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“I had a feeling.”
She stared down at the cosmos, spinning his in a slow, careful circle. As he watched, she lifted it and took a sip out of his glass, her lips touching where his had been moments before.
His cock hardened, and he had the caveman-like urge to pick her up, toss her over his shoulder, and carry her to his room. “Well, you were right.”
“I usually am,” she said absentmindedly.
His drink came, and when she reached for her purse, he rested a hand over hers, his fingers resting on her impossibly smooth skin. “I’ve got it, Scarlett.”
The second he touched her, it was like a bolt of electricity shot between them, sparking to life. She jerked away, clearly as caught off guard by the jolt as he, and hid her hand behind her back, breathing heavily. “O-Okay.”
After he paid the server, he took a healthy drink, because he needed it. There was something about his Scarlett that was as startling as it was magnetic. “Where are you from?”
“Colorado.” She shot him a look out of the corner of her eye. “You?”
“I grew up in Pennsylvania.”
She nodded, not pressing for more information, just like he didn’t press her. There was something nice about not knowing more than the bare minimum about one another. They were just a girl and a guy in a bar, talking. She lifted the cosmo to her mouth. When she pulled it away, she licked her lips slowly. He couldn’t look away from the tip of her tongue as it ran across her plump red lips. His pulse pounded, and his khakis were too damn tight all of a sudden.
He hadn’t been a monk since Tina died. He’d had a lover here and there, but they never stuck around for long. He didn’t let them. He’d had the love of his life, and she’d died.
He didn’t want another.
Could he love again? Yeah. But he could also lose again.
He’d already lost enough.
Still, there was something about Scarlett that shook him. “Are you okay?” he asked slowly, shifting closer.
Laughing, she took another sip, almost halfway through the first of the two cocktails. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You don’t know me. I don’t know you. After these drinks are gone and we go back to our rooms, we’ll never see each other again. If you want to talk, or tell someone what’s wrong—someone who doesn’t have a stake in your life, or someone who won’t remember what you said every time they see you…” He shrugged. “Well. I’m a good listener.”
She stared at him, her mouth parted, her cheeks flushed, her grip on the stem of the martini glass so tight it was a miracle it didn’t snap. “I’m not a good talker.”
“That’s okay.” He turned on the stool, resting the front of his knees on her chair. “Talk, or don’t, but either way, I’m here.” When she didn’t say anything, just bit down on her lip, he cleared his throat. “What happened to your arm?”
“I fell down a fire escape.”
He lifted a brow. “Why?”
“I was bored. It seemed like a good idea at the time.” She rolled her eyes and finished off the drink, setting the empty glass behind the still full one. “I slipped. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” he echoed, his tone sardonic.
“It’s been two years.”
He blinked. “That’s a hell of a long time to wear a cast.”
“What? No.” She glanced at her arm, then back at him. She looked so…so…alone. “Since he died. Today. It’s been two years.”
“Father?”
She shook her head once. “No.”
Oh. Well, that was something he was all too familiar with himself, something that had almost consumed him after Tina was killed in the line of duty. They’d both been in the Marines and had fallen in love at Camp Pendleton. It had been a whirlwind relationship, and when he was about to be shipped off to Afghanistan, she’d found out she was pregnant. They’d married, he’d left, and when he came back to a baby daughter, it had been her turn to deploy overseas shortly thereafter. They’d had two months as a happy family before she left. Her convoy was ambushed by insurgents, and she’d never come back. So, yeah, he was all too familiar with the way the sadness of loss could crush you if you let it.
His daughter Ginny was the only thing that kept him sane.
