by J. Lynn
“You need to get out more,” came a voice from behind me.
Roxy folded her arms as she raised her brows at the intruder. I turned sideways. A tall man stood there, his close-cropped dark brown hair matching his classically handsome face. He winked in Roxy’s direction.
“It reminds me of home,” I replied, raising my glass to my lips.
The guy laughed. “Then I’m kind of worried about your home.”
Before I could respond, Roxy sighed. “Shut up, Reece.”
A smile broke out across his face as his gaze shifted toward her. “Oh, I love it when you get bossy with me.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You love me,” he replied.
“I don’t know why.” She sighed again, much more dramatically. “But I do.”
So this was the boyfriend she’d mentioned last time. Nice. Roxy had good taste. Reece tapped his fingers on the shoulder of the guy on the stool. The man looked over at him, and Reece raised his brows. “Why don’t you be a gentleman and let this lady have the seat?”
“That’s not—”
Before I could voice my protest, the man was out of the seat. “All yours, officer.”
Officer? Roxy’s boyfriend was a cop? For some reason, I had a hard time picturing her with one. “All yours,” Reece offered.
“Thanks.” I sat down, and my feet thanked me. “You didn’t have to do that, though.”
Reece took the spot I’d been standing in. “A guy shouldn’t be sitting when there’s a lady standing. It’s as simple as that.” Stretching at the waist, he leaned over the bar and tapped one finger off his lips.
A pink flush spread across Roxy’s cheeks, but she planted one on him. As she started to lean back, Reece’s hand snaked out and curved around the nape of her neck. Holding her in place, he tilted his head to the side and really went to town.
Good Lord.
Watching them, I felt my eyes widen, and also felt the need to start fanning myself. That was a kiss and then some, and it just kept going and going. One of Roxy’s arms had gone around Reece’s shoulders, and I half expected him to drag her across the bar. A slow grin pulled at my lips, but underneath the amusement, there was a sliver of unsettlement. Almost like unease, but tinged in another emotion I had tasted earlier. I wasn’t sure why I felt that, at this moment, but I sat my beer down on the bar, next to my purse.
From a few feet away, Jax turned to us. “Really, guys?”
With a deep, rumbling chuckle, Reece let go of Roxy, and she settled back on her feet, her eyes unfocused. Someone catcalled, and she blinked rapidly. Narrowing her eyes at her boyfriend, she straightened her glasses.
“You’re terrible,” she admonished. “And you make a horrible first impression.”
“I think I make an awesome first impression,” he replied, sending a grin in my direction. “I’m Reece Anders—the love of Roxy’s life.”
I couldn’t resist that grin. “I’m Steph Keith.”
“Ah, the infamous Steph.” He glanced at Roxy. “Where is—”
“On break.” Roxy’s smile was too bright, too wide. “Sorry about his rude interruption. He’s socially damaged.”
“I’m also very thirsty,” he replied, eyeing the tap.
Roxy cocked her head to the side. “You see Jax over there? Why don’t you get him to serve you?”
“That’s mean,” he murmured, but he was still grinning as he pushed off the bar. “I’ll be back.” He wheeled around, heading toward Jax, who stood farther down the bar. As he rounded me, he tapped my shoulder with his fingers. “I like it when she’s feisty.”
I laughed outright as Roxy let out an exasperated groan that Reece largely ignored. “He seems like a handful,” I said once he was over by Jax.
“Girl, you have no idea.” Her eyes widened behind the glasses. “But he’s . . . he’s a great man, and I’m so incredibly lucky, like more than you can realize.”
“Oh, sounds like there’s a story there.”
She smiled softly. “There is. I would . . .” She trailed off as another smile nearly split her face. “Perfect!”
Realizing she was staring at something behind me, I looked over my shoulder. My mouth dropped open. A woman had just walked in, and I . . . I didn’t even know what she was wearing.
