by Olivia Myers
They both remained still for a long moment, gazes locked. He tried to read the expression in her pale blue eyes, but couldn’t. His blood pounded in his temples and groin. Want was a roaring beast in his belly. It had been a long time since he’d been that turned on by a woman. And he could tell she wanted him too. If her blown out pupils and flushed throat weren’t a dead giveaway, he could practically smell the warm stickiness of her arousal.
An empty beer bottle clinked on a table, reminding Duke where he was. He released her arm and stepped back, gratified to see her sway a little when he let her go. He took a deep, steadying breath and then kicked at a piece of broken glass near his toe.
“Broom’s in the closet. Second door on the left.” He tipped his head toward the darkened back hallway that led to the restrooms, supply closet, and his office. “Get this cleaned up and then I’ll run you through your duties before things get busy later.”
She blinked, rubbing her wrist. “I’ve got the job? I mean…” She shook her head. “I have waitressing experience.”
Duke skirted the bar and bent to grab refills for the customers he’d been neglecting during their little confrontation. “Great. You’ll get a chance to prove it tonight. Now go get the broom, Blondie.”
She snorted and tossed her hair again, but headed for the hallway with her hips swinging like a pendulum and drawing every eye in the place.
“My name is Lexi.”
***
Lexi slipped easily out of the curl of the burly biker’s arm with a light chuckle and a wink.
“I hardly think that’s the kind of question you’d ask your sister, Tex.”
Tex shook his shaved head and ran a scarred, tattooed hand over his long, red blonde beard.
“If she looked like you, I might.” He winked.
The rest of the guys at the table guffawed. Lexi joined in their amusement, shaking her head as she gathered up the empties littering the sticky surface with nimble fingers.
It was nearing midnight. The jukebox was blaring Skynyrd and the clack of pool balls was nearly constant. She’d been officially on the clock at Shotguns since six, and her feet were starting to ache. Not that she’d give Duke the satisfaction of letting him know it.
She hadn’t lied when she’d told the taciturn bar owner that she had experience, but a single semester waiting tables at the small café on campus hadn’t exactly prepared her for Shotguns. She still wasn’t entirely sure what she’d been thinking when she saw the small ‘Now Hiring’ post on the board out front and strode through the door. She’d never set foot in a bar like Shotguns before.
While her fellow classmates preferred dance clubs and the few childhood friends she still maintained all frequented high class wine bars and gastro pubs, Lexi’s hunting ground of choice was the low key, blue collar bars where she was guaranteed to meet the kind of men she liked… the ones with calloused hands who smelled of clean sweat and hard work. The ones nothing like her stepfather Curtis; that posh bastard thought women came in only two categories — mistress and trophy wife — both of which existed on his sufferance.
Lexi liked her men manly, used to strong women but not browbeaten by them. She liked them confidently good in bed and secure enough not to throw a tantrum when she kicked them out in the morning. That was important, because Lexi didn’t do repeats. Ever. Have sex with a guy more than once and you might as well be dating. People said women were the more emotional gender, but in her experience it was always the guys who got ideas if she let them stick around. Ideas about exclusivity and availability.
Lexi didn’t plan on ever belonging to anyone. She’d seen how well that turned out for her mother. Marian Whittington wasted all of her considerable brilliance desperately trying to keep Curtis happy, and made herself miserable in the process. The only thing that could get a genuine smile out of her these days was a perfect martini and the sight of the pool guy, Miguel, in his tight shorts.
She’d tried to convince her mother to divorce Curtis, or at least have a fling with Miguel. Unfortunately, her mother claimed to love her overbearing husband. Besides, it turned out Miguel was gay.
“Planning on taking these pints over to table fourteen any time soon, or are you just here to stand around and look pretty?”
Duke was scowling at her again. Lexi wondered if he’d stop if she told him how hot it looked. No doubt the tall, muscular bartender thought he looked intimidating when he scrunched up his dark eyebrows and looked down his slightly crooked nose at her. And it did make her weak in the knees, but for entirely different reasons.
