by Natalie Wrye
“Would you rather I ‘un-seriously’ say that I don’t enjoy your company?”
“Ouch.” He clutches his chest, stumbling back, a lopsided grin on his handsome face. He winces. “You wound me.”
“No more, I’m sure, than the women your friend pulled you out of the bathroom to introduce you to at the party.”
“Were you jealous?”
He arches a brow from the corner of my eye as I pour another patron a glass of wine.
The customers barely notice our conversation; they’re too engulfed in their own.
But even in the crowded bar, I barely notice anyone else around but him. In those few seconds of the world blurring to only reveal him, I have to remind myself that Sawyer Kennedy, like Ros hinted at, might literally be from another world.
It had to be sex between us.
Just. Sex.
And nothing more.
No matter how much I liked his dirty mouth and humor, no matter how much his boneheaded stubborn streak might appeal to me and my Hello Kitty, Sawyer Kennedy had to remain a teacher.
A tutor. Just an instructor with some cunning cunnilingus skills, but absolutely no more.
I had to make sure.
I smile. “In order to be jealous, I’d actually have to give a shit. But thanks for thinking that I do. How flattering.”
“You’re a terrible liar, you know that.”
“Join the club, Mr. Suspension. You’re not fooling me with that ‘no big deal’ talk, so we’ll call it even for the night.
He nods. “That sounds fair…” He glances over his shoulder. “You free right now?”
I scoff. “Sawyer, do I look free? I’ve got customers crawling out of my ears. But if you stick around,” I hate myself a little bit for even saying the words, “maybe we can get a drink afterwards.” I glance his way, trying desperately not to show my nerves. I straighten my shoulders. “I…wanted to talk to you after the party anyway.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Great,” he responds, eyes narrowing. “Because I wanted to talk to you too. I’ll be in the back of the bar if you need me, so don’t work too hard.”
“Some of us need to work, Sawyer. We can’t all be suspended, you know.”
“One more crack like that, and you’ll be walking out of here with my handprint on your ass.”
He laughs, and I watch him walk away, hating how great he looks in those jeans.
Dammit. So much for keeping my focus on just sex.
So much for forgetting about our raunchy rendezvous.
I smile at a customer, slipping them a drink, the expression fighting to stay on my face.
Chapter 7
SAWYER
Wednesday Night
It’s just sex, I tell myself.
Pure, old-fashioned fucking, if you will. But nothing more.
Because I can’t have it for the next two weeks.
I’m not in the habit of stalking women. Or watching them like this.
And if you had asked me a year ago, I sure as hell would never guess I’d be watching, staring, focused, utterly obsessed with keeping my eye on a woman like Naomi Silva.
Not that she isn’t beautiful. She definitely is.
But I’d never guessed she’d be this way…
So open. So interesting. So… fun.
That was all before Monday night. Before she surprised me.
She goes for drink number two now behind the bar. And I can’t stop my fist from tightening.
Spending a Wednesday night in a place where the liquor pours easily and the women are easier has always been as simple as breathing to me.
But doing nothing about it is not.
I never imagined, never in a million years would have guessed that at the ripe old age of twenty-eight, I’d be grounded from participating in sex.
I can’t stop thinking about my conversation with Emily. Or the ultimatum she gave me.
An hour ago, she’d sat in this exact booth alongside Stephan Knight and me from the crisis management firm.
She’d talked to me. Then yelled at me. Then absolutely pummeled me with the truth.
I sat back in my seat.
“The crux of the matter is, Sawyer,” she said, running a hand through her long brown hair, “is that I don’t enjoy giving you this news. But if you keep going down this road of being a player—and not the baseball kind…the Cougars will trade you. No matter how good your arm is, they need a second baseman who’s a little more reliable, someone who won’t put their reputation on the line.”
I glowered. “I am their reputation.”
She sighed. “And you might wanna work on that ‘humility’ thing, while you’re at it. That cocky baseball playboy stunt isn’t winning you any more points.”
