A Shot of Sultry Read online

  “To?”

  “All the dudes I saw watching you when we walked in the room.” He pulled away just long enough to toss a twenty onto the bar before holding her again, tighter than before. “Marking my territory. Staking my claim. No one’ll bother you now.”

  Snickering, the bartender opened a fresh bag of snack mix and shook it into a clean bowl. “He speaks the truth.” He pushed the bowl across the lacquer bar and served their drinks before stepping away to help another customer.

  “Lovely.” At least he didn’t pee on her. “How did I ever manage to fend off unwanted advances before you came along?”

  “Probably by launching into some femi-nazi lecture.”

  “I hate that term. Nazi isn’t a word you can just throw around, and it’s completely inappropr—”

  “Thanks for making my point.” He took a chug of beer and licked foam off his upper lip. “More likely you’d sucker punch the guy, like you did to me.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said as she squeezed a lime wedge into her drink before taking a sip. “You had it coming. You smacked my ass. Hard!”

  He held his mug just below his mouth, smiling as if replaying the memory. “Yes, I did. But if that didn’t repel the poor bastard, you could always insult him like you did to June and Luke.”

  “What?” In her shock, she’d dribbled bittersweet tonic down her chin. “I never did that.”

  “You dissed their house.” He released her waist and dug into the bowl of snacks, then handed over an extra napkin. “Their mismatched furniture, remember?”

  “That had nothing to do with them.” Blotting her chin, she struggled for a way to explain her reaction that night. She hadn’t told anyone about the dollhouse—not even her court-appointed child psychologist—and never in a million years did she expect to say, “Their place reminded me of an apartment I lived in as a kid, and it stirred up some bad memories. That’s all.” It wasn’t much in the way of confessions, but getting the words out felt strangely liberating.

  Trey frowned around a cheek full of pretzel. “What kind of bad memories?”

  “I dunno.” Unable to hold his intense gaze, she used her swizzle stick to poke at the ice cubes inside her glass. “Feeling hungry and ignored. Not learning to read until fourth grade. Getting teased because I smelled bad and wore thrift store clothes. Teaching myself to fight before I could ride a bike. Take your pick.”

  He didn’t say anything for a while, just traced a bead of condensation down the length of his beer mug and stared into the amber liquid like it revealed the secrets of the universe. Finally, he rested both forearms on the bar and said, “I’m doing it to clear my military record.”

  “What?”

  “Going to Dubai. The army discharged me for striking an officer, but I can apply to have my record expunged after I serve out this contract. That’s why I’m going.”

  “Oh.” Now she understood—quid pro quo. He’d traded one uncomfortable admission for another. Her heart warmed, and Bobbi decided she liked Trey Lewis. “Well, good luck.” She pilfered through the snack bowl and handed him a flawless, whole cashew. “I hope it works out for you.”

  “Keep this off the record though.”

  “Of course,” she promised. “But why do you need it cleared so badly?”

  He popped the cashew into his mouth while his chest shook with soft laughter. “Why are you really in town?”

  “Oh, so it’s my turn again?” No way was she spilling about the lawsuit. It was too embarrassing, and she’d divulged enough for one day. “I told you, I’m only—”

  “Save it, Bo Peep. I knew you were full of shit from day one. You rub your nose when you lie.”

  “No I don’t. I scratch my nose when I’m nervous.”

  “And when you lie. It’s an easy tell.”

  “Really?”

  He held up one hand. “I swear it on the Cubs.”

  “Huh.” She touched the tip of her nose, hoping no one else had picked up on her habit.

  Trey glanced over his shoulder to scan the crowd, then turned back to his Bud. “Wonder when the raid’s going down. I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

  “And you call me a strange bird,” Bobbi said, raising her glass at him. “Forget to take your Metamucil this morning?”

  “My what?”

  “You’re a single guy at a strip club, and instead of getting a lap dance in a private room, you’re grumbling that it’s past your bedtime.”

