Which cut extra deep, considering Kieran hailed from a family of New Orleans lawyers that dipped back almost two hundred years. The Sullivans were probably pictured in the dictionary next to the word attorney. He’d just started law school himself, and would have an offer waiting for him, like his aunts, uncles, cousins, and everyone else with Sullivan blood.
“I’m thirsty. Buy me a Coke?” said the pretty blonde whose name was just on the tip of his tongue. He could text Charlie, but Charlie had already told him never to pull his phone out on a date. He’d had other rules for Kieran as well, bestowing them upon him like a benevolent overlord fearful his hopeless subject would be unable to avoid humiliating himself. He’d been out of the dating game so long, he had to take Charlie’s word for most of it.
“Yeah, sure.” Kieran took her by the hand. It felt right, and Charlie hadn’t said anything about hand holding, so he hoped he wasn’t completely shitting the bed with this move. He led her toward the refreshment stand in the center of the fairway, between the Spinning Web—which was both the best the carnival had to offer and the lamest thing he had ever seen called a ride—and the one with the teacups for the little kids. There wasn’t anyone in line for snacks, or really, for anything. The carnival had been a total bust, with rides meant for toddlers, and half-asleep teenagers manning the games. The shitty cross-eyed bear Kieran’s date dangled from her left hand was the perfect mascot for the evening.
He paid for her Coke and enjoyed the way her glossy lipstick embraced the red and white straw as she eyed him in gratitude.
That was the first time he had the feeling he was being watched.
Kieran turned toward the sensation. Young couples, kids, all moved past him in bored refrain, but he saw no one looking at him.
“Something wrong?” his date cooed.
“Nah. Thought I heard my name,” he lied, because that sounded less weird than saying he felt like there were eyes peering at him from the shadows.
“You have an unusual name,” she said. “I would think you’d know it for sure if you’d heard it.”
He wanted to say, yeah, you too, and what was it again? Instead, he nodded. “All these sounds are messing with my head, I think.”
His date moved closer as they walked, tilting her head up toward him. “We could go somewhere more quiet?”
Kieran started to say his apartment was a fifteen-minute walk from Armstrong Park, but she’d yanked him off his feet, headed in the direction of the pitiful funhouse at the end of the fairway. A grotesque clown mouth gaped wide at the entrance, looking more like a bored yawn than a howl meant to elicit fear. He didn’t have long to evaluate its inadequacy, because her crystal blue eyes twinkled at him as she glanced back, just before disappearing inside.
“There might be kids in here,” he warned, but the blond beauty leading him farther inside was oblivious. She was on a mission. The kind of mission he’d been anticipating all night but was suddenly afraid to see through. He hadn’t been with a woman since Tessa. She’d been his first, and though there’d been a few in between, he was out of practice. In his heart, he’d always thought Tessa was end game.
“Do you see any kids?” she asked as they slipped down the dark, musty tunnel. There were carts from a ride, but none were moving. Shut down, perhaps from lack of interest. No stoned teenager here to restart them, either. Kieran started turning over a number of other possible scenarios, wielding his great superpower of overthinking everything, when she silenced his curiosity with a kiss so deep he stopped breathing.
“I like you, Kieran.” She sucked in her bottom lip with a light nibble. He’d never seen a girl actually do this, but the stirring in his pants confirmed why she did it. It worked. “I know we’ve just met, but I’m a good judge of character.”
Was that what they were doing? Judging one another’s characters?
“Yeah? I like you, too,” Kieran said, gasping as her palm cupped over the growing bulge in his jeans.
A new sensation, one less welcome, passed over him. A dark chill ripped down his spine, and he again turned, as he had in the fairway, toward the source. As before, he saw nothing, but now he was certain he was either losing his mind or there was something tickling a sense he hadn’t used in some time.
Kieran came from a family that had a little extra than most. Extra senses; for some, even more. His had been the sometimes awesome, sometimes terrible gift of picking up on the feelings of those around him. Like his date. She was practically purring with desire, though he needed nothing supernatural to guide him toward that clue.
But there was someone watching. Who?
Or what?
No, you outgrew that years ago, you idiot. It was stupid then, and it’s even stupider now.
Kieran moaned and grasped for something to hold on to as his date unwrapped his cock from his jeans and promptly swallowed it. His hand made contact with something metal, just in time for him to keep his knees from buckling. “Fuck,” he whispered. His mouth watered. He forgot what he’d been so concerned about. “Yes. God.” It’s been too long, bro. Please don’t embarrass yourself.
Get out of my head, Charlie.
He bit down so hard on his tongue the taste of copper tickled his tastebuds. “I... you have to stop.
