Ad nauseam.
Face growing hot, he stood and forced his trademark charm-your-pants-off smile. "How about a spin around the dance floor?"
"Thank you, no." She looked up at him without bothering to return his smile. "What I would really like is to see a formal presentation of all these ideas for expansion. Present it at one of the board meetings."
"Yeah, I will have to work one up," he agreed and did not, by so much as a flicker of an eyelash, allow his expression to show his knee-jerk reaction, which was Don't hold your breath.
His father would have the proposal quashed before the minutes were even read and Jon-Michael was tired to the bone of having his expertise mocked as if he were a boy playing at being a grown-up.
Still, if Jon-Michael had Mildred’s backing Richard might find that tougher going—
"Make it soon," she commanded, and he smiled noncommittally then gave her a formal bow as he bid her good night.
The instant he left her table he strode straight out the door. Trying not to get too attached to the tiny kernel of hope unfurling in his chest.
Hayley looked up when the lounge's door opened. It was late and the bar was closed but she hadn't gotten around to locking up. Sliding her hand below the bar so the money she had been counting wasn’t the first thing the after hours visitor spotted, she flashed a quick look at the sawed-off oar handle to make sure it was in easy reach before turning her full attention to the newcomer ambling toward her out of the shadows. Then the breath she had not even known she was holding eased out of her lungs.
Jon-Michael.
His formal clothes were rumpled and his hair was windblown. She slanted him a sardonic look. "Slumming after the big dance, Johnny?"
He did not reply, just kept on coming. Rounding the end of the bar, he strode right up to her, slid his hands into her hair and gripped her skull. Tilting her head back, he stared into her eyes for a heartbeat, then slammed his mouth down on hers.
It was an angry kiss, fast, rough and carnal. The heat of his tongue against hers, the nip of his teeth sinking into her lower lip, knocked her off balance. Then, before she could orient herself to either accept or reject the unasked for kiss, it was finished and he was slamming out again as silently as he had entered.
Hayley sagged against the counter at her back, scrubbing her lips with the back of her hand, her gaze blindly fixed on the bills she held clutched in her fist. She tried to summon up a little righteous indignation, but instead felt an oddly exciting thrill of fear. If she had half a brain she would be demanding just who the hell he thought he was.
Instead, she stood there with her lips throbbing beneath the pressure of her knuckles, reliving the hint of neediness she had sensed beneath his anger.
And feeling as if her days of holding herself aloof from him were seriously numbered.
You dumb shit. You stupid, sorry-ass dumb shit. The words were a mantra chanting in Jon-Michael's brain the entire ride home.
He let himself into his second floor loft in the brick warehouse on Davis Drive, tossing the keys to the Harley in an abalone shell on the Stickley console table by the door. It should have been dead quiet this time of night in the heart of the industrial area, but the artist next door was entertaining again. Her headboard thumped rhythmically against their adjoining wall as she exhorted someone named Oh Baby to greater, deeper, harder efforts.
Seemed like everyone in the world was making time tonight except him. Jon-Michael walked straight across the room, and opening the window to the tiny fire escape landing, climbed out. He pulled his sax case out after him.
Flipping open the latches, he lifted the instrument out of its dense molded foam, fit the reed to its throat and raised it to his mouth to wet the reed. Then he lowered it to his lap again. And groaned.
Fuck. Why had he gone and kissed her? Not that he could bring himself to regret it. Still it was a tactical error. One he could not afford. He had merely been bored and lonely earlier this evening.
Now he was bored, lonely, and more than likely screwed.
Eleven
When Ragged Edge retook the stage after their break the following Wednesday, business tapered off at the bar. Even as Hayley cleaned up the counter below the bar, she could not help watching Jon-Michael. He had ignored her for the past several days.
Which, fine, was just as well. But if she lived to be a hundred and six she swore she would never understand what went through that man's teeny-tiny brain.
Lucy came up and slid her tray onto the bar and her rear onto a vacated stool. The pink had washed out of her hair and she had substituted a couple packages of Berry Blue Kool-Aid for the black portion in honor of Independence Day. Her nose stud was a ruby and her satin push-up bra white. The look had gone over big ever since its debut Friday night. Everyone loved a patriot.
She gave her order then blew out a breath. “Man, I am whupped.”
Hayley assembled and delivered the tray of drinks. As she was washing odds and ends a while later, she heard a familiar voice call her name. Kurstin stood with an attractive man down the bar.
Hayley grinned. "Hey there, stranger. Give me a minute to finish up here and I will be with you. Grab a stool." She rinsed the last of the glasses she had washed by hand because the dishwasher was still in operation when they had run out, then turned it upside down in the tiny drainer.
Wiping her hands on a towel, she walked down the bar to where Kurstin and her escort sat. She flipped the towel over her shoulder. "We’ve been ships in the night lately, girl," she said. “I’m glad to see you." Extremely glad, for with their different schedules they had hardly seen each other at all for the past several days. She dropped coasters on the bar. "You must be Ty," she said to Kurstin's companion. "I'm Hayley Prescott." Flashing a big smile, she reached over to shake his hand. "What can I get you?"
The story of my career, sweetheart. Exultation rushed like champagne bubbles through Ty’s veins. This was the reason he was here. This woman with the rich brown hair and the hundred-dollar smile was responsible for wooing him from the civilized side of the contiguous United States to this little backwater burg on the Other Coast.
Not her damn BFF. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but somehow he had gotten so hung up on maneuvering the luscious blonde toward her seduction these past few days that he had damn near forgotten his goal.
But it—she—was standing right across the bar from him and seeing her in the flesh affected him like a thump upside the head. He hauled his shit together in a red hot hurry. So, no, thinking with his dick was a mistake he would not repeat. Kurstin was a means to an end. That was all she was.
Hayley was his goal.
Hayley glanced down the bar a while later to see Kurstin momentarily alone and joined her. "Where is New McHottie?"
"Men's room." Kurstin cocked a golden eyebrow. "And you do know your cultural reference is woefully out of date, right?"
"Yes, well, not all of us are blessed with your facile knowledge of up-to-date television entertainment," she retorted cheerfully. "Or, oh, give a rip." She gifted her friend with a toothy smile. "But speaking of blessed, I’m tickled to see one of us having her wish fulfilled." She hesitated, then admitted, "Okay, maybe I'm just the teensiest bit envious as well. But still, I am happy for you."