“If they’d been ready when I asked for them, I wouldn’t have to stand around!”
She rolled her eyes as she loaded the heavy mugs onto her tray and stomped away from the bar. Duke grumbled behind her and since he couldn’t see her face, Lexi allowed her lips to curve.
The second her eyes had adjusted to the gloom inside Shotguns earlier, her breath had caught in her throat. Even standing behind the water-ring stained bar, his height had been obvious. Having been tall all her life, Lexi loved a man who could tower over her.
Duke wasn’t only tall, he was broad-shouldered and muscular with deep black hair, a square jaw dotted with a day’s worth of dark stubble, a strong nose that had been obviously broken at least once, and full, sensual lips. Beneath the thick, straight eyebrows, his eyes were the dark brown of freshly brewed coffee.
In short, he was the kind of guy Lexi would have crawled all over if she’d met him at one of the tiny dives she frequented when she was on the lookout for a hook-up. Under those circumstances, she would have charmed him out of his surly mood with smiles and light touches until she had him grinning and in her bed. Instead, she’d had to meet him attitude to attitude.
Lexi knew he’d clocked her as a spoiled little rich girl. And yes, Curtis had plenty of money. But she worked her ass off to earn her degree and only took what she needed from him. The whole reason she was looking for a job was to earn extra cash. She’d taken on two roommates to save on rent and did a lot of her shopping at sample sales and secondhand boutiques. Her stepdad still paid her tuition and the lease on her car, but as soon as she could afford it, she’d stop taking that, too.
Thankfully, she’d been able to prove to Duke that she was more than just a ditz with an entitlement complex. It had been risky to physically challenge the big man, she knew that, but she’d had to show him that she wasn’t going to be intimidated by the rough clientele.
“Lexi, honey, can I get another round o’ Jäger shots over here?”
Axel wiggled his eyebrows at her. The rangy biker could be the poster boy for ‘rough clientele.’ He was good-looking in a sharp way with sandy brown hair tied back in a bandana and dark tattoos covering every inch of his bare arms from fingertips to shoulders. Several more tats were visible above the neck of his t-shirt. He wore stained blue jeans with a hunting knife on the belt, heavy black boots, and a leather vest (he called it a cut) over a grey tee.
When he’d first arrived, he’d given her a bit of a hard time, asking her what a ‘princess’ like her was doing in a place like Shotguns. She’d joked back, saying she was looking for her Prince Charming. Then he’d grabbed her ass. She’d made it very clear that if he wanted to have unbroken fingers, he’d keep them to himself.
Now he was trying to charm his way into her panties. She might have let him, too… if not for Duke. Ever since their encounter earlier, she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about how his body had felt against hers. Hot and oh-so-hard. Not to mention how good he’d smelled, like citrus and clean cotton and a hint of salt sweat.
His dismissive comment about giving her a go if she was still around at closing had pissed her off, but it had also fired her blood. And she knew she’d gotten to him too. She’d seen, and felt, the thick erection straining the worn denim of his jeans.
“There you go, boys.” She flashed Axel and his buddies a smile as she doled out the shot glasses without spilling a drop. “Enjoy!”
&
nbsp; “I’d enjoy it more if you sat right here,” one of the other scruffy bikers said, patting his broad thigh.
“Lexi!”
She winked at the table as Duke’s shout cut through the din of the bar. “Sorry. Duty calls.” She hurried away before they could protest. By the time she’d woven through the tables and made it to the bar, Duke was — surprise, surprise — scowling.
“Damn it, woman, could you concentrate on doing your job for more than five minutes? This is a bar, not The Love Connection.”
Lexi set down her tray and did a slow, pointed scan of the room. Not a single patron had an empty glass or bottle. When her gaze came back around to Duke, she lifted an eyebrow.
“Good thing it’s not, because with your bad attitude you’d be shit out of luck, boss.”
