“Hm. Good,” she said.
“Want to see a trick?” he asked, twirling the stem between his fingers.
She put her hands on her hips. “Sure.”
He put the stem in his mouth, smiled, and took it out a few seconds later, tied in a perfect knot. Damn, that was hot. Her body ached to see what else that tongue could do. But now that she knew Riley Hart was just a great big tease, she wasn’t going to fall for it. Hollywood men like that didn’t go for girls like her.
He held out the stem, but when she didn’t take it, chucked it in a nearby garbage can. “Can I have more cherries?”
“I thought you were going to be useful.”
“You wouldn’t let me,” he retorted.
She handed him a small bowl. “You have a sweet tooth, don’t you?”
He grinned, grabbed a cherry, raised it to his lips and then paused, looking her slowly up and down. “Yup.”
She felt flushed, felt heat run up into her face. Yup, Riley Hart needed to leave now. “Are you going to go?”
He shook his head. “Nope, I’m going to walk you home. Janna would kill me if I didn’t.”
“I’m fine. I go home alone all the time.”
“Not after being attacked,” he said. “And not when I’m around to walk you. Come on, my party got ended early, thanks to you. Entertain me a bit longer.”
She rolled her eyes at his spoiled request, but she also knew this was his own unique way of cheering her up. “Fine, you can sit there while I close the till.”
So he did, bantering while she counted and wrote totals.
“How did you end up owning a bar?”
“My mom was a waitress here. She wanted more for me, so she saved up and put me through college. I came back and bought the place from the owner.”
“Admirable,” he said, playing with another cherry. They were starting to stain his lips. She wanted to see how they’d taste.
“Thanks.” Her ankle ached and she poured herself a drink to deal with it. A little liquid courage couldn’t hurt, right?
A few more servings of liquid courage later, the till was dubiously settled, Riley Hart was still sitting across from her doing sexually suggestive things with cherries, she was crazy aroused by him, and she still had no idea how she was going to get home without hurting or embarrassing herself.
She wasn’t used to admitting weakness. And now she had a bad ankle and was mildly drunk. She grabbed a bottle and he took it from her and put it back down.
“I think I’m cutting you off,” he said quietly.
“No one cuts off the bartender,” she retorted, trying to take the bottle back. He held her off easily. Despite being a tall, curvy woman, she was small compared to him. She leaned over the counter helplessly, trying to take the bottle back while keeping her hold on the stool. She didn’t make it. She toppled off with a squeak and dragged various pens and notepads down with her as she fell.
“Damn, am I really so hard to deal with that you have to get dead drunk just to be around me?” Riley asked, giving her an affectionate scowl as he came around the bar to help her up. He reached out his hands and she took them. “Now stand up,” he said.
She just sat there.
“Come on, that floor can’t be clean enough for that. Maybe we’ll have to bathe you when you get home.” He smirked, and that galvanized her into action. She tried to stand, but her ankle flared and she squeaked and sat back down, this time flat on her butt.
“I wasn’t getting drunk because of you,” she said, hoping it wasn’t too slurred. “I was getting drunk because your friend messed up my ankle when he tripped me.” She gave him a stubborn glare as if daring him to try and do something about it.
Instead, his expression fell and he immediately got down on the ground with her. “Which one?”
She pointed.
“May I?”
She nodded. Wow, he was so respectful all of a sudden. Almost caring. Maybe being drunk made Riley Hart more bearable after all. Then his gentle hands touched her foot and she sucked in a breath. Dammit, never mind, he was completely intolerable. How dare he touch her when she was already aroused and fighting her attraction to him? Riley Hart was the biggest tease in the whole damn world!
“I think it’s sprained,” he said. “Do you have a doctor?”
She rolled her eyes, clinging to her sarcasm so she didn’t fall into the abyss of opening her heart to him. “No. If someone gets sick here, they just die. Natural selection.”
He laughed. “No, I meant do you have a doctor you prefer personally?” He pulled out a cell phone. “I’ll call and offer him whatever he wants to come down here.”
She frowned. “Just because you’re a celebrity, it doesn’t mean you can make everyone do your bidding.”
“Yes it does,” he said frankly, with just a hint of wryness in his smile.
She groaned. “But no, I don’t have a preference. The town doc is fine. Just get me home so I can rest it off until he opens in the morning.”
Riley frowned and ran a hand through his thick, tousled hair. Leslie wanted to do that. She bit her lip and pulled her foot away from him, but he grabbed it and brought it back. He opened a mini fridge next to them and pulled out a bag of ice. He placed it on her ankle. “You know how to get in trouble, don’t you?”
“I didn’t get me in trouble,” she said. “You did.”
He sighed. “Fair enough.”
She hissed at the cold of the ice, and he smoothed a hand up her leg as if to soothe her. It didn’t. Instead, she felt another thrill of arousal surge through her and she bit her lip harder. Much harder and there’d be blood. “Stop that.”
“Stop what?” he asked, a wicked glint in his eye as he drew one fingers slowly back down to the tip of her toe. “I’m just trying to distract you from the pain.”
