Grayson really couldn’t explain why she intrigued him. There was something sad about her. Something beyond the slight frown of her disapproval that suggested more than the fact she didn’t want to be here. There was more to her unhappiness. There was something that seemed to call to him to make it all better, though he had no idea why. He had never been attracted to a black woman before. Not so much because he was prejudiced or anything, the issue had just never come up. He was a southern boy, born and raised in South Carolina by parents that just didn’t believe in race mixing. He never really thought about it before. But this woman…

This wasn’t just about physical attraction. His dick might be half hard just looking at her, and getting harder by the second, but he wanted more than to just sleep with her. He sat at his solitary corner table trying to imagine everything about her. What kind of music did she like? Did she dance around her house in her underwear? Did she have a place of her own? Did she have a roommate? Did she live on her ship? There was no doubt assigned to a ship; she was every bit the sailor. There was that confidant way she held herself; like she would rip you apart if so much as look at her the wrong way. All the women at the back table had that. Grayson was just convinced she would be the only one who would actually do it.

Yet there was this something, this vulnerability that hurt to look at. Given his-quirks-when it came to women, it surprised him. He did not want her the way he usually wanted a woman, bound, silent and acquiescent. He couldn’t stand to have the women he picked in bars like this one touch him. He didn’t like the greedy excitement in their eyes, or the conniving for more than one night. But this woman, she was different in a way he couldn’t hope to define, even to himself.
He watched as she scooted her chair back a little further, watching her friends intently. Yeah, she was about to make a break for it. He just had to make sure he captured her before she scurried away. He really couldn’t say why it was important to him; he just knew that he didn’t want her to walk out of here without him. The prospect of never seeing her again was unacceptable.