  Smiling, he chugged the last of his beer, then wiped one hand across his mouth. “You offering? ’Cause we could find an empty room somewhere.” When he glanced down at her thighs and licked his top lip, heat pooled in her lap, and she had to cross her legs to diffuse the sensation.

  “Sorry. Left my sequined thong in my other bag.”

  “Damned shame.”

  Abruptly, the music stopped, and Bobbi rotated her stool toward the front entrance, where half a dozen armed, uniformed officers stormed inside and barred the doorway. A man’s voice came over the speaker system, ordering, “Remain in your seats. I repeat: remain in your seats. The sheriff’s department will release you momentarily.” Plain-clothes cops rose from the crowd and made their way to the club’s periphery, while the audience muttered in protest at being held hostage, especially when the dancer clicked offstage in her platform heels.

  Here we go. She glanced at Weezus, glad to see he’d knelt on his table with a perfect view of the dozen or so doors to the exclusive dance rooms, where all hell was about to break loose. As long as Weezus’s chest faced the action, he’d capture the mayhem on camera.

  A scuffle broke out from one of the tables as a tall redhead pushed against a uniformed deputy. “You idiot!” the customer shouted, reaching into his back pocket. “Stand down!”

  The deputy drew his gun. “Keep your hands where I can see ’em!”

  “I’m a federal officer,” the redhead protested. “You’re interfering with an FBI investi—” Before the guy had a chance to produce his badge, another deputy tased him, and he convulsed wildly before crumpling to the floor.

  At that, about twenty of the redhead’s buddies—presumably other federal officers—jumped to his aid, swearing and shouting accusations. The undercover deputies jogged into the fray, demanding the feds “get down on the motherfucking ground!” and a full-on brawl ensued.

  Her eyes found Weezus, who looked even happier than she was. “Thank you, God.” Bobbi brought both hands together and turned her eyes to the ceiling as Trey pulled her against his chest in a protective stance.

  “I don’t like this.”

  She did. A bearded man who looked like a young Santa Claus just broke a beer bottle over the sheriff’s head. The air was thick with testosterone and theater fog. The sounds of fists smacking flesh competed with grunts and squeaking shoes. You couldn’t buy footage like this.

  “I wanna get you out of here,” Trey said, glancing at the blocked exits.

  “Colton said we’re locked in.” She patted his bicep, trying to draw him out of bodyguard mode. “Just chill. Half the guys in here are cops. What’s the worst that can happen?”

  A chair came flying within inches of her head, and Trey jerked her aside just in time. Glaring at her, he set his jaw, while Bobbi placed a hand over her heart. No wonder he’d been contracted for security detail—it seemed reflexive for him.

  “Okay,” she conceded. “Maybe we should duck behind the bar.”

  When a glass shattered nearby, Trey shook his head. “Not good enough. Let’s try the bathrooms.”

  Linking their fingers, he tugged her out of the main room. Once they made it halfway down the hall, he pushed against the men’s room door, finding it locked. Bobbi tried the ladies’ room, with the same result. A gunshot pierced the air, making her jump, and Bobbi’s eyes automatically searched for a hiding place.

 
She spotted what looked like a small closet at the end of the corridor and sprinted to it with Trey on her heels. The door opened easily, revealing a dark, tiny space the size of a standing shower with electrical panels and several fuse boxes built into the walls. “Is it safe in there?” she asked.

  “As long as you’re not wet.” He ushered her inside and followed, pulling the door closed behind him.

  They stood face-to-face, pressed against one another as flashing green lights from a nearby modem cast Christmasy shadows beneath Trey’s eyes. The cramped space was hotter than hell and crackled with electricity, and since the door didn’t appear to lock, Trey held the handle while they listened to chaos unfolding from the hallway. The hollow beneath his throat pulsed rapidly. Both their breaths came in quick gasps for the next several minutes.

  When another shot rang out, she squealed and buried her face in Trey’s dampened chest. As much as she wanted to save her career, it wasn’t worth dying for.