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Sapphire-blue eyes, the color of the hottest flame, blaze an insistent heat straight through me.
My father always says to look someone in the eyes long enough to register the color before looking away.
But when the time comes, when I should look away, I can’t.
I stare as the burn replaces my anticipation, scorching my body with something different.
Something soul-stirring.
Something illicit.
Something unexpected.
Is this really him?
A part of me hopes it’s not.
It’s hard to tell. The only pictures I’ve seen of Felix Daxon were a driver’s license from four years ago, where he wore an overgrown beard. And the other is from when he was a teenager. In that one, he was sporting an angry-at-the-world, bruised younger face.
This man. This beardless specimen, free of any blemishes or bruises, sort of resembles the person I’ve been waiting to meet.
It’s like those other pictures were soaking in the solution for all these years, and this man is the finished product.
His negative has been exposed.
He’s developed into an image most women would be hard-pressed not to shy away from. They’d get lost in his picture as it stared back, just as he’s doing to me now.
The hold he has on me. My body. My thoughts. It’s unnerving.
I blink, desperately trying to dismiss the blue heat of his eyes.
I pick up my beer and take a sip, fixating my view on the bartender.
“Hey, Lix.” The twentysomething bartender walks over to greet his customer.
Licks? What the hell—oh. Felix. Lix. It must be a nickname or something.
Like him, it’s obscene.
Felix Daxon stands three feet to the left of me at the bar. I feel his presence. Heat penetrates not only from his eyes but also his body.
“Ranger, how’s it going?” Felix Daxon replies in a smooth baritone that sends a quick hot shiver down my spine.
I straighten in my seat, attempting to ward off the controversial reaction to this man’s voice.
My response to him is a complete betrayal.
Dammit! It’s just like me to be attracted to the enemy! If there’s a right or wrong way to do something, you bet your ass I’m doing it the wrong way. Still, I always seem to get to where I need to go, regardless of whether I am doing it right or wrong.
“It’s been a slow night.” The bartender shrugs. He tosses a rag over his shoulder. “Your usual?”
“Yeah.” Felix, aka Lix, sets his cell on the bar.
I watch him via the mirror in front of me. The part-time investigator I put on Felix didn’t get much. Not even pictures. Granted, he was a college student, and I didn’t pay him shit. He did discover Felix Daxon visits this bar every third Sunday, frequents the gym, and attends AA meetings twice a week. Hell, I should’ve done the work myself. Another wrong, done right as here I sit.
I inspect the closet drinker. Looking at him, you’d think he’d have his shit more together. You don’t run a lucrative construction company, find time to stay in shape, rescue abused women, and not have any discipline.
Perhaps, alcohol is his release.