“I can’t believe this,” I said, slumping back in my seat, so many thoughts circling through my head. “Is my love life really their problem?”
Stephan and Emily looked at each other before Emily spoke up again, leaning closer, her hazel eyes glowing. “You made it their problem, Saw. Aside from Annabelle Johnson, the owner’s wife, do you care to remember Sarah Little, Cougar’s coach Mike Little’s ballerina niece?” Her amber-green gaze clashed with mine. “Or how about Kimberly Aiko, professional umpire Ted Aiko’s eldest daughter? Or how about Monana Rodriguez who you were seen leaving a bar with late last week?”
“Oh, wow. Okay, I definitely would remember leaving a bar with a ‘Monana.’”
“Maybe not. Not if she weren’t wearing her costume…” Her mouth twisted into a cross of a frown and smirk. “Seeing as how she was the Cougars’ new mascot.”
My eyes lowered, since I didn’t have a rebuttal for that last part. I didn’t have a rebuttal for any of it.
It was the truth.
But now, at their request, I needed a woman to help me learn intimacy before sexuality, selflessness before self-need.
Problem is: the only woman I can think of to teach me the art of monogamy is the sassy virgin standing behind the bar.
My eyes can’t stop straying over to where Naomi stands—bartending, clad in a white blouse and blue jeans, her glasses sitting low on her face.
From her profile, I can only read the smile there. And no amount of lip-reading can help me make out the flirtations passing between her and Chris the bartender, the blond bastard in her ear all night.
I recognize him well. He tried out for the Cougars once before.
A Minor League phenom, he’d pulled his shoulder right before pre-season, blowing his chances. But the small amount of playing time together does nothing to endear me to the man vying for all of Naomi’s attention.
I stare daggers into his chest.
Under the vibrations of a bluesy funk song beating overhead, I lean back in a far booth at the edge of the pub, grabbing my own drink. And my new drinking buddy, Red—whatever her name is—sidles up closer, skimming her body along mine, brushing near. Her hand lands on my knee.
“So do you come here often?”
That line’s older than I am. But I let it slide.
I’ve just met the redhead a mere fifteen minutes before, but already she’s laying it on thick, her voice a sultry sigh in my ear. I keep watching Naomi.
“I’ve been here a few times before,” she presses on without an answer from me. “But I’ve never seen a man who looks like you come through the door. I knew I had to come and say something to you.”
My eyes stay glued to Naomi. To the long line of her. To her ass curved in those perfect-fitting jeans as she leans over, laughing, still talking to the Chris the bartender. I barely move. “Is that right?”
“Oh yes, I wouldn’t lie.” Of course she would. But I don’t say it. “There aren’t many men as attractive as you walking into the Alchemist these days. I would know. I’ve looked enough.”
That part, I believe. This woman’s a chaser. A lioness on the prowl.
But the woman across the speakeasy is anything but. She’s not t
hat type of woman.
I watch the normally uptight assistant, seeing her in a new light as she laughs freely behind the bar—no makeup on, her chipped red-polished fingernails pushing onto her sliding spectacles. My jaw tightens hard enough to need screws.
I hate that she looks different tonight.
She is different tonight.
The prude of a personal assistant I’d come to know and semi-hate is skillfully serving customers and joking with Chris.
Tonight? Tonight was only supposed to be about asking her, getting her help for the one thing that could send my entire sports career flying sideways.
And yet I can’t stop watching her. Wanting to touch her.
She looks free in a way I’ve never seen from her before—light-hearted and sexy, her open blouse hinting at her ample cleavage.
I remember how heavy her breasts felt pressed up against me in that bathroom. How her taut nipples poked against my chest when I held her fast, curving my fingers around her tiny waist.
And to top off the confusion she was wreaking inside me, tonight…it looked like she was wearing the thinnest bra ever made, the tight nubs of her nipples visible against the white fabric.
If I couldn’t keep my eyes off her perfect tits beneath that loose-fitting blouse, I sure as hell knew that Chris couldn’t.
And the thought makes me inexplicably angry.
I reach for my drink, and my hand starts to shake.
“So,” Red can’t take the hint that I don’t want to talk. “You’re an athlete?”
My gaze doesn’t swing to her. I start sipping. “How you can tell?”
“You’ve got that athlete look about you. You know…tall, dark and chiseled? The biceps are a dead giveaway.”
She reaches over, squeezing one, and it takes all of my focus to bring my stare back to hers where I let it linger.
She’s cute—this redhead. Some would consider her adorable.
It’d seemed like a good idea to buy into her dry drivel fifteen minutes ago when she’d asked if I was going to buy her drink. But now? Fifteen minutes later, the distraction I’d been looking for while I watched Naomi seems utterly useless.
Right now, nothing is distracting me from my best friend’s tightly curved personal assistant.
For so long, Naomi had flown under my radar—a notebook in her hands, pen behind her ear, her head usually buried in her bag of tricks she used to Band-aid Sevin’s crazy life and career together.
But tonight, she was setting off all kind of alarms in my brain. Watching her—waiting to ask her to be my no-sex guide—was, without a doubt, getting harder and harder by the minute.
Unfortunately, so is my dick.
Which is probably why Red’s hand lowers. “So, what kind of athlete are you?” She coos, her fingers drifting to my forearm. She clasps it softly, and I swallow more of my vodka on the rocks, the mouthful going down like razors.
I clear my throat. “The one most people consider boring as hell until an eighty miles per hour line drive comes flying from Barry Bonds Junior’s bat at my head.”
She laughs. “You’re funny.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“But if you ask me…” she leans in, as if telling a secret. “I don’t think football is boring at all.”
I turn, staring at her. “Let me guess…You’ve never heard of Barry Bonds?”
“Sure, I have.” She nods. “I’m so good at my office Fantasy league. I know all the good quarterbacks.”
“Right.”
Well, if you’ll excuse me…” I’m not in the mood for an asinine conversation tonight. Even if it means I might get lucky.
She isn’t the one I want.
But before I can call it a night, before I can call quits on pretending not to care that Naomi Silva and her sexy throaty laugh is inserting dark, dirty thoughts into my mind, before I end a day that’s been unbearable to begin with, I hear a commotion back where Chris the bartender stands that makes me look up.
The sound of a stool shuffling loudly against the floor grates on my heightened nerve, and I stand up to notice a guy amongst the crowd at the bar getting louder and louder.
His hands gesture wildly at Naomi, who backs away.
I’m up and out of the booth in seconds, tearing a path across the crowded floor. I make it there faster than I expect, coming up short. His back is to me, but it doesn’t stop me from reaching for the loud-mouth’s shoulder. I wrap one hand around it, squeezing…hard.
It gets his attention and he turns.
“Looks like I’ve been missing all the excitement over there in my empty booth.” I flash a smile at him. “Mind if I cut in?”
Naomi looks up, her cocoa irises meeting mine. “Sure,” she says, her mouth resolute, pressing into a flat line. “This gentleman wanted to buy me a drink again… Though I already have my own. I was kindly letting him know this—for the third time—when he decided to repeat his question louder, disturbing everyone else around him.” She turns her gaze back to the drunkard, her mouth quirking upwards. “Isn’t that so?”
I realize I recognize the asshole. From earlier. Begging to buy Naomi a drink at the bar while she was working.
The guy’s no good with subtlety.
“Come on,” he presses towards her, ignoring me entirely. “You look like you could use another one, gorgeous. Let me buy you an Old Fashioned. Something sweet for something sweet.” He winks, staggering under my hand.
I glance over at Naomi, noting that she’s already a bit inebriated from the shots. She sways slightly on her feet like the lightweight she is, and I squeeze the drunk guy’s shoulder even harder, forcing him to face me.
I lean in. “Look, bro. You heard what she said. She already has her own. Why don’t you pick a more willing date?”
He frowns, his blood-shot eyes looking me over. “Fuck you.”
“Ah, I wish it were that simple. But I have to tell ya: I’m partial to women, so fucking me is out of the question.”
He sneers. “Who the hell are you, anyhow?”
My eyes tick over to Naomi, seeing the pleading in her eyes, the “Please get rid of this guy” written on her furrowed forehead. I tighten my grip.
“I’m a friend…” The word feels weird on my mouth. “But if you’re looking for someone to buy a drink, I’m a vodka fan, so…”
Guess he’s not a fan of the white liquor.
Because he backs up, his face twisting in anger before his shoulder does the same.
He swings at me.
The punch misses by a mile, but it’s enough to piss me off.
Enough to make me take a steady step backwards as I square my shoulders, straightening to my full height.
My hands form fists. “For fuck’s sake, man,” I exhale, “if you don’t like vodka, you could have just said so. I’ll take a whiskey. Hell, even a bourbon. I’m not picky.”
Apparently, this guy is. He doesn’t seem any closer to accepting my drink invitation. And neither does his friend who drunkenly saunters over, joining him, balling up two angry red fists.
And just like that, I’m in for more than I bargained for, the odds suddenly stacked against me.
Two-on-one.
I gaze behind the bar, but Chris the bartender hasn’t moved an inch, simply staring in shock.
Guess my odds are going to remain that way. But that’s fine by me.
I’m bigger than both bastards combined. Snorting out loud, I get into position as the bluesy music overhead changes, shifting into something slower.
“Either of you boys ever heard Johnny Cash’s Legend of John Henry’s Hammer?”
Their narrowed stares tell me no.
“Well, it goes a little like this…” I say as my potential drink date number two comes rushing. I raise my hands, my Cash country accent thick through the air. “‘I see you own your own hammer boy’…”
I keep going as I sidestep the bum-rush. “‘But, what else can all them muscles do’?”
T
he singing ain’t pretty. But it’s effective.
A fumbling Asshole number two turns, this time swinging a closed hand. I duck around his fist, planting my own into his side, wincing as his breath leaves his lungs in a rush.
The first bastard decides to join the fray, and still Johnny Cash croons in my head. The country-singing “Man in black” as he’s often called accompanies me in the midst of the fighting chaos, even as I send an elbow Mr. Fuck-You’s way.
But not before Chris reaches out, punching him, the bartender finally making an appearance. He winks at me.
Down goes the drunkard he hit, buckling at the knee. And soon the four of us are dancing to the tune of the old Hammer song, embattling in a full on-brawl by the time poor old Johnny runs through the chorus part, bellowing low.
Fists, hands and arms swing ‘round and ‘round on a hardwood floor cleared by the crowd. I take a few knuckles to the jaw, smiling wide. Chris crashes his knee against one asshole’s nose until blood gushes.
And still we dance and dance and dance, no one bothering to stop us, the patrons choosing instead to “Ooh” and “aah” at our little corral.
Ironically the song we dance to in fisticuffs is from Cash’s album entitled, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and we leave plenty of our own on the Alchemist’s floor.
Luckily, I’d learned long ago how to “waltz.”
By the time Cash’s guttural notes of “Sweat! Sweat, boy! Sweat! Only two more swings!” come spinning around the record player in my mind, my fellow dancers are already spent, Dumb Drunk One and Dumb Drunk Two laying like rag dolls on the bar’s rustic semi-polished floor.
Panting, I stand there, mouth split into a smile. A small cut above my brow leaking blood onto my shirt, and I find myself laughing after all is said and done, my amused face greeting Naomi’s shocked one as she rounds the mahogany-polished bar, her wide eyes fixed on the men on the floor.
I exhale, reaching for her. But she doesn’t move.
“And to think,” I manage through mangled lips. “All of this could have been avoided with just a little vodka.”
The joke comes easily off my lips, the warmth of my own blood smearing across my teeth in a delicious way.
But maybe it’s not as delicious as I think.