It was a dress. I think. A dress made out of . . . black duct tape, maybe? That’s what it looked like. Skintight, it was nothing more than strategically placed stripes of some kind of black material. It crisscrossed her svelte body, leaving very little to the imagination with the amount of side boob that was visible. Her heels were high enough to make me feel like a wimp for caving in and going with flats.
She strutted in our direction, her hips swaying in a way that drew the attention of nearly every man in the bar. The tall, statuesque blonde had confidence for days.
“You know what I need,” she said to Roxy, who was already grabbing a bottle of tequila. She glanced in my direction and her bubble-gum-pink lips pursed. “You’re hot. Wow.”
I opened my mouth, but I had no idea how to respond to that. At all. Nope. Nada.
“This is Steph.” Roxy placed a shot on the bar. “Steph, this is Katie.”
“Hi,” I said, wiggling my fingers.
Her gaze dropped and she checked me out more boldly than most of the guys there had. “Wait.” Her pink-tipped, super long nails grazed her shot glass. “Is this the Steph?”
“The Steph,” Roxy agreed. “She was the next one to walk into the bar after Aimee.” Heavy meaning dripped from her words. “And . . .”
I started to frown. First, Reece referred to me as the “infamous Steph,” and now I was “the Steph”? What in the world was going on here?
“Wow. This is awesome.” Lifting the shot to her mouth, she slammed the drink like a pro. “This is so freaking awesome. I knew it. I totally called it.” She tipped her fingers off her temple. “I’m psychic.”
Wordless, I shook my head as I glanced at Roxy. The bartender’s cheeks were turning red as she gave a lopsided shrug. “Katie has been dead on when it comes to her predictions.”
“It’s a gift. A curse. I fell off a greased-up pole one night. Hit my head. Long story that I’m sure I’ll have time to tell you later.” She propped a hip against the bar while I simply stared at her. “Is that your purse?”
When I nodded, she reached for it and, completely shell-shocked, I watched her open it and pull out my phone. Normally I would’ve been all over that, but all I could do was gape at her as her fingers flew over my phone.
“I’ve texted Roxy and me from your phone. So you now have our numbers and we have yours. There’s no escaping us. We’re going to adopt you as our new best-est friend-est in the world-est.” She slipped my phone back in my purse and plopped it down on the bar in front of me. “You’re going to get breakfast with us on Sunday. Of course, you’re probably thinking ‘Oh hell no,’ but you’re totally going to come.”
I was still gaping at her.
“There is so much we need to tell you.” Turning back to Roxy, Katie started to speak, but stopped, clapping her hands together. “I have the best timing. Ever.”
For a moment I didn’t know what she was talking about, and then I saw him. Nick. My heart did a little flop, and that shocked me as much as Katie did. My heart rarely flopped, and I hadn’t really thought about Nick during these two weeks. All right, that wasn’t a hundred percent true. I had thought about him a time or two or ten, but those thoughts were fleeting. So my reaction, the way I felt my cheeks flush and how my spine stiffened, surprised me.
Nick strolled out from a hallway on the other side of the bar. Wearing another dark shirt that seemed to be seconds away from bursting at the seams when he lifted his hand, thrusting his fingers through his hair, he looked as yummy as I remembered.
He went to where Jax stood talking to Reece, giving us an eyeful as he lifted a case of bottles onto the bar, his muscles rolling and flexing under the shirt. Reece said something, and Nick stepped back, laughing. The sound was loud and infectious, and my lips tugged up at the corners in response. He replied as he turned in our direction, his smile easy. His gaze lifted, drifting over the bar.
Our gazes collided in an instant.
Nick stopped in his tracks, as if he’d walked straight into an invisible wall. A strange tension seeped into his features as the smile slipped off his face. Shock splashed over it, and then he was heading in our direction on his side of the bar, ignoring Roxy as she stepped aside with a look on her face that said the only thing she was missing was a bucket of popcorn.
“Hi Nick,” cooed Katie.