It wasn’t true. If anything, the gruff way he barked at her got her even hotter than when he’d been pleasantly polite earlier as he’d showed her where everything was and explained her job duties. Something about his furrowed brow and the twist of his lips when he gave her attitude just pushed her buttons.
Given his response when she gave attitude back, Lexi suspected he felt the same. They’d been bickering and bantering all night, and it was starting to feel like foreplay. She’d spent the last several hours trying to distract herself from inappropriate thoughts about her new boss with limited success. More than one patron had commented about her ‘headlights’ being ‘on.’
Duke turned as someone shouted from the other end of the bar.
“Take that smart ass of yours down to the cooler and change out the Guinness before I decide to take offense and fire it.”
Lexi snorted, but did as he said.
And that’s how the rest of the night went. She’d been a little worried that someone would start trouble, but everyone was pretty laidback. Though, when she’d pointed that out to Duke, he’d said, “It’s only Thursday.”
Maybe so, but it hadn’t escaped Lexi’s notice that of all the men she met that night, he gave her the hardest time of all. And by the time they were closing up, she had a pocket full of tips, sore feet, and drenched panties thanks to one surly bartender.
Once all the glasses had been loaded into the dishwasher and all the tables wiped down, Lexi stretched, pressing her palms into the small of her back until her spine cracked.
Duke had gone into the back a few minutes earlier to get her the paperwork she needed to fill out. She’d do it tomorrow before she came back in. At the moment, she was beat and looking forward to crawling into her own soft bed.
Alone, unfortunately. As much as Duke lit her fire, it probably wasn’t the best idea to sleep with her boss. At least, that’s what she kept reminding herself as she made her way down the hall toward Duke’s office.
He had his back to the door, head bent as he rifled through a battered metal filing cabinet. Lexi took a moment to admire the strong lines of his back and legs. Her avid gaze lingered on the taut curves of his ass. She didn’t normally care one way or another about a guy’s ass, but there was no denying that Duke’s was a spectacular specimen. She wanted to grab a double handful and squeeze. Maybe take a bite of that firm muscle.
Her nipples tightened with desire and heat fluttered low in her belly.
Lexi jerked her eyes away, scanning the room instead. The office was small, with plain white walls and thin grey carpet on the floor. The big desk, littered with piles of paper, took up most of the space. A combination bulletin board/dry erase board hung behind it. A filing cabinet and a safe lined one wall. The other sported a few framed photographs. She was unsurprised to see one of Duke in some sort of military uniform in a desert climate, surrounded by several other men dressed similarly.
The smile blazing from beneath his helmet was a bit of a shock though.
Another photo showed him in front of a Christmas tree with an older couple and an arm around a woman who looked so much like the delicate, feminine version of him that she could only be a sister. There were several more, Duke with various family members and friends. Two in particular caught her eye though, both of them of him by himself.
One showed him standing behind the bar, arms crossed and brow furrowed in the now familiar scowl. But there was a twinkle in his eye and the corner of his mouth was turned slightly up as if he was fighting off a grin. He looked a couple years younger and the bar looked significantly less scuffed up. Taken when he first bought it, perhaps. Lexi could easily imagine his sister behind the camera, trying to cajole a smile out of him.
The other was a candid outdoor shot of him in three quarter profile. He was dressed casually in a t-shirt and cargo shorts, sunglasses covering his dark eyes. What was remarkable about it was that he was halfway up what looked to her like a nearly sheer cliff face. She could see the black lines of the harness around his thighs and waist and the very thin (in her opinion) rope disappearing above him, but the sight of him clinging to the rock, the muscles of his arms and calves bulging with tension, took her breath away.
“You ever been?”
Duke’s low voice made her heart skip a beat. She dragged her attention away from the picture to find him staring at her, a sheaf of papers in his hand. Her throat made a dry clicking noise as she swallowed.
“What?”
“Rock climbing,” he clarified, nodding at the picture she’d been ogling. “Ever been?”
“Oh. No. It… uh… looks fun.” It looked scary as hell.
