Dirty Ties (18 page)

As much as it sickened me, I agreed. The races weren’t safe. Didn’t stop me from having a little meltdown in the privacy of my room, complete with pathetic farewell tears for the underground racing world.

Me: not funny

Collin: No it’s not. So is he hawt?

Hot? He had the bearing of a medieval warrior. Thick forearms, broad shoulders, strong jaw, heavy brow, battle-ready glare. My body itched to move, tensing, leaning forward. I wanted to go to him, touch the scruff on his cheeks, fold into his side, and smell the skin on his neck.

Me: scorching

Collin: What are you wearing?

Me: rockabilly red

Collin: Damn. No wonder he’s staring. He’s probably not the only one. You look like a pin up girl in that dress.

Oh, Collin. A smile warmed my cheeks. I hadn’t realized how much I needed that effortless compliment. It invigorated me, like the unpredictable notes of the saxophone, soothing away the notion that I wasn’t enough for my husband, that the underground racing would go on without me, that I had a menacing watch in my purse.

The guy with the glaring problem didn’t seem very thrilled with the smile I gave my phone. If he squeezed his pint any harder, it might break.

Collin: Garters?

Me: of course

Collin: In that case, I won’t expect you home anytime soon. Don’t break too many hearts.

What did he think I’d do? I didn’t have sex without Collin choosing the man and running the background check.

Except Evader. I would’ve fucked him. Right there in that elevator.

Me: I need a Seth

Collin: Yeah, you do. He's incredible.

Oh sure, rub it in. I returned the phone to my clutch and set it on the bar.

The older man beside me slipped off the stool and wandered into the crowd, leaving a vacant seat. An opening for another man. My pulse fluttered. I glanced up, and he was definitely staring. Just not at me.

A curvy woman leaned her hourglass hip against his knee. Little black dress, platinum hair, bright red lipstick, the red forming a crimson sheen as she licked her pillowed lips.

He reclined against the stool back, his gaze following the fingernail she trailed down his chest, around the shirt buttons, disappearing beneath the counter. His eyes flicked to hers, his lips parted.

I slammed back the martini in two gulps. Dammit, I should’ve gone over there. I still could.

God, all that perky cleavage on display. And her youthful smile so full of sass. She could have any man in the room. I couldn’t blame her for choosing the most attractive one.

Her mouth moved, no doubt seducing in sultry tones. I didn’t have a chance at stealing his attention back. Nor should I try. Picking up a stranger at a bar without a background check? Too much risk for a selfish night of pleasure.

He caressed his knuckles over her bare shoulder, down her toned bicep, and wrapped long fingers around her elbow, yanking her close. My stomach clenched, but I couldn’t look away as he dipped his head. He angled his mouth near her ear, moved his lips in a whisper.

Her body tensed right before he removed her hand from his lap and used it to spin her away. Then he dragged his stool closer to the bar, gave her his back, and downed his beer. Dismissed.

Ouch. If that had been me… Fucking hell, I couldn’t handle another rejection. It had been fourteen days since Seth went limp inside me. Five days since Evader yanked my mouth off his cock and zoomed away.

My confidence with men had plunged into no naked touching, tasting, holding, kissing. Okay, it had only been five days, but was it an indication of the weeks and months to come? A future of going to bed alone while listening to the laughing moans of Collin and Seth? Fuck that.

“Been waiting for that fossil to leave.” A deep voice interrupted my pity party. “Finally moved his old ass from this seat.”

Charming. I dragged my attention from the man across the bar and met arctic blue eyes inches from my face.

He sat, facing me, and bracketed my stool with his long legs. “Name’s Holden.”

Holden radiated sex appeal. It danced in his eyes, glowed in his cheeks, and tumbled through his voice.

His boyish charisma brought a smile to my lips. “I’m—”

“The finest lady to grace this club. Don’t freak out, but I’ve been watching you since you walked in.” He looked me over from my lips to the bows beneath the flare of my short dress. When his eyes came back to mine, he shook his head, grinning. “So damned hot, girl. There’s not a guy in this place who doesn’t know it.”

