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With a quick nod, Bryan moved to the other end of the bar, where a seat had been claimed by a man who, even sitting down, was still taller than most. Amalie couldn’t help but give him a once-over. He had a powerful frame, even if soft around the edges, like the forgotten build of an athlete lived under his skin. But something else snagged her attention.
Amalie watched with interest as the bartender seemed to contemplate cutting the guy off for the night even though it was only eight o’clock. The man bristled, spine stiffening, fingers tightening around the empty tumbler before him. But in a half-second, his eyes flicked up to one of the flat screens suspended behind the bar and he leaned forward, completely enraptured, his face oddly serene.
As a writer, or well, washed-up writer on the hunt for her next idea, Amalie was captivated by this guy’s body language. One minute it looked like he might shatter his whiskey tumbler with his bare hands, and the next his eyes were glued to the television.
Amalie glanced at the screen, surprised to find a replay of the US Open tennis finals from several years ago. She knew enough about tennis to know the names of the Grand Slam tournaments and some of the cute players (hello, Rafael Nadal), but other than that, she was clueless. Her father, who loved tennis and watched it religiously, had tried to inspire a love of the sport in her, but…it just wasn’t there.
Her eyes slid back to the enigma at the end of the bar. There was a catlike tension in the way he studied the battle between Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, his entire focus narrowed to the game, his muscles twitching with restrained energy. Her writer instincts screamed that there was far more going on here than a bar patron watching the rerun of an old match. Cheering and clapping erupted on the screen.
“I could’ve done that!Easily!” The man pounded his fist on the bar and exploded from his seat with such force that his barstool tumbled backward. He was just as tall as she imagined, well over six feet.
Amalie gasped and took a step back. The man downed his drink, slamming the empty glass onto the bar with a thud, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Another,” he growled at the bartender.
He shifted slightly and when he turned, she caught sight of his lovely eyes in the dim light, but they were marred with heavy bags beneath them.
“Hey, man. Julian, come on. You’ve got to chill,” Bryan pleaded.
Julian.Amalie rolled that name around in her mind, tasted it on her tongue. She supposed he looked like a Julian, though to be fair she hadn’t met a single Julian in her twenty-eight years. She studied him, his calves and thighs muscular beneath his khaki shorts. Yes, shorts, despite the cold. Even his arms looked like they had once been powerful, but judging by the slight beer gut he was rocking, Julian had missed a workout or two. He was ridiculously attractive, though, even if Amalie struggled to reconcile that fact with his brutish behavior.
She studied him further, imagining his story and committing his features to memory, a memory she would later take out, dissect, and piece together into one of her fictional heroes. Romina always teased that Amalie was more voyeur than participant in life. Perhaps that’s why writing was so important to her.
Julian’s burnt umber hair fell in unruly waves across his tanned forehead, his nose almost too flawless. But no, when he turned, she noted a slight bump, perhaps hinting at a fight at one point in his life? Or maybe, if he was like Amalie, a pretty nasty run-in with a suspiciously transparent sliding-glass door.
Julian’s profile, with his sulky lower lip, was a thing of beauty, and she found herself wondering why such loveliness had been wasted on a staggering mess of a man.
As if feeling the levity of her gaze, or rather her judgment, Julian met her stare. Nowthatwas completely unfair. His eyes stood out against his dark skin, a stunning green that reminded her of lush trees in the spring, and there were tiny lightning strikes of sparkling gold darting from the pupils.
Wait…
Holy crap, she was standing directly in front of him, having gravitated toward him without even realizing it. It didn’t matter how hot he was, howbighe was, she didn’t want any part of this.
As if he heard her thoughts, he raised a perfect, dark eyebrow, a quirk she was sure was meant to be sexy and had probably worked on dozens of other women, but at that moment it only came off as sloppy and awkward.
“Like what you see?” he challenged. His sultry voice would’ve made her panties melt if not for the slur accenting it.
Amalie recoiled, cheeks hot as she leveled the behemoth with a sneer. “Excuse me?”
Julian tilted his head, studying her with a drunken intensity that made her squirm. “I said, do you like what you see? My place isn’t that far…if you think you can keep your hands off me that long.”
Bryan snickered as he shook his head, pretending to be mesmerized by the cleanliness of the beer mug in his hand.
“Can you believe the balls on this guy?” Amalie hooked a thumb toward Julian as she looked to Bryan. For what, she had no idea.
“A filthy mouth, too.” Julian shot her a wink and sat back down at the bar. “Myfavorite.”
“You are out of control.” Amalie huffed. “I can’t help it that I naturally gravitated towardthis”—she waved her arms around, motioning and flailing at Julian—“train wreck. I thought I might’ve had my next book idea. But yet you disappoint, something I’m sure is very common.”
There. She hated to be a mean girl, but he’d totally asked for it.
Julian reared back as if she’d slapped him but quickly recovered. “Enough of the spoiled little rich girl act. It reeks.”
She faltered, the sting hitting home. “You don’t even know me.”
“Right, and you don’t know me either, princess.”
Princess? Anger burned inside her as she poked her finger into his surprisingly hard chest. “You have no idea who you’re messing with, mister.”