She watched his full mouth curve upward. The smile wasn’t quite as bright as the ones he sported in the pictures on the wall, but it was still enough to make her clench her thighs together.
“It’s a total rush. It gets your heart pumping and when it’s a really good climb you feel it in your whole body. It’s… exhilarating.”
Lexi’s blood seemed to have been replaced with thick honey. It trickled through her veins, slow and sweet. Looking into Duke’s dark eyes, she felt heavy and warm and ripe. Her tongue slid out to toy at the corner of her mouth.
“Oh? I like the sound of that.”
Duke seemed to realize the effect his words had on her, because the smile faded, replaced by a heated look from beneath his heavy brows. The papers fluttered to the floor as he closed the short distance between them.
They’d been dancing around the attraction between them since the moment she’d walked into Shotguns, so it was absolutely no surprise to Lexi that the minute Duke’s mouth touched hers she went up in flames.
He angled his head and took her lips with savage grace. Lexi opened for his tongue, sucking at the slick muscle as it invaded her mouth. Duke growled, the sound reverberating deliciously through her chest. His big hands clutched at her hips, blunt-tipped fingers digging into her flesh through the denim of her skirt.
She reached up, standing on tip-toe and wrapping her arms around his muscled shoulders. The hair at the nape of his neck was short and silky. She scratched at it lightly with her fingernails.
Duke shoved her back against the wall, rattling several things on the shelf above their heads. A coil of soft rope slid down from its place looped around a bracket to brush her cheek. One calloused hand skated down her thigh to tease the back of her knee. When it trailed back up her thigh, he hiked her skirt with it.
Lexi nipped his lower lip, pressing her shoulders back against the wall as he pulled her leg up around his waist. She hooked her boot heel behind his thigh and arched her hips, undulating to press against the prominent ridge of his erection.
“Christ, I can feel how hot you are.” He groaned the words against her ear before trailing wet, open mouthed kisses down her throat.
She lifted her other leg, letting him take her weight as she locked her ankles behind his back. Duke shoved up her shirt and bra, his mouth latching onto the hard tip of her breast and sucking greedily, making her arch her back and cry out. Her fingernails dug into his biceps as her hands roamed his arms and chest.
“Duke, please, fuck… just…” Lexi didn’t know what she was saying. Her
brain was all white noise and pleasure, her skin aflame everywhere he touched her. One minute his big hands were kneading her ass as he devoured her breasts, turning her into a writhing, whimpering thing.
Then he pulled her grip from around his neck, clutching both her thin wrists in one broad palm and pressing them over her head. Her fingertips brushed the underside of the shelf as his left hand fumbled at her shoulder.
She tried to turn her head to see what he was doing, but he caught her mouth in another bruising kiss. It became clear a second later anyway when she felt him wind the first loop of rope around her wrists.
“What…? Ah!” Lexi’s eyes widened at the sensation of Duke pulling the rope taut. Her arms weren’t fully extended, she could bend her elbows a little, but the binding was secure. She could feel the blood tingling in her fingertips and lips and nipples. Her clit throbbed.
Duke pinned her against the wall with his hips and stroked his hands down her body. He started at her bound wrists and trailed his palms along her forearms, giving her biceps a little squeeze before continuing down her shoulders. The brush of his fingers against the side of her breasts and her ribs had her gasping and jerking in his grip. He stared down at her, eyes intent on the rise and fall of her flushed breasts and the quivering of her stomach muscles. Once he was again cupping her buttocks, he thrust languidly, rubbing his still jean-clad cock against her.
Lexi had had enough of foreplay. The whole night had been one long tease. She wanted the barriers between them gone. She wanted to be flesh to flesh. She wanted, no needed, him inside her.
She stretched her neck, swiping her tongue across his lower lip.
“Are you just going to rub up on me like a high school virgin, or are you going to fuck me?”
Fire flared in Duke’s dark eyes at her words.
“Christ, woman. Do you ever shut up?”