I was either desperate for compliments tonight or that was a really good pick up line.

He angled his blond head, holding that All-American smile with an ease that seemed involuntary.

“You’re not so bad yourself.” I held out my hand. “I’m Kaci.”

His happy expression didn’t flicker with recognition as he grasped my hand and placed it on his hard thigh. He was too young to connect my name to my face. He’d probably never even heard of Collin Anderson.

Why did it matter anyway? I wouldn’t be leaving with him.

Fifteen minutes later, we’d covered the standard pleasantries, agreed on the underlying subversiveness in the retro decor, disagreed on the quality of the Chicago Bears quarterback. Basically, avoided all things personal even as the way he looked at me grew more and more intimate.

He bent in, his nose so close he could smell my breath. “Come home with me.”

Oh wow, that was forward. I pulled my hand away, even as my needy insides tightened at the inviting curl of his plush lips and the glimmer in his lusty eyes. He was undeniably good-looking yet dimmed in comparison to the sexy broodiness I’d recently acquired an attraction for.

“No.” My gaze swept across the bar and landed on the stool that had been empty since Holden showed up.

Holden reached for my hand, and I yanked it back. “Kaci, I promise—”

“Take a hike.” An unfamiliar voice dripped over me, low and rich like syrup. A voice that could only belong to—I shifted around, and oh my God—haunting green eyes. Or were they yellow? Definitely smoldering.

He bent at the waist, resting his arm along the back of my stool, the overhead pendant light illuminating his daunting expression and the complex hues of his eyes.

Golden irises, ringed in green, fastened on Holden. “Find somewhere else to put your dick. She’s married.”

She
’s married.

I sank deeper into the barstool and closed my eyes, realization landing like a brick in my gut. He’d stared at me all night because he recognized me. I was certain those weighted looks were sexual in nature, but apparently knowing I was married had discouraged him from approaching.

I sighed. It was for the best.

“She never said she was married.” Holden’s voice was low, frustrated.

A warm hand gripped my thigh. Way too big to be Holden’s hand. I snapped my eyes open as the man, whose name I didn’t know, leaned into Holden. “My wife doesn’t have to tell you shit.”

My thoughts froze, every cell in my body zoomed in on that syrupy voice. His wife? So he didn’t know I was married? A tangle of relief and confusion sifted through me.

Had he said it to mark his territory? Stake his claim? Kind of a strange way to go about it. Strange in a really sexy way.

Which pinched my stomach with guilt. Letting him believe I was available made me feel horribly dishonest. But why? I wasn’t married in the conventional sense.

Holden glared at the hand on my thigh and blinked up at the intimidating man’s scowl. “Your wife? Then why have you been sitting over there eye-fucking her all night?”

My
husband
slipped his hand beneath my skirt, spiking my pulse as he traced a finger along the strap of my garters. “We’re having a little fun tonight. Role-playing our first date.” He slid me a smile that was so disarmingly hot I felt it in my panties. “Isn’t that right, baby?”

For a moment, I let myself imagine that, to forget I didn’t know this beautiful man, to simply enjoy the unexpected pleasure of his game and his warm hand against my leg. “Mm hmm.”

Holden stood, his earlier grin replaced with flattened lips. “It was nice to meet you, Kaci.” He glanced at the other man then strode toward the entryway.

My lungs released a breath then seized again when the gorgeous stranger grumbled, “Kaci.”

If there was recognition in that expression, it was eclipsed by his dark brows and overall growly disposition.

I narrowed my eyes, every molecule in my body gravitating toward the fingers caressing my thigh. “And you are?”

He lowered onto Holden’s stool without removing his hand, his legs sprawled around me, his heavy gaze in full force. “Logan.”

I nodded. The name fit his serious, rough-hewed edge. I wanted to ask about the hand still touching my leg, but I didn’t want him to remove it. “Why did you tell him we were married?”

