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“What’s with this music?”
He blinked a few times, still staring at my hand, and then lifted his gaze to mine. A smirk tugged at his lips. “Revolve theme night. Throwback Tuesday. Not to your taste, huh? There’s different music on the other floors.”
“This is not my scene. I’d rather—”
Leaning across the bar, he placed a finger to my lips, his eyes widening as if he couldn’t believe he’d done it, which made two of us. I…I wanted to kiss his finger—no, to pull him across the bar and kiss the smirk right off his tempting mouth.
He exhaled hard, dropping his hand. “Sorry. I wanted to guess.” His smirk reappeared. “Let me see if I get this right. You would rather be…in a pub. Probably one with a band with a sexy, growly guitarist playing alternative rock so loud you can’t hear your mates talking over the music. And…beer.” I stared at him, and he grinned. “Damn, I’m good. You’re so easy to read.”
My eyes narrowed, and I curled my fingers into a fist. I wasn’t actually angry, more like irritated with his smugness. “Nope. You didn’t get it all right. I like listening to a lot of different music, not just alt-rock, and I don’t want it to be too loud to speak.” Notallthe time, anyway.
“But I got the rest right, didn’t I?”
“Yeah,” I admitted grudgingly. “Now, are you going to tell me what this supposedly amazing surprise is before my ears start bleeding from this music?” Britney had finished, but now we had some fucking awful dance remix of what might have been Katy Perry or Taylor Swift or some other singer I never wanted to hear again.
He rolled his eyes. “Stop being so sulky. Wait here.” When he turned away from me, his attention on whatever drink he was making, I took the time to study him, unnoticed. He was wearing a tight black sleeveless T-shirt with the club logo splashed across the front, which nicely showcased the lines of his fit body. His dark hair was artfully tousled, and his deep brown eyes were sparkling with humour as he smiled to himself. I bet he got hit on all the time working here. He was so fucking sexy.
When he returned, he placed the drink down carefully in front of me. “I call this one the Huxley,” he said.
“Excuse me?” I glanced down at the…whatever it was. A cocktail of some sort, in a tall glass with crushed ice. Smooth, jet black in colour, and garnished with a strawberry. When I looked back up at Cole, he was biting down on his lip in a really distracting way.
“Uh. The Huxley. It reminds me of you. Same colour as your nails. Bitter coffee for your broody personality, a bite of ginger for your, uh, fiery moments, and sweet blackberry and raspberry for your sweet tooth. And vodka, because of those vodka shots we did at the wedding. It’s supposed to be garnished with blackberries or raspberries, but I used a strawberry because they’re your favourite.”
I wanted to kiss him more than I’d ever wanted to kiss anyone in my life.
I had to stop myself from wanting things I couldn’t have. Tearing my gaze away from his, I studied my drink. “Is this…how did you get it to be so black?”
“It’s a secret,” he said, leaning across the bar. “But if you behave, I might tell you.” Was heflirtingwith me?
Before I could come up with a response that didn’t involve me grabbing his stupidly tight T-shirt and pulling him all the way across the bar to attack his mouth, he was flagged down by one of the club patrons, a hot, shirtless guy with an amazing body. I watched as Cole gave him an easy smile, which the guy returned, batting his lashes at Cole, and jealousy coiled low in my gut. Fuck this. I didn’t want to be feeling this way.
To distract myself, I took a cautious sip of my drink.
Wow. It was good. Really, really good. After taking another, bigger sip, I pulled the strawberry from the rim of the glass and placed it in my mouth. Mmm. When I’d finished it, I glanced back over at Cole, still mixing drinks for the hot guy, and swiped my tongue across my lips. The bottle of white rum he was in the process of tipping up stilled in mid-air, his eyes darkening as his gaze went to my mouth.
Fuck. I discreetly adjusted myself in my jeans, glad I was pressed up against the bar so no one, especially him, could see the evidence of how he was affecting me. The hot guy said something to him, laughing, and he shook his head with a grin, returning his attention to the drink he was making. He swiped at the guy’s arm jokingly, and I gritted my teeth.
When he came back over, I’d managed to get myself back under control. Mostly. “Do you flirt with everyone like that?” I immediately wanted to take the words back.
He raised his brows. “What’s it to you?”
“Nothing,” I muttered. I shouldn’t have said anything.
“I flirt because it adds to the positive experience for the people that come here, and it comes naturally to me while I’m working. It’s fun. But that just now…that was JJ. He comes here a lot, and he flirts with everyone, not just me specifically. He’s one of my cousin Elliot’s housemates.”
“Have you two ever…” I trailed off, not sure I wanted to know.
“Nah. I always thought it would be a bit weird with him being my cousin’s housemate.”
Not as weird as wanting to fuck your stepbrother, though.
“He’s not my type, anyway,” Cole added after a couple of seconds.
I swallowed hard. “No? What’s your type?”
We stared at each other for a moment, Cole gripping onto the bar counter so tightly I could see his knuckles standing out in sharp relief.
He cleared his throat, his dark gaze fixed on me. Damn those pretty fucking eyes. “Did you like the drink?”
