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Carlos settled back in his seat, keeping his gaze locked on the woman as she carried three beers back to her booth. The change in direction gave him an ideal view of her curvy ass. “Like most of the guys in this bar wouldn’t pretend to be a wizard if that’s the game she wanted to play in the bedroom.”
“I would find a cape right fast.” Roscoe raised his shot glass in salute before downing the whiskey.
“Well then, I’d say you found your target.” Cam smirked. “Go get her, ’Los.”
As far as challenges went, it was friendly. But it was still a challenge. And Carlos never backed down from a challenge.
For the past year, there hadn’t been a single one the Maltese team had issued that he hadn’t met head-on—and he always would. This was who he was now; the former geek supreme didn’t exist anymore. He’d pushed that guy and his guilt for pulling the trigger so far into a closet that he would never see the light of day again.
“One dance?” Carlos pushed back his chair and stood, already primed for action—just like any time Scarlett’s ghost came haunting.
“Yep. The longest slow song you can find on the jukebox,” Alex said, barely keeping his laughter in check. “And then she has to buy you a beer.”
Carlos took one last swig of his beer. “You’re all a bunch of assholes.”
Not bothering to stick around to hear their responses, which no doubt would just be an agreement, he strode across the bar, his sights set on the hot brunette with a body made for the best kinds of trouble.
Mika Ito set down the trio of beer bottles, making sure to keep her back turned to the hotties sitting at a table in the back of the bar with their chairs angled so each of them had his back to the wall. Not that it made a difference. The testosterone wafting out of that corner was thick enough to knock her flat and leave her begging for more, whether she was looking at them or not.
“I still vote paid assassins,” she told her best friends, Kailer and Layla, who were already sitting at the table ready for girls’ night out to commence.
“You have got to get a new hobby. All that Magic Battledome dress-up shit has twisted your brain,” Layla said as she shoved a stray purple hair back into her topknot.
“It’s not dress up, it’s live-action role-playing.” She sat down. “LARPing if you’re cool.”
“I could go for action of another kind.” Kailer clinked bottles with Layla. “I love working in the fashion world, but damn, the ratio of gay to straight men is killing me.”
“Amen, sister,” she and Layla said at the same time.
It wasn’t the first time she’d had that particular conversation with her jewelry designer and stylist best friends. Between her work as a textile designer and her alternate personality as the Silver Queen in Magic Battledome LARP events, Mika met a lot of people, but none quite as dangerously male as the group who’d been eyeballing them for the past half hour.
Especially not like the one with the wavy dark hair so conservatively styled that she itched to run her fingers through it just to see if he’d look any sexier tousled. Her heartbeat sped up at the mental image. Yeah. He totally would. If she went for dudes with thick biceps and brooding dark eyes, which she normally didn’t—but tonight she could make an exception.
“Looks like at least one of them has a pair of balls,” Layla said while looking over Mika’s shoulder.
“Layla,” Kailer groaned under her breath, an embarrassed pink shading her cheeks.
“What?” Layla shrugged. “They’ve only been staring at us for thirty minutes.”
“Which one?” Mika asked, crossing her fingers for one in particular.
But she didn’t need to hear her friends’ responses; a swift peek at the mirror behind the bar confirmed that for once Lady Luck was smiling in her direction. Awareness made her skin tingle in all the right places. She straightened in the booth, wishing that her family tree had included tall Samurai warriors instead of short accountants. The air moved around her and her heart kicked it up a notch or twenty.
“Hi.” Low, warm, and with a hint of a Spanish accent, Mr. Dark and Brooding stood next to the table, looking at her like there wasn’t another person in the world.
“Hi.” She sounded all breathy, like she’d just run a ten miler, was out of breath, and wholeheartedly grateful to still be alive.
“Hi.” His nearness made her panties evaporate. “I’m Carlos.”
It took her a second to come up with an appropriate response. “Mika.”
“Nice to meet you, Mika. Do you want to dance?” he asked.
She looked around, beginning to wonder if this was some kind of joke. “This is Feeny’s. There’s no dance floor. I don’t think you’re even allowed to dance in here.”
“I’m willing to risk it.” His lips curled in a lazy one-sided smile that sent her pulse into medic-alert speed. “Are you?”
Going with her gut, she decided she was and followed him out to a spot near the bar where the tables weren’t packed so close together near the jukebox. He found a song on the jukebox, something slow and mellow, then put one hand on her hip and held the other one in his. An electric awareness snapped, crackled, and popped along her skin.
