AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Totally helpless and completely riveted by their closeness, she did just that. Leaned right in and ran her cheek up along the length of his neck, inhaling as she went. Sure enough, he smelled like sex personified. She wanted to lick him there. Well, she wanted to lick him everywhere really, but she could start with there.
Between them, Gabe reached up, covering her hand with one of his own, and for one thrilling second she thought he was going to lift her fingers to his lips. Instead, he gently removed her hand from his chest and dropped her arm to her side, effectively tearing her out of the sexual haze and returning her to her reality of humiliation and rejection.
Stunned, and a little dizzy by all the sensations that had suddenly collided inside her, she blinked up at him.
He stared down at her, his green eyes lit with laughter. His sexy mouth quirked into what she was beginning to realize was his signature smile.
Did he think this was funny? Was he laughing at her? Heat flooded her cheeks and embarrassment rose hot and burning up her neck. She opened her mouth to tell him where he could stick his amusement, but he waved something black in front of her, directing her attention away from his ridiculously sexy grin and her rising temper.
“If you’re going to go all Coyote Ugly on me, you’re going to do it in my t-shirt.” He held up the black fabric, letting it fall open.
It was identical to the one he wore. The one all his staff wore. A basic black tee with the Bowie’s logo over the breast.
Gabe waved it at her again, one eyebrow up. “You in?”
Hope could see that part of him was giving her the option to bow out gracefully. But Hope didn’t bow out—not anymore—so she grabbed the t-shirt.
“I’m in.”
CHAPTERFIVE
Gabe wasn’t sure what he expected after he handed Hope the staff shirt, but he certainly hadn’t expected what he was witnessing now.
Beside him at the bar, Hope was wielding bottles of Jack and vodka with utter confidence, total control, and unprecedented skill. She’d been at it for over an hour and hadn’t needed to ask him how to mix a single drink. Hope mixed, poured, and served whatever order she received with easy efficiency.
He tried to focus on his own end of the bar, but it was hard not to notice her at the other end smiling and chatting up customers as if she’d been born to do this. Awareness coursed through his body from head to toe, annoying him. The last thing he needed right now was his body betraying him by lusting after Hope Morgan.
She laughed at something one of the male customers said, and he looked over to catch her throwing back her head, her long blonde hair, which she’d tied up into a high bouncy ponytail, falling down the length of her back. She was still wearing those bloody heels, and they were still distracting him out of his mind, but more now that he was acutely aware of how fucking uncomfortable they must be after standing in them for hours. He watched her pivot, bend, and turn as she worked in her space, seemingly undeterred by the fact that she was balanced on four-inch chopsticks.
Hope’s throaty laugh floated over to him again. A scowl etched his face as he watched her full red lips spread into a toothy smile, her eyes brighten with laughter. And as she handed over the beer she’d poured, the sonofabitch had the nerve to slip a small card into her fingers.
Gabe knew the move like the back of his hand. Happened all the damn time. He was willing to bet his own goddamn bar that little piece of paper had that guy's number on it. He was about to drop the whiskey bottle he was holding and march over to yank that fucking piece of paper out of her hands and shove it up the guy’s ass when he saw Hope wink at the jerk, then lean in slightly as she tossed the paper in the waste basket below the bar without the guy being the wiser.
Ok, not her first rodeo, he conceded, and hell if he didn’t admire her for holding her own without causing a scene like he’d been about to do.
Growling under his breath, Gabe went back to mixing a whiskey sour. This woman confused the hell out of him, tied him into knots, and turned him on all at the same time. Worse, he had no idea what to do about it.
In the last hour alone, she had shattered nearly every assumption he’d made about her. If he was being honest, she’d been blowing his assumptions out of the water since their encounter this morning. And when they’d collided in front of his office and he’d touched her… Christ, he had to stop thinking about it, or he’d humiliate himself by getting a hard-on right here behind the bar.
He’d been reliving the moment when she leaned into him and ran her face along his neck, all but inhaling him, since it happened. He’d nearly lost it. Same as he was nearly losing it now. His reaction didn’t just shock him, it was scaring the bloody daylights out of him. Never in his entire life had he experienced such an instant and blinding attraction to a woman. Then again, Hope was proving to be unlike any woman he’d ever met before.
In fact, Hope Morgan was proving to be none of the things he assumed her to be, and for reasons that both irritated and intrigued him, this pulled him into her stratosphere even more. He was feeling things he hadn’t in years, and it was unsettling.
So, Gabe responded to these unsettling feelings like he always did—with a bad attitude and a scowl.
If his clientele noticed, they didn’t say anything, and the evening went on as most Friday nights did—in a blur of activity, loud music, and energy. He lost himself in the pulsing beat of it all and tried his damnedest not to think about Hope for the rest of the night.
They closed at 1 a.m., but by the time the last of his employees had left, it was nearly two.
Gabe came out of his office and through the kitchen to find Hope alone in his bar, wiping down tables. Propping his shoulder against doorway separating the bar from the back rooms, he crossed his arms and watched as she reached across a table to wipe up a spill. He tried and failed to take his eyes off the way her skintight pants stretched across her amazing ass. Her feet going up to her toes as she leaned forward to give him a million-dollar view of her milelong legs. He felt like a jerk—worse than a jerk, he thought in disgust. He felt like a horny, sex-starved weirdo who hadn’t had a woman in way too long.
Which maybe wasn’t so far from the truth.
Sean was right: he needed to get a life. Maybe it was time he put himself out there for more than a one-night stand, before he was forced to live off of fantasy alone.
She must have sensed his presence because she straightened and caught his gaze. Her smile slipped a bit when she caught his look. By the scowl he could feel etched on his face, she likely thought he was staring at her in disgust. Fine, that was probably better than having her know what he had really been thinking.
Shoving off the wall, he grabbed a towel and moved behind the bar to give everything a final wipe. Together, they worked in silence. It felt easy, effortless. She didn’t need small talk or constant instructions. She simply moved in tandem with him doing what needed to be done, all the while swaying her hips in gentle rhythm with the music that now played low over the speakers.
