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He laughed in response. “Good makeup job, but I watch Janey try to hide the marks too damned often not to know what you’re hiding there. Tell him to shave before he comes around next time. ”
At that, he dropped a quick kiss on his fiancée’s lips and strode from the office as Rogue plopped onto the couch facing Janey’s desk.
“I hate him,” she muttered as she flashed Janey a mocking glare.
Janey laughed as she took a seat beside Rogue on the couch. “Yeah, he has that effect on people sometimes. ”
Janey tilted her head to look beneath Rogue’s jaw again as Rogue narrowed her eyes and stared back at her broodingly.
“It’s just beard burn,” Rogue muttered. “It will go away soon. ”
“What is it about the men around here that they just can’t get past marking their women?” Janey asked then.
Rogue snorted. “I’ve seen the marks you leave on Alex, Janey. I swear I think you’re trying to have him for a midnight snack. ”
Janey’s lips pursed with a wicked little smile. “Sometimes. ”
Rogue shook her head as a feeling of loss swept through her. She was jealous of her friend. Janey had with Alex what Rogue had only dreamed of having with Zeke in the past five years.
Why the hell was she so focused on this single man to the point that no other would do?
What was it about Zeke Mayes and his total reluctance to touch her that kept her dangling on that ever-present string of attraction to him? Whatever it was, it was going to have to stop.
“I’m not his woman anyway. ” She shrugged as she rose from the couch, picked up her pack, and headed for the door that led into the restaurant itself. “According to him, why, little ole me is much too young for his big, bad sheriffy ass. Seems he wants more of a woman than it appears I am. ”
She tossed Janey a careless smile, but it hurt. No, it didn’t just hurt, it pissed her off. She could have had a dozen lovers in the past five years. She didn’t have to sleep alone. She didn’t have to drift through the days waiting to see one man above all others.
She wasn’t ugly. No one would have to put a bag over her head to fuck her.
Rogue jerked open the door and closed it behind her before taking a deep, cleansing breath. She had work to do. Three days a week she was the manager, and it just so happened that she had to pick the three hardest days of the week.
That meant she had a lot of work to do. First off was dressing for the role. She moved to the small employee’s lounge at the back and the dressing room there. The waiters and waitresses had uniforms, but Rogue dressed as she pleased. She dressed to draw attention and send tongues wagging. Janey swore that half the clientele showed up just to see what Rogue would wear next. Tonight, she was in a wild mood. Wild, but subtle.
Subtle meant everything when it came to a particular mood, she thought with a tight little smile as she pulled the well-pressed clothing from within her pack.
The schoolgirl’s checkered skirt was short but demure. It covered her ass. That was modest, but this one actually went a few inches lower and covered the tops of her thighs as well. The pleats were full and, if she turned a certain way, would flare out enticingly.
With it, she wore a see-through white blouse, a shimmering gray camisole, and beneath that, a lacy black bra. Stockings and gray stilettos finished the outfit.
An hour later the curls that cascaded around her face were pulled up to the crown of her head and secured with a thin scarf that trailed behind her head. Makeup, a quick application of bronze lipstick, and she looked subtly enticing, sexy, and wicked.
And she knew exactly who would see her looking just young, fresh, and eager to be debauched. She almost laughed at the term her mother had once used. That was exactly how she looked, and Sheriff Zeke Mayes just happened to have a reservation for dinner with his son and his aunt, Lucinda Mayes- Downes, his father’s sister.
Lucinda Mayes-Downes was no one’s fool, and that old woman was as rowdy as any Rogue had ever known. Shane Mayes, Zeke’s son, was a crackerjack. The kid was going to be a heartbreaker when he was older, if he ever managed to get hold of that penchant to fight at any given opportunity.
She shook her head, took her hands, and mussed her hair invitingly, then pursed her lips and blew a kiss toward the mirror before giving a light, anticipatory laugh and heading out to the dining room. To work.
Damn, how had she managed to let Janey convince her to actually work?
Zeke had a feeling when he met his aunt Lucinda and son in the parking lot of the restaurant that the evening wasn’t going to go nearly as planned. Once a month he was roped into taking his aunt and son out to eat. A family thing, Lucinda liked to call it. It was more along the lines of an excuse to drive from Louisville where Shane was now attending college and staying in her guest room. An excuse to get nosy, to point out the fact that he was only growing older by the day and that it was time to settle down and give Shane a brother or sister.
Thankfully, Shane didn’t seem quite so enthusiastic about the brother/sister part. He found quite a bit of amusement in listening to his great-aunt gently berate Zeke though.
Hell, it if wasn’t the Mackays driving him crazy with their shenanigans, then it was Shane and Lucinda. How the hell was a man supposed to consider an affair, let alone a relationship, when his aunt seemed to have an earful of gossip, about him, each time he saw her?
“You’re late, Zeke. ” Lucinda stepped out of the cherry red Mustang she owned, a new one, a bright smile on her face as Shane pushed himself from the passenger seat.
His son didn’t look happy. Evidently his doting aunt had refused to allow him to drive her new baby.
