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Eight
Tequila soon burned down Sarah’s throat, the initial scorch subsiding to a radiating warmth in her chest, though not enough to kill the raking anxiety that Dean might stay in Harlow after all. Maybe he planned to work his way through one girl after another, with her being his first victim.
Great. Just great.
Just her luck, he’d probably make friends with the less upstanding guys around, share the gory details of his exploits, including his night with her. She didn’t care much about denying her needs, but she’d been with no one but Blaine for three years, and people in town would talk and speculate.
If Dean blabbed, her reputation as Harlow’s guarded and practical-minded woman would be shot to shreds. It wasn’t even that everyone would know that she, Sarah Overton, had sex. It was more about who she’d had sex with.
Everyone would take one look at a rough and tough-looking guy like Dean, especially if he stuck around long enough to be known as an overzealous sleazeball, and question her choices. Even more so if she’d picked the crude sleazeball so soon after breaking up with Harlow’s golden guy, Blaine.
Hell, I’m such a reckless idiot.
The next swig of tequila didn’t burn as much, but once again, it didn’t obscure her disappointment either. Maybe she got too far ahead of herself. Maybe things would be okay, and Dean would at least keep their night together secret. Honestly, even after she got him home, he hadn’t given her any creeper vibes.
Her heavy sigh disappeared against the racket of cicadas and the sweeping wind over the grass field ahead, and she resolved to only worry about what she could control.
She peeled herself away from the icy metal door behind her and slid back inside the kitchen, all while Gordon did his best to look busy. She tucked the tequila bottle inside the giant freezer and vowed to leave money for it in the register at night’s end. The chilled bottle would come home with her after closing.
By the time she returned to her spot behind the bar, Ally was gone and Dean sat alone. The restaurant noises were still loud behind him.
“Where’d Ally go?” She made sure to keep her tone rigid as she spoke, not wanting him to think a repeat of their night together would ever happen.
If her harsh delivery bothered him, he didn’t show it, only giving her an easy shrug in response. “Home, I guess.”
She pressed both hands to the bar before him, brought her face close to his; still, his woodsy, spicy scent from the other night rushed at her, making her heart beat faster, a surge of hormones and memories delaying her response. “What are you doing here?”
He sipped at his half-finished beer, the motion all too casual for her liking, and still somehow alluring. “This is a bar, isn’t it? I’m having a drink.”
“You know what I mean.” The strain in her voice only made her hate him more. “You said you were leaving town.”
He shrugged again and looked away. “I changed my mind.”
She paused, her earlier hypothesis about him lying seeming more and more likely. “Did you come here to find me, or are you just looking for your next victim?”
His expression stayed calm, though his stare narrowed a little on her, making her heart thump. “I had no idea you worked here. You never told me, remember?”
That was true. He’d asked questions the other night, though she thought she’d dodged them discreetly enough. Then again, he didn’t address her question just now about finding his next “victim”, so maybe he didn’t deserve any sympathy after all.
She jutted her chin at him. “When are you leaving Harlow?”
“I don’t know.” He took another slow sip, his lips, along with her knowledge of what they could do, distracting as they pulled away from the glass and formed a slow smile. “I like Harlow. It’s a good place.”
The muscles around his eyes took on a harder edge, like he didn’t appreciate her interrogation. Well, tough. Even if he did still make her insides flutter and her temperature shoot up about a thousand degrees, she liked that he expressed a little of the same discomfort his surprise reunion gave her.
“If I’d known you wouldn’t leave, I would never have…” She snapped her mouth shut, unable to finish that sentence.
Never have what? Ignored my whacked-out family history? Made such a careless decision?
“Had sex with me?” Dean twisted in his seat and pinned her with a glare. “Go on, Sarah. You can say it.”
But she didn’t say a thing, and a heavy and awkward silence hung between them, his startling blue eyes bringing an involuntary tingle to her skin. “If you haven’t noticed, you don’t own this town, and my life doesn’t revolve around you. Not that it’s any of your business, but things have changed with work, unpredictable things, and I’ve decided to stay a while longer.”
“Fine.” She snapped to a stiff and straight position, crossing her arms. “Then keep away from my bar, got it? And don’t chat up my friends, either. Ally Egan is off-limits to you, okay? Also, I don’t want you telling anyone else about our night. You being here wasn’t what I signed up for.”
His challenging stare lingered, drawing out a painful silence, drawing her attention to the light stubble along his jaw and his annoyingly kissable lips curling into a proud smirk. “I don’t know why you’re so irked.”
Her body thrummed at the memory of his rough whiskers, how they’d abraded her skin, against her thigh as he’d—