She was also ignored as he stared across the counter at me, his eyes as cool as winter mint. Tiny knots formed in my belly as he placed both hands on the bar and dipped his chin. All I could think about was where his fingers had been the last time I’d seen him and whether they’d end up there again, because why not?
“Stephanie,” he said in that deep voice of his, and wisps of pleasure coiled tight. “What are you doing here?”
Chapter 5
His question squelched the budding tendrils of pleasure as if he had reached inside me and caught them in a fist. I drew back, inhaling sharply as my stomach clenched. “Excuse me?”
“Oh no,” whispered Roxy, turning to the side. Someone waved a twenty dollar bill like a white flag of surrender and it caught her attention.
“You’re a dumbass,” Katie said to Nick, and then twirled toward me. “Give him hell. The payoff is so much better in the end. See you on Sunday. Tootles!”
As Katie pranced off, a faint pink crept across the center of Nick’s cheeks. He lowered his voice. “I thought we had an understanding.”
Perhaps, when I’d walked into Mona’s tonight, I’d fallen into some kind of alternate universe? Every conversation I was in felt like I was only hearing half of it. “An understanding of what?”
He tilted his head to the side. “You haven’t come back to the bar in two weeks.”
“Uh. Yeah. I’ve been busy.” My hair slid over my shoulder as I leaned forward, the edges brushing the top of the counter. “I don’t think I’m following where this conversation is heading.”
“You haven’t been back since the night we hooked up,” he explained, his moss green eyes cool. “So I figured we were on the same page.”
“Obviously we’re not.”
Nick glanced over his shoulder briefly, scanning the bar. His shoulders tensed when his eyes met mine again. When he spoke, his voice was low enough that I could barely hear him. “That night was just that night. One time. There’s no reason for you to come back here, especially you.”
Whoa. There was so much wrong in that statement I didn’t even know where to start. Anger rushed to the surface, crowding my senses, and for that I was grateful, because beneath the fiery emotion was a keen sense of . . . of disappointment. I didn’t know Nick that well, but from the brief time we’d spent together, I thought we had been on the same page. Not his page, obviously. His page had asshole written all over it, over and over again.
“Let me get this straight,” I said, my voice surprisingly level. “You thought that I would not come back to the bar, because we’d hooked up?”
He didn’t reply for a long moment. “That’s how it’s always been. One night. You said so yourself.”
That’s how it’s always been? Wow. I almost laughed, except nothing about this was funny. “And just to make sure we’re completely on the same page, you think I came back here solely to see you?”
One side of his lips curled up. “Well, why else would you come here? Someone like you is much better suited for the bars and clubs in the city.”
My lips slowly parted. “Someone like me?”
“You know you’re gorgeous. You know—”
“Stop right there,” I ordered, placing both my hands on the bar countertop. “We are not and obviously never have been on the same page, Nick. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. And frankly, how I look has absolutely nothing to do with what bars I go to.”
Nick blinked as surprise crowded his features again. “Hey, I’m—”
“You’re unbelievable.” I pushed to my feet, grabbing my purse off the counter. “The last time I checked, this bar wasn’t your oyster and you sure as hell aren’t the pearl in it. You may get to tell other people—other women—what they can and cannot do, but that will never, ever, work with me.”
He drew back, brows furrowing, but I wasn’t done. “I’ve never regretted anything that I’ve done. Until now.”
Admitting the truth stung more than it should have. I turned away before I knocked him upside the head with my purse. I made it two steps before I heard him call my name.
“Stephanie. Steph.” There was a pause and then, “Shit.”
Gasps rose, and I looked over my shoulder, just in time to see Nick vault over the bar like a damn gymnast. He’d cleared the bar by several inches. My jaw hit the floor as he landed in a perfect crouch and rose fluidly. Was he some kind of superhuman? That move was rather . . . impressive.
Roxy stood next to Jax behind the bar. Both had stopped in the middle of handling drinks. Liquid sloshed over the glass Roxy had been pouring. Jax looked torn between laughing and yelling at Nick.
