"Can I buy you a drink?" the man asks. Sam turns to survey him. He's in his early twenties, way too young for her she thinks. Not that his age is the only thing against him. He has a beer belly, artificially blond spikey hair, and teeth you can't look away from. He was maybe a four (if you were generous). With her long blond hair, bright blue eyes, and biker chick clothes she is a ten, easy. If she had any flaw, it was that her face was caked with way too much make-up.
"No thanks," she says holding up her diet coke.
"How about a dance then? He asks noticing the way her head is bobbing to the beat of the music.
"I didn't really come here for this," she says looking past him in a way that clearly shows the conversation is over.
If she was more honest she would have told him that she hadn't meant to come here at all. She had meant to go on a motorcycle ride, and she stopped here on an impulse. She really didn't belong here.
"What did you come here for?" he asks leaning heavy on the counter and invading her personal bubble.
"I can see that you are shocked that women sometimes have motives that don't have anything to do with finding a guy, but it turns out that it is true," she says taking a big step back to regain some space.
"Feminazi," he mutters walking off.
Sam swallows the last of her soda and heads to the door. She really should be at home unpacking right now anyway.
Then he walks in.
He's got on these tight jeans and a leather coat. He tips his sunglasses down on his nose. He doesn't even look around the room but just saunters up to the bar. He's a man on a mission.
The drink takes only a few seconds to arrive in his hand (apparently, they know him here), but she still manages to get by his side before he takes his first sip. It's clear that he didn't come in here to hit on women any more than she came here to be hit on, but Sam has never been known for her good sense when it came to men.
"You want to dance?" she asks.
He surveys her with a smile quacking at the corners of his lips, but never quite materializing. "I don't dance."
She leans forward and whispers, "I promise not to care."
He's ten years older than her at least. Just looking at her makes him a creepy old man. Touching her enough to dance is so far beyond forbidden he is out of taboo words for it (and he's got a big enough vocabulary that that's saying something). If she was his daughter he would kill someone like him who laid a finger on her.
She wasn't his daughter though.
She slips out of the leather jacket to reveal a shimmery silver tank top, and she offers him her hand.
He's a goner. He follows her out of the dance floor, but really, he would have followed her to the end of the Earth.
He wasn't really lying about not being the best dancer. They just stand there in the middle of the dance floor rocking back and forth like they are at a junior high dance.
He starts with hands just barely on her hip and shoulder, arm length apart, only fingers touching her skin carefully through fabric. Every time they shift from one foot to another they come closer together. Perhaps an increase pressure of his fingers, or a smaller distance between their quickly rising and falling chests.
Before the song ends most of their bodies are pressed together. Her head is on the shoulder, his hand is on her ass, and there is an echo of a nun from high school scolding Jack for not leaving enough room for the Holy Spirit between him and his dance partner.
She feels safe, although she warns herself that that is a crazy thing to think about a stranger.
They dance together for five dances in a row, but neither of them could have told you that. It was one of those glorious moments that lasts forever and no time at all.
Then she feels her back pressed against a wall. If it was Jonas pushing her like this she would be in fight mode. She would let this stranger do anything to her, and it terrifies her.
She moans, and he is certain it is the best sound he has ever heard. He is already planning ways that he could make her make the sound every day of their lives together.
Her mind registers the fact that they are in a dark hallway next to a restroom, and the idea of taking him by the hand and leading him into a stall for love making occurs to her. She wonders if he is a drug, because exposure to him is certainly affecting her ability to make rational decisions.
"I've never done this before," she breaths.
"Kissed?" he asks surprised. He pauses the kisses to speak, but his breath is still near her clavicle (where he was last kissing) and it causes goose bumps to cover her body.
"Kissing a stranger in a bar, yeah."
"Me too, I knew my wife for months before we got this close," he admits.
She puts her hand on his chest, and pushes him away. She misses his body against hers even with this shock, "Wife?"
"I'm sorry. Ex-wife. I actually came here tonight because I just got served the divorce papers, and wanted to get drunk. We've been separated for the better part of a year though."
"So am I better than a beer for forgetting?" Sam asks him with her hand still pushing him away (although she might be enjoying his muscles with at least part of her brain now.)
"Much better," he says with a school boy grin.
She should be smarter than this. She should have learned by now. She is drawn to the damage, to the pain. It always ends badly. It will always end badly. She should walk away now.
She moves her hand a little and feels the familiar square of a dog tag. Of course, a soldier. It's always the soldiers and the train wrecks.
She pulls the dog tag out so she can read it, "J. O'Neill."
"Jack," he supplies. Then he pulls out he necklace that falls beneath the tank top. "A star," he observes.
"I'm an astrophysicist, and my mom thinks giving me stars for every holiday is really funny."
His eyes light up, "I have a big telescope."
"I'll bet you do," she says suggestively letting her eyes wander to his crotch for just a second.
He chuckles at her joke without making a sound, "A real one. Of course it's stupid for me to offer it, because at work you probably have much better ones."
"Well, I haven't actually done a whole lot of professional telescope looking."
"Ah, you're one of those scientists who spend their days stooped over a bunch of numbers," he teases.
"Dude, you turned me down so you could make out with some old dude?" the guy from earlier says in disgust.
Sam leans forward to whisper in Jack's ear, "Want to take my bike to your house to check out that giant telescope?"
Jack is more than happy with her plan. But then, we've established that he would be perfectly happy following her anywhere.
Unbeted, sorry folks.