“You know what you’re doing,” she hissed, trying to pull away, but not very hard due to her injury. “You’re taking advantage, trying to tease me. You love teasing—”
He looked up at her, hazel eyes green and thoughtful. “I what?”
“Love teasing,” she said, turning her head away from him and leaving him with a black cascade of curls to stare at. He reached forward and she felt a gentle, strong finger touch her chin and tilt her face back toward his. Damn, he was dazzlingly handsome. Too shiny to be real.
“I don’t love teasing,” he said slowly, keeping her captive with that one finger, and with his gaze on hers. “I don’t know why you’d say that. You’re the one who has been teasing me for weeks.”
“Hmph,” she said. “You played footsie with me under the table for about an hour when we were up at the lodge, and then you didn’t even ask for my number.”
“I already had it, from the first time we met.”
“Well, you didn’t use it.”
He frowned. “What if I told you Ryder told me off, made me swear not to make a move on any of Janna’s friends until he had her in the bag?”
She scowled. “That’s an unpleasant way to put it.”
He shrugged. “It’s an unpleasant thing.”
“Marriage?” she asked.
He shrugged and kept her delicate chin lifted toward him. He came closer, till their lips were almost brushing. He was careful of her foot. She leaned back against the bar to look up at him. So tall, so stunning. His lips hovered over hers.
“But they’re together now, however unpleasant that may be for them,” he said. “We, on the other hand, can talk about much more pleasant things.” He stroked the side of her cheek softly and she felt small and vulnerable.
And horribly, achingly turned on. She pressed her full lips together and resisted the urge to lick them as she studied his gorgeous mouth.
“Plus, you called me a tease,” he said quietly, coming even closer, till their breaths mingled as one. “I resent that.”
Then his mouth closed over hers.
3
The kiss was wondrous, intense. It sent pleasure surging thr
ough her as if her blood was made of the finest wine, heady and sweet and drunken. It was everything she’d imagined, even if the scenario was not.
She opened her mouth and he deepened the kiss, sucking at her bottom lip and then biting lightly before diving deep inside with a tongue almost too deft to be believed. She groaned against his mouth, and his hand tightened into the back of her hair, holding lightly on to the curls there and tilting her head back so he had even better access. He lowered his mouth to her neck and took what he wanted, kissing and licking the skin there until she felt she’d explode if he didn’t take his tongue somewhere even better, and soon.
She dug her hands into his soft, thick hair. She could feel the product there, wondered what his hair routine was like. This was a person who made his living off his looks after all.
Kissing him, letting him kiss her, she could almost imagine she was the romantic lead in one of his movies, being kissed under the rain as he tore his flannel shirt off and let water slide over his chest. The thought made her hotter and she groaned again lightly as his hand found her full breast.
This, yes, was exactly what she’d wanted from the moment she’d first met him. She wasn’t a girl who asked for promises or long-term commitments. She took her pleasure as she found it and she lived mostly in the moment. Sure, she could hold a grudge, but she was forgiving Riley Hart for pretty much everything he’d ever done right in this moment.
His mouth was so hot, gently breathing against the skin below her ear that he’d tortured a moment earlier. “Do you like that, Leslie?” he asked in a low voice as she squirmed against him.
She didn’t give him an answer. Arrogant man shouldn’t need one.
“I can’t tell,” he said, teasing. “I guess I better keep going.” He nipped her earlobe, caught it between his teeth and ran his tongue swiftly along its captured edge. She gasped at the feeling and squirmed more against the hand that held her breast. Kneading, caressing. “Or that?” he asked.
But he wasn’t really asking. He was showing, the scoundrel. And she was letting him. She wasn’t drunk enough to not know what he was doing. She was just drunk enough to let it happen even though they were on the floor behind her bar.
But who cared where one was when one was being kissed by Riley Hart?
She sighed and held the corded back of his neck as he nibbled her earlobe again.
She couldn’t believe she was making out with the Riley Hart on the floor of her bar. Dreams really did come true.
When should she tell him she’d fantasized about this long before she’d actually thought meeting him was a possibility?
He groaned and pulled back, cupping her cheek gently, looking into her eyes with those pretty hazel wonders.
Green, gold, even little flecks of blue. She could look into them forever.
“You’re so drunk,” he said, sounding sorry about it.
“No, I’m not,” she said, trying to pull him back to her neck.
He gritted his teeth and pulled back to look her over. “Stay here for a minute. Do you have a first-aid kit?”
“In the closet in the back room.”
“Do I need a key?”
She sighed in resignation and handed her keys over.
He stood, leaving her in a haze of her own lust, and walked to the back. He came back with a roll of gauze.
“Dammit,” she said. “I want you to take care of me, but not exactly in that way.”
“Well, unfortunately, we’ve gone about as far as we can go without you properly able to consent.”
She snorted. “I can consent.”
He shook his head. “Well, if you still feel like that later, when your buzz has worn off, I’ll take things up where we left off.”
“That a promise?” she asked wearily, after a small hiccup.
He assessed her with wary eyes as he wrapped her ankle gently. He didn’t answer.
“You’re good at this,” she said, looking at her foot.