Tension seized my muscles as Nick stalked right up to where I stood. He wrapped his hand around mine, the hold gentle. A good head or so taller than me, he towered over me, and all that made me want to do was punch him in the solar plexus. “We need to talk,” he said.
“I think that’s the very last thing we need to do,” I snapped.
His eyes softened. “I’m going to have to disagree. Let’s talk.” A strand of dark hair fell across his forehead. “Please.”
A huge part of me still wanted to whack him with my purse, or better yet, introduce my knee to a sensitive part of him, but most, if not all, of the bar was staring at us. We—actually, Nick—was already causing a major scene. Eyes were fastened on us. Heat crept up my neck.
“Are you going to make me get down on my knees and beg?” he asked, those lips curving up at the corners again. “Because I will. Right here.”
“You wouldn’t.”
His eyes glimmered in the low light. “I would.”
My jaw ached from how tightly I was grinding my teeth. “Fine. We can talk.”
“Perfect.” Nick winked, and turned around, leading me.
“We don’t need to hold hands.”
“But we do.” He looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes widened with innocence. “I’m afraid you’ll change your mind and run off on me, then I’ll be all kinds of sad.”
I shot him a dirty look as he guided me out. Everyone was watching. One quick glance told me Roxy had recovered enough to stop watering the bar. We headed toward the hallway.
“Nick.” Jax appeared at the side of the bar closest to us. “Don’t make me have to clean down the office later.”
My jaw snapped open. Fire was seconds away from bursting out of my mouth. “Yeah, that won’t be necessary.”
“I like her. A lot.” Jax grinned as he turned back to the bar.
“Of course you do,” Nick muttered.
I flipped him off with my free hand, but he didn’t see it as he pulled me down a narrow hall. He opened a door to our right, and after I walked in, I immediately yanked my hand free as he kicked the door closed behind us.
Tossing my purse on a black leather couch, I spun around to face him. Now that we were somewhere private, every F-bomb known to man was about to make an appearance. I stepped toward him, my hands balling into fists as I opened my mouth.
Nick crossed the distance between us in a blink
of an eye. He was so fast that I stood there like an idiot as he got right up in my personal space, placing his hands just below my jaw. His hands were large and warm, and he spread his fingers out, his thumbs smoothing over the skin on either side of my lips.
His eyes met mine and they were heated like they had been the night at my apartment. “I’m going to be brutally honest right now.”
“Like you haven’t been already?” I shot back, reaching for his wrists. I wrapped my fingers around them.
Nick smiled, flashing even white teeth. “See. It’s that.”
“What?”
“The attitude,” he explained, drawing me closer. “When you throw it at me, all I can think about is getting deep inside you again.”
My mouth dropped open once more. Honestly, I was just going to walk around all night with my jaw flapping open.
“I normally don’t go back for seconds. Things always get . . . complicated when you do, but with you . . .” His voice dropped and his breath was warm against my lips. My body was a dumbass because an illicit shiver of pleasure coiled tight low in my stomach. “Yeah, I’d be willing to make an exception to my rules.”
At first I wasn’t sure I had heard him right. He couldn’t honestly be suggesting what I thought he was, but his hands did a slow slide down my neck to my shoulders. The space between us vanished. His hips pressed against my lower stomach, and oh yeah, he was being serious.
Planting my hands on his chest, I shoved him hard. Nick stumbled a step, and in the back of my head I knew it was only because I’d caught him off guard. “Are you for real?” I demanded.
“That last time I checked I was,” he replied.
“Then you have got to be the dumbest son of a bitchy bastard,” I retorted, feeling the prickly rise of irritation and latching onto it.
The lines around his mouth twitched and he looked away, compressing his lips.
“You think this is funny?” I planted my hands on my hips and glared up at him. “What’s funny is the fact you think you’re going to ‘get deep in me’ again. I’d rather pluck each stray hair on my body one by one instead.”
