Again.
“You starting a tab or paying for these now?” The bartender set a mug filled with dark, cold brew topped with a creamy head that spilled a little over the rim. Next to it sat a short, smooth glass of amber whiskey.
Perfect.
“A tab.” Because yeah, he was just getting started. The whole purpose of this trip entailed not thinking. And several rounds should accomplish his mission.
“I’ll be back, then.”
She cocked her head, running a dark blue gaze down his frame. He’d hit six foot his sophomore year of high school and had kept growing. He’d become used to that glint in a woman’s eyes. And he didn’t shy from it. The only thing better than losing himself in alcohol was hot, dirty, nameless sex.
His height, his build and his eyes—those were the only things his worthless sperm donor had passed down to him, and women seemed to eat that shit up. He picked up the shot of Jameson and knocked it back, never breaking visual contact with the pretty brunette. The corner of her lips lifted, desire flickering in her gaze as it dipped to his mouth.
“Let me know if you need to order food. Y’know, to balance all that alcohol. Can’t have you too wasted just in case you have later...plans.” She smirked before sauntering off to the other end of the bar.
“Hmm. That was subtle.”
Achilles stiffened.
That voice.
Like a fire beating back the coldest winter winds.
Like fingernails on a chalkboard.
As silken and sexy as skin sliding over bare, heated skin.
As jarring as crashing cymbals directly in the ear.
He longed to curl up against it, roll around in it.
He wanted to snarl at it, hurl himself away from it.
His heart smashed against his rib cage like a caged beast. His pulse, in sharp contrast, a sonorous warning at the base of his throat. Something primitive inside him warned that he should go find that bartender with the invitation in her eyes, pay for his drinks and get the hell out.
But the impulsive, destructive streak that had brought him to Massachusetts must have still been alive and kicking because he didn’t heed that warning. Instead, he slowly turned around on his barstool.
Jesus Christ.
That sense of self-preservation had been right.
This woman was everything he usually avoided.
Gorgeous. Pampered. Rich. He didn’t need to see the price tag on the purple pantsuit that conformed to her abundant, wicked curves to know it cost more than everything he’d packed in his suitcase back at the hotel. Including the luggage.
A Trojan horse.
That’s what she was.
Designed to appear like one thing—something innocuous—while inside was a virus waiting to strike, to infect...to destroy.
He dealt with those deadly viral strands during his job as a software developer. He’d suffered the poison of one after tangling with a woman like her.
Her dark gaze slid over him, and—in spite of knowing who she was, what she was—his breath snagged on the ragged resentment in his chest. Blood heated in his veins...pounded in his lengthening dick.
Apparently, his cock could give two damns what tax bracket she fell in.
She lifted a slim hand, hailing the bartender over to her. And in the magical way her kind had, the bartender abandoned the person she was talking to and headed their way.