“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”

The impact of his glare and the deep rumble of his timbre spread warmth through my body, no doubt reddening my cheeks.

He tilted his head, his hair all kinds of sexed-up as if he’d mussed it with aggravated fingers. “I heard you tell him
no
. Should I call him back?”

“No,” I said a little too desperately. “Not interested.”

“What about me?” The possessive hand on my thigh clenched. Relaxed. “Are you interested?”

Oh, let me count the ways. And each one led to heartbreak. I glanced at his forearm, where it disappeared beneath my skirt, his hand on my thigh coaxing a low-burning flame in my core. I should’ve shoved it away, but I liked it too much where it was.

I looked up into his golden-green eyes. “Is that really what you were doing all night? Eye-fucking me?”

“No.”

No?

He wedged his fingers between the crease of my thighs and gripped the edge of the stool beneath. His body blocked the view from prying eyes, but the position was dubious. I squeezed my legs around his wrist, both trapping and hiding his hand, as if that would stop rumors.

With his grip on the seat, he dragged the stool across the wood floor, wrestling his hand free when my knees brushed his denim-clad groin.

Perfectly-fitted denim, as if it were cut exactly for his build and molded to outline the size and shape of the man beneath. Damn. The way the material stretched over his formidable bulge was offensive. Revealingly, erotically offensive.

The nightclub had a strict dress code to match its retro-classy women and eccentric gentlemen. Logan’s collared shirt was crisp and white, the top button undone, framing the thick column of his neck. But his dark jeans bordered on not-allowed. Didn’t matter. No one would turn him away. With his moody disposition and pensive eyes, he had the kind of look that craved a smoky room in the red-light district, longing for the bluesy rhythm of ragtime piano.

He was a dark poem, a sexy attitude, the epitome of rebellion. He was The Watch personified.

And God, those eyes. Gold with a thick emerald outline that seemed to burn brighter the longer he studied me. He was even more handsome up close, his beauty thrumming with masculinity.

But it was his intense focus that held every cell in my body in breathless captivation. He stared at me as if there was a distressing question trapped behind his lips. As if he could find the answer in a deep, hidden part of my eyes.

I raised my chin. “Just ask it.”

“Ask what?” His right eyebrow, an arch of temptation, didn’t move.

I wanted to touch it, follow the compelling curve with my finger. Could I? There was a grumpy twist on his lips, but would he bite? I could only hope.

I slowly raised my arm, focusing on his face, waiting for a snap or a snarl. He just sat there, spine straight, hands on his thighs, palms turned toward my legs between his, not quite touching, but from a distance, it might’ve looked that way.

Something in his stillness, his hesitancy, had my hand pausing in its ascent. He didn’t make me feel unsafe. More like he was tightly restrained, like whatever he tamped down was vibrating beneath his skin, waiting for something.

He didn’t twitch when my finger made contact with his eyebrow. In fact, I wasn’t sure he was breathing. I stroked the strip of tiny hairs, gliding along the strong bone beneath. “Do you trim this to shape the—?”

“Fuck no.”

I choked on a laugh. Collin was an obsessive plucker, and this guy was sooooo not Collin. I retraced the arch from the vertical indentions above his nose, up and over his eye, and lingered on his temple. “So it does this on its own? Naturally curves higher than the other one?”

“It’s a fucking eyebrow.” His eyes flicked between mine, the rest of him intensely still. So serious. “Why are you smiling?”

I shrugged. “It’s a sexy eyebrow.” When his jaw stiffened, I smiled wider. “And the surly thing you’ve got going on? That’s sexy, too.”

He closed his eyes, his nostrils flaring. Maybe I was annoying him, but the reprieve from his glare spiked my confidence. I
wanted
to flirt with him, to touch him, to get to know him. He was simply too good-looking, too intriguing to let go.

With my fingers at his temple, I curled in my palm and cupped his cheek and jaw, indulging in the day-old stubble that roughened his warm skin. He was real, not some ideal that could never be attained like Evader.