And damn it, I was thinking about West again. Something told me he wasn’t down with negging.
A tingle suddenly formed between my shoulder blades, pulling my lips into a frown, but before I had a chance to turn and investigate, a skinny man wearing way too much Old Spice and a ton of gel in his hair pushed in beside me, wedging himself between my stool and the one beside me.
“You should try smiling, baby. No man likes a frown, and you’d look so much sexier.”
Bingo.
“Like this?” Feigning a seductive grin, I leaned closer to him and trailed by fingers down the buttons on the front of his shirt.
“That’s right, sexy. Just like that.”
He thought he’d just landed a live one, but what I was really doing was pulling the money clip out of his jacket pocket. Once I had his cash palmed, I stealthily tucked it under my hip until I could stash it in my purse, and sat back.
“And you know what would make you sexy?”
He licked his lips—blech—and inched even closer. “What’s that?”
“Literally anything,” I said with a flat expression. “The bar’s set so damn low with you, there’s nowhere to go but up. Now go the hell away before your cologne turns my beer rancid.”
He stood there for a second, and I could see he was struggling to comprehend what the hell just happened. Fortunately, before he had it figured out, he tucked tail and scuttled away.
With a sigh, I lifted my glass and took another sip. The beer tasted like summer. It was nice and smooth, and I could have sworn I tasted a hint of citrus. It was refreshing, and if I’d been here under different circumstances, I would have enjoyed it even more.
Swiveling my stool around, I leaned my back against the bar, propping my elbows on the edge of it and letting the beer glass dangle from one hand as I looked around for mark number two.
It didn’t take long for me to spot a dude over by the pool tables at the back of building and up a couple stairs in a section slightly cordoned off from the rest of the bar. I watched as he lined up a shot, and a second later, biffed it, missing the stripe he’d been aiming for and scratching on the cue ball. His mouth moved on what I guessed was a barked curse, his face flushing red with anger. Instead of letting the loss roll off his back like anyone else would, he tossed the pool cue onto the table and slammed his palms down on the side.
The woman with him came over, trying to soothe the sore loser. She gave him a tentative smile and placed a hand on his shoulder, but he quickly jerked away from her touch and spun on her, jabbing his finger in her face as he turned his anger on her. It was obvious he was berating her for something that didn’t appear to be her fault at all. How was she to blame for the fact he was a shitty pool player? All that pent-up anger probably came from the needle dick in his pants. That was usually the case, which meant I felt even worse for the poor woman
From where I was sitting, I could see the tears welling in her eyes, and I decided right then and there that Shrimp Dick was going to learn a lesson for treating his woman like trash. Grabbing the first asshole’s money clip, I brought my purse to my lap and stored the cash in the false bottom before hooking the strap over my shoulder and starting toward the pool tables.
I was halfway there, my way slow due to the packed floor, when that niggling sensation between my shoulder blades returned. A moment later, I felt a big, strong hand wrap around my wrist and looked back just as the person who’d grabbed me gave it a jerk. “Hey asshole, who the hell do you think you—”
My words died at the sight of a familiar pair of sherry eyes staring down at me. “West,” I breathed, suddenly forgetting everything and everyone around me.
Nine
Stella
An electric shock worked its way from my wrist straight to my chest, the skin beneath his hand tingling and sparking like a live wire. “What are you—how did you—I don’t—”
Why in the ever-loving hell couldn’t I form words? The sight of West Scott had rendered me speechless. I didn’t think that could really happen, but there I was, gaping like a fish out of water at the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen, trying and failing to cobble a sentence together.
“Quiet,” he ordered in a tone that immediately raised the tiny hairs on my arms. “Come with me, grift.”
“Excuse me?” I snapped, ready to let him have it for being so domineering. “I’m not going anywhere with you, assho—” But he acted like he hadn’t heard me and began moving across the floor much quicker than I had, dragging me along behind him. I wasn’t short, not even close. At five seven, I was taller than a lot of women, but he was just so damn . . . big, those legs so long, that I nearly had to jog to keep up as the crowd parted for him like the Red freaking Sea.
“Hey!” I gave my arm a useless tug. “Where are we going? This is not okay. For all I know, you could be a psycho who cuts out people’s livers and sells them on the black market. I got news for you, buddy, my liver’s totally shot,” I lied. “No good. Years of drinking will do that, so you won’t get shit for it. It’s not worth the effort.”
He grunted as we hit a hallway at the back of the bar. One second I was skip-walking to keep up and the next he had me pressed against a wall, towering over me and caging me in. It was quiet and secluded back here, no bar patrons in sight. I should have been scared. Hell, I should have been downright terrified, but for some reason—probably insanity—all I felt was a thrill of excitement as the smell of his cologne filled my lungs. He smelled like leather and musk combined with mint, like he’d just been chewing a stick of gum. I could have sworn the mint on his breath felt cool against my skin as he spoke next.
“Jesus. You really have a colorful imagination, don’t you?”
I really did. It was one of the reasons I’d never had many friends growing up. Other kids didn’t want to hang out with the little girl who said weird things or made up elaborate stories. My family thought it was hilarious how I’d sometimes go off on a tangent, but they had to love my quirky nature; we were blood, they had no choice but to love every part of me. Jason hadn’t been so accepting, always pointing out how weird I was and asking me to tone it down whenever we were around his friends. As if that wasn’t a big enough red flag. Man, I’d been an idiot with that guy.
However, as I looked up into West’s golden fire eyes, I didn’t see any of that distaste people usually displayed at one of my outlandish bouts of verbal diarrhea. Instead, he seemed amused. I could see he was fighting back a grin, and because of the insanity that had obviously come over me, it made me feel all warm and squishy inside.
“Maybe a little,” I said with an insolent shrug.
At my response, he didn’t bother holding his humor in any longer. His chuckle wrapped around me like velvet and his grin made my belly somersault. Damn, he was pretty. My mind hadn’t been playing tricks on me these past couple weeks. If anything, the memory of what this man looked like didn’t live up to reality.
“You’re really fucking cute, you know that?”
Oh, we like him, my lady bits screamed, reminding me how long it had been since I’d gotten laid. Nearly two long, bleak, lonely years. How long did a woman have to go without sex before she was revirginized?