A sweet talker, this one, and I’d been putty in her skilled hands.
After shopping, there’d been more touring around town, then a quick stop for dinner. When we’d returned to Mom and Dad’s, Olive had spent an hour in my childhood bathroom doing my hair and makeup.
Maybe I’d agreed to The Betsy because she’d made me look like a woman. A sexy woman.
I’d inherited Mom’s delicate, youthful features and her auburn hair, which I normally wore in a ponytail. Whenever I tried to buy wine at the grocery store, the clerks thought my ID was a fake. At twenty-four, I could easily pass for a high school sophomore.
But tonight, I was a woman. A grown woman who was entirely out of her element.
“Let’s try to get those stools at the bar when they leave,” Olive said into my ear, her cheek brushing mine. She nodded at two women dressed even more scantily than us in midriff-baring tops and miniskirts.
The women giggled together, their eyes darting past us toward the pool tables, as they waited for their drinks.
I turned, curious who they were staring at, and gasped at the sight.
The Tin Gypsies.
The former motorcycle club was as infamous in Clifton Forge as The Betsy. As were their members.
“Whoa.” Olive whistled. “Is that them? The bikers you were telling me about earlier?”
“Yes.” I elbowed her in the ribs and nodded to the seats just as the other two women received their drinks and left, but it was too late to distract her.
When Olive sat down, she didn’t face the bar or her bartender. No, she faced the pool table.
I followed her gaze—she’d locked it on her target. And he stared right back.
“Did you not hear what I told you earlier?” I asked. “They have reputations.”
“Good. That means I’m guaranteed an orgasm.”
“Olive—”
She was already gone, disappearing through the crowd only to end up beside none other than Emmett Stone.
Ditched. In record time. I spun around to the bar and my beer.
I couldn’t even be mad at her. Yes, the Tin Gypsies had reputations as womanizers and criminals, but they were hot as hell. One in particular had played a role in my teenage fantasies, back in the days when I’d lived in Clifton Forge and seen him around town on his motorcycle.
But I wasn’t Olive. She only had to make eye contact with a man to have him hooked. Meanwhile I’d sit here with a beer I wouldn’t enjoy and wish I weren’t quite so forgettable.
“Why am I so boring?” I didn’t want to be dull. Really. I just . . . Olive had told me to loosen up and the truth was, I didn’t have a damn clue how.
“Boring?” A deep, rugged voice sent shivers down my spine. “Nah. Not boring. Not with hair like that.”
My heart stopped beating.
Because sliding onto Olive’s vacant stool was Leo Winter.
The Leo Winter.
Arguably the most handsome man on earth with his disheveled blond hair, pale gray-green eyes and devilish grin that made panties combust.
Leo Winter.
Former motorcycle club member.
Current playboy.
I doubted there was a female who’d graduated from Clifton Forge High School in the last decade who hadn’t dreamed about Leo once or twice. When he rolled past you on the street riding his Harley, you stared. When he stopped for gas, you stopped too, just for a closer glimpse, even if your tank was full. One of my friends had stalked him through six aisles at the grocery store, snapping over fifty pictures along the way.
He was the older, unattainable bad boy all the girls wanted to tame. A legend.
A legend who was quite clear that he didn’t touch girls.
Oh, but he’d had his share of women. That reputation I was sure he’d earned.
Sex appeal hugged his body like a second skin, swirling with the colorful tattoos that decorated his strong arms. His white T-shirt pulled around his broad chest and the defined muscles of his back. His faded jeans molded to bulky thighs and tapered to scuffed motorcycle boots.
The way he sat on the stool, utterly at ease and in control . . . And tall. Even seated, he towered over me. It was impossible not to stare as he made himself comfortable, leaning his forearms on the bar while one hand brought an amber bottle to his sinful lips.
He didn’t speak. He didn’t so much as look my way. He just sat there, seemingly content to sip his beer and watch the bartenders fill drinks.
Was I supposed to do something? Say something? Because my mouth had gone dry. Never in my life had I sat this close to a man so blindingly attractive. Flirting was Olive’s area of expertise, not mine.
Or maybe . . .
Maybe I was not on the Leo Winter spectrum. Maybe he’d sat down simply because the seat had been empty.
Ouch. Here was a man in search of an available woman and I looked like a dolled-up teenager.
“Heeeey, youuu.” The brush of a stomach on my arm was the first signal that Belly Man from earlier was back. He propped himself on the bar at my other side. Then his finger swiped for a lock of my hair. “Red.”
“Remember what I said.” I swatted his chubby fingers away. “Don’t touch.”
“I like you, Red,” he slurred.
“Original,” I deadpanned, shifting to the farthest edge of my stool before taking a long drink from my beer.
Olive and I had come to the bar in my car, planning on taking a cab home if we drank too much. But the cab wouldn’t be necessary because unless she came back in the next five minutes, I was out of here. She could call a cab of her own or have Emmett drop her at my parents’ place.
“Wuz yur name?”
I ignored him.
“Red. I’ll juss call you Red.”
Ugh. I pushed my beer away, ready to make a break for it, when Leo’s smooth voice stopped me.
“Get lost, Bobby. You’re interrupting.”
He was? What exactly was he interrupting?
Without another word, Bobby disappeared. The open space at the bar next to me was quickly swallowed up by a woman who looked past my shoulder at Leo. But he didn’t pay her a lick of attention.
He’d turned sideways to face me. His gaze raked across my profile, hot and lazy like the sun moving across the afternoon sky.
Shit. Breathe, Cass.
“What should we call you?” he asked, the timbre soaking deep into my bones, melting the marrow.
“W-what do you mean?” Oh, hell. A stutter. Really? I was officially the lamest female in this bar.
“A nickname. I’m not calling you Red. How about”—Leo snapped his fingers—“Firecracker?”
Any other man and I would have scoffed. But that word, firecracker, was as explosive as the object itself. The flame in my cheeks burned hot as I fought a girlish smile. “I’m, um . . . I’m not much for fireworks. Boring, remember?”
He grinned. “Maybe you haven’t met anyone who knows how to light the fuse.”
A siren sounded in the back of my mind, screaming, Danger, danger. This man is not in your league. But I stole a play from Olive’s book and hit the off switch.
Tonight, I wasn’t the geek. I wasn’t the good girl who loved old books and early bedtimes. I wasn’t the girl who did everything that everyone expected her to do. Tonight, I was a sexy woman who saw the fantasy within her reach and stretched for it.