“Thanks, I was pre-med before I was discovered,” he said.
“Think you’ll ever go back?” she asked.
He looked slightly sad at that, but it flashed away and his easy smile was back. “I don’t know if it’s possible for a celebrity to go to med school. I’d be harassed constantly.” He finished wrapping her foot and put tape to hold it in place. “There you go. Upsy-daisy.” He reached under her and lifted her easily in his arms.
She gasped. She was a big girl and had never been carried like this. But with his extreme height and muscle, she felt perfectly sized, and perfectly safe. She sighed and let her head rest against his chest. When the buzz wore off, she’d probably be angry with herself and him to boot. But for now, she was enjoying the fantasy.
She felt like the heroine in a chick flick. Which was just so not her life.
She snuggled in and let him carry her toward the door.
* * *
Riley sighed as he carried Leslie to the door, still painfully hard from making out with her. Damn, he’d been picturing kissing those hot lips since he’d first seen her.
Even before his brother had laid claim on Janna when they first entered the lodge, Riley had noticed Leslie. Seen the want in her eyes.
And it wasn’t the typical fangirl want, the need to check Riley Hart off a bucket list. It was something else.
She was luscious, too, just like he liked his women. Lush, fiery, tall enough that he didn’t have to break his back reaching down to kiss or hold her. Curvaceous enough to give him something to hold on to, generously proportioned enough to make him feel safe giving her all he had to give.
He bit his lip at the feel of her body in his arms. If only all the Hollywood chicks throwing themselves at him back home knew this was what he preferred. He guessed he was going to start getting rumors about being a snob soon, but really, he just didn’t feel much attraction to the girls around him back in Los Angeles.
Leslie, however… She’d been a pain in his groin since she sashayed into his life with that incredible butt and that incredible hair that should be splayed out over his pillow. Forever.
He caught his breath at the direction of his thoughts. She made him think of things he’d promised himself he wouldn’t think about.
Commitment, love, forever. Things that someone like him could never have.
His bear growled in response and he shoved it away.
Though he was a bear shifter, Riley was determined to live as a human. He’d shoved the bear side of himself far away, until there was no risk of anyone seeing it, ever.
After all, that’s what had gotten his mom killed. It was a painful secret that Riley had never told anyone.
He still remembered the phone call.
His heart went cold as stone, and it at least made it easier to carry the lush burden in his arms.
It was a good reminder of who he was and who he wasn’t.
Hollywood was the perfect place for someone like him. He’d been acting all his life.
Neither his brothers nor his father knew he’d played a part in his mother’s death, and he’d be damned if he told them now.
No, he’d do his penance, but he would never expose himself like that again. He knew that no one would ever be able to accept all of him.
That was fine. Well, except that it wasn’t. But Riley hoped that if he just kept telling himself that it was, maybe things would work out.
Leslie murmured something and nestled against his chest, and his groin went hard again. Did he have no control with her? She had an effect on him that no other woman had. He’d been trying to fight it since he met her.
Ryder had told him hands-off until he had Janna’s agreement to be his, and Riley had used that as an excuse to avoid the delicious female. Given what Riley had cost his brothers, he figured he owed them just about anything they asked for.
His brothers didn’t know the real him. They thought he was a joker, a player who wanted a harem of women.
In reality, Riley just wanted to be alone.
/>
Well, surrounded by a ton of people, but alone in any way that actually mattered.
He looked down at her restful face. Her eyes were closed, but he wasn’t sure if she was asleep.
He didn’t want to hurt her, but he did want her. With a want more powerful than anything he’d experienced. What did that mean?
His bear growled something but he ignored it. He hated his bear. It had ruined Riley’s life.
He knew that he shouldn’t live at odds with himself, but he couldn’t help it.
He didn’t think he’d ever forgive himself for that night.
He opened the door to his Jaguar and deposited Leslie gently in the passenger seat. He went to the driver’s side and started the car so it would warm up, and then went back to lock the door to the bar. He jogged around the back to make sure the back door was also locked.
When he was sure all the lights were off and nothing was in danger of burning down overnight, he jogged back to the car. The rest would have to wait until tomorrow.
He shouldn’t have brought his friends here. Then again, Ryder should never have called them. With Ryder soon to be married, he seemed worried that Riley would sink into one of his depressed moods. But he wasn’t upset that his brother was getting hitched and ending their days as three bachelors.
If he was honest with himself, it was just hard seeing someone else get the one thing he didn’t think he’d ever have.
Something that he wanted, deep down, in a secret part of himself.
Riley got into the car and looked over at Leslie. She had snuggled into her seat, and he had to move her slightly to get her seatbelt on.
“Leslie? Where do you live?” he asked. He didn’t want to take her back to his place at the lodge because that wouldn’t be as close to the doctor, and he planned to take her there in the morning.
He really hoped her ankle wasn’t too messed up. He knew she needed her feet for standing at work.
A little idea worked its way into his mind, but he brushed it away. First, he needed to get her home.
Bearlebrity: (BWWM) Paranormal BBW Bear Shifter Romance Standalone Page 2
