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Just my luck. If he had busied himself, at least I would have had an excuse to get a drink from someone else, turn around, and tell Cass that he was otherwise engaged. But no. He looms behind the bar, larger than bloody life, his half-handsome, half-ruined visage doing things to me in the panties, things that are not normal. Alright, it might be fairly normal for any young woman to experience an attraction like I’m experiencing, but I don’t like it. Also, there’s a raw, animal edge to this that I most certainly do not like.
I stumble up to the bar and breathe in. I expect to smell…well, smoke—rich, thick, fragrant, dark smoke pouring off him, but all I can smell is the tang of body odor, too much perfume all mingled and mixed up from the women in line for drinks, cologne from the men, and the sticky, tangy scent of alcohol. Normal bar smells.
Part of me is thankful that this guy isn’t potent enough to be inhaled through a crowd. That wouldn’t be normal. That would be…well, most certainly atypical, and this guy is already in some percentile class that I don’t want to contemplate.
When I reach the bar, his eyes flick to my face, and there’s a spark of recognition. I have to meet his gaze and make eye contact because that’s what I do. I’m not a coward. I always make eye contact. As soon as my eyes meet his, it’s like flint bouncing off those strange gray orbs. He holds me pinned there with just his gaze. It scours through me, blazing like wildfire, and maybe I now fully know the meaning of his name. Smoke. Smoke always accompanies fire.
I know he knows who I am, but I lean into the sticky bar with the sticky mats, where I’m sure a thousand drinks have been spilled in the past hour alone, and ask anyway. “You know who I am?”
He’s a tough nut to crack. His face remains absolutely impassive—no smile, no frown, and no panicked look because he’s intimidated or worried about what my dad is going to do to him just for talking to me. That indifference is new and surprising. No one looks at me that way. No. One. It does more to my insides than if he’d straight up flirted with me.
I don’t know what a guy flirting looks like. I guess maybe I should say hit on me, but I really don’t know what that looks like either. Again, see above. Not only does no one look at me with indifference, but most people also don’t dare to look at me, period. Most guys in this city—the smart ones, at any rate—know that to lay a hand on me means getting that hand chopped off. Metaphorically speaking. My dad doesn’t make a practice of going around collecting severed limbs. That’s very, uh…archaic. He collects metaphorical hands. And metaphorical balls. People do not want my dad as an enemy.
“I do,” he says, and god, his voice is so deliciously smooth and low. I almost expected it to be gruff, but his voice is more like his face was before that scar. Strangely pretty. Even now, it’s strangely pretty. “What can I get you?”
I lean in a little further, my pulse racing at an absurd rate. If my hands weren’t already sticky from the bar top, they’d be sticky with nervous sweat produced by electric nervous energy. “If you were a smart man, you’d know that serving me any drink could get you into trouble. It could even cost you your job.”
He shrugs a set of shoulders broad enough to lift up half this club, and my heart races with absurd excitement. “I’m not afraid of losing my job. Plus, not serving you a drink would be not doing my job, and wouldn’t that put me at risk of losing it all the same?”
I ignore his plentiful wit. “Are you afraid of losing your balls?”
He grins at me, and I’m unprepared for the blinding gorgeous wonder of it. My stomach does a hard, twisty leap, and my lady bits…well, they do a hard, twisty leap as well. My jeans are suddenly a little too tight between my too-hot, tingly thighs.
“They’re not my best asset,” he says easily.
His big hands are settled on the counter behind the bar. Those big. Inked. Hands. I dart my eyes back up to his face when I start thinking about all the things he could do with those hands. The drinks he could make, I mean.
“Oh? You’re one of those odd, rare guys whose brain is more important to him than his biscuits?”
His lips twitch, and god, I want another overpowered grin to make me wet in the panties. I mean…what? No. I don’t want that. I’m not even supposed to be here tonight. I’m not supposed to be flirting with this guy—if that’s what I’m even doing. I’m not supposed to be imagining this going places it can never go. Sadly. He works for my dad, and that makes him off-limits. Can’t keep employees and club dudes a secret, so just nope.
