled his boxers on when he heard a knock on the door. He opened it, found Ben on the other side.
"What?"
"Flight leaves in 90 minutes. Get ready."
"Okay."
"What the hell happened to you last night?"
"Had to do something important."
"Well, that Russian blonde looked like a good time."
Jared just shrugged. He did have a good time alright, but not with the Russian blonde Ben spoke of. He had the most amazing night with Ondine. Ben's Ondine. Correction. Ondine was not Ben's.
"I'll just get ready."
"Okay, dude, just hurry up."
"Okay."
He was on his way to the shower when his phone buzzed. He ran to it, hoping it was the missing woman, but he frowned when he saw it. A notification of a few texts from Clarisse. He ignored her texts and went in the shower, reluctant to wash away the scent of Ondine that stuck to his skin, her perfume lingered in the air. He wanted to see her before he left, but he just had to settle for a phone call. His call was ignored, so he left her a voicemail.
"Thank you for last night."
And he smiled as he boarded the plane. Smiled as he sat on his seat next to the window. Smiled as he put his seat belt on. Smiled as the plane took off. Smiled as he closed his eyes for a nap. New York had been great. He would definitely be back.