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"Selene Torres."
"But you're not from around here."
"Not recently. I was working up north, in New York." She lifted her chin, gave him an imperious look. "Does that disqualify me?"
Quinn had to swallow a grin. "Only if you talked like you were from there, which you don't. Do you have references?"
"Did the man you just threw out?"
As she did the leg crossing thing again, he had to restrain himself from throwing her on the desk and yanking down her jeans to fuck her senseless. But she did have a point. "How about this?" she suggested. "Try me for a month. If I haven't whipped this place into shape you can toss me back out on the highway."
"A month, huh? You think you can turn this place around in that time?"
She nodded. "I know I can."
Quinn studied her with shrewd eyes. "I may prefer to work with cattle, but I don't have manure between my ears, Selene. You have the skills of a big-city bar manager. Why would you want to work here?"
"I'm tired of the north, big cities and lots of attention."
"You running? Abusive boyfriend, something like that?" Though he couldn't see this one being slapped around unless it was the last thing the poor bastard ever did, for some reason the flicker in her eyes raised something protective in him. That really made him a dumbass. Don't get into trouble you don't want to invite, Quinn.
"I needed a change of scenery. Beginning and end of story." The set to Selene's jaw said that was all he was getting out of her on that point. For now.
He let his eyes roam over her again. Pedraza, you've been without a woman too long. This could be a worse mistake than Artie. Anyone could see there was more of a story here than she was telling.
"A month," he said at last. Scribbling on a sheet of paper, he shoved it across the desk to her. "That's the salary. That suit you?"
He expected her to laugh, ball it up and toss it in his face as she sashayed out. Instead, she scanned it with serious eyes, then nodded, folded it neatly and reached behind her to push it into her rear jeans pocket, making him wish he could slide his fingers into the same snug place. Maybe a couple other snug places too.
"We're open from seven at night until two in the morning," he said. "You can clean everything up when you close and set up for the next day or come in early and do it."
"After we close. I like to leave the bar ready to open. But you don't need to micromanage. It will just annoy me. You have a problem with how I'm doing something, tell me. But otherwise, let me run it the way I want. Bitch at me if the bottom line isn't what you want it to be."
God, the combination of her wraithlike appearance and her go-to-hell attitude turned him on like a six-burner stove.
"We're not open on Monday. Otherwise it's a six-day work week." He narrowed his gaze. "Think you can handle it?"
"Yes." She didn't blink. "But I have three conditions."
Okay, the other shoe was about to drop. He braced himself. "Let's hear them."
"One, I don't work before sundown. Ever. I'll do extra hours from two a.m. to dawn if needed, but every daylight hour is my own time. I'll make sure I coordinate with deliveries and suppliers so that doesn't cause you any hassles."
He'd been ready to point that issue out. Still, he pursed his lips, unwilling to show her how quickly she'd anticipated his concern. "Not sure how well that will work, but we'll see how that goes. Do you have a problem with daylight?"
"I have a condition that requires me to sleep during a lot of daylight hours and stay out of sunlight. You can call it vampirism, since that's what most people do."
He gave her an odd look. "Does your doctor have a longer name for it?"
"That's my business and not yours, long as it doesn't interfere with how I do my job. It won't. Condition number two. In your storage cellar, you have a backroom filled with old junk. I want it for a place to crash. I'll handle cleaning and reorganizing what's in it, and furnishing it."
"I can do better than that." He hoped he wasn't going to regret this. "There's a two-room apartment above the saloon that you can have as part of the job. It probably needs a good scrubbing, but if you can manage for one night I can get a couple of the hands to come out and help with the worst of it."
"Fine. I'd like both rooms. If I'm working late nights, I want to sleep somewhere dark and quiet during daylight hours. Having a cot in that backroom will give me that. I'll take care of the cleaning. No need to pull hands from your ranch. Sounds like you have plenty for them to do out there."
"You know, you haven't told me dick about your experience," he said bluntly.
"I watch a lot of Bar Rescue," she said without missing a beat. "That Jon Taffe, he's the bomb."
"Yeah, reality shows definitely set you up with the skills I saw tonight." He didn't smile, but neither did she. "You're sending me one of two messages, honey. Either 'hands off, my past is off limits' or 'I've already proven I can do this job, unless you're too much of a dumbass to see it'."
"I think we already covered the latter," she responded, then flicked a glance over him. "But the hands-off part is my final condition of employment."
That look said she wasn't just talking about her past. His brow creased. Was she suggesting he needed to keep his hands to himself? Hell, except for him holding her wrist a couple times, she'd been the one doing the most touching. Though the chemistry was undeniable. Maybe she'd noticed he'd been nursing a perpetual hard-on since she'd walked into the bar.
Hell, honey, there isn't a man alive who could control that around you, and you know it. Maybe that was why she felt she had to reinforce the hands off. Maybe there were guys who'd had trouble with the word no. Well, he wasn't one of those dickheads.
"You don't have to worry about that," he said, meeting her gaze head on. "I don't go where I'm not invited. Ever."
"Your behavior behind the bar earlier tonight suggests you're not that well-behaved." Her tongue slid out between her full lips, the tip of it touc
hing the lower one. Her gaze was a lick of flame along his skin.
Oh sweet Jesus. His balls already ached from her proximity, enough he knew he'd be jerking off tonight when he finally hit a bed.
"You misunderstood me," she said. Her blue eyes did that laser thing that speared him right down into his scrotum. "Condition number three. You're one of my employment benefits. And that starts right now."
Chapter Three
Selene knew this was a mistake. She was hungry, and she knew better than to make decisions when she was hungry. For a young vampire, hunger was more than a quick carb-protein snack. It was an all-consuming, all-encompassing need for nourishment. For the body, soul and libido. Particularly the libido.
She'd actually detected Quinn Pedraza when she first entered the bar. Amid the moderate-sized crowd of about seventy people, she'd looked around, seeking the source of that wonderful smell. Red blooded, male, strong. A powerful man, and not just physically. She'd drawn him in through her all her senses, the potential nourishment tailored to her specific requirements like a chef catering her favorite meal.
It was hard to explain how she could pick that out. It was a skill that wasn't usual, even for vampires, so she kept it low key in her shadowy world. But this had been too appealing to resist. She'd targeted that hallway to the office area and, though she couldn't see him, she'd known he was there. He was the only blood in the building she wanted.
She'd always been a picky eater.
God, she was in Texas, of all places. Since most vampires weren't attracted to places where the sun could fry an egg on a rock, it was a good choice. She wanted to be away from where other vampires were, particularly one vampire. Texas was as far from New York City and Laurent's normal milieu as she could imagine without leaving the country. That had been her primary concern, until she'd seen Quinn and realized the last time she'd really fed had been three days and eight states ago.
He was the quintessential alpha male, stepping right from the pages of a Marlboro Man ad. He wouldn't expect her to know what that was, any more than he would expect her to be sixty-two years old. But he'd picked up on the different maturity level pretty quick, as well as some other things she hadn't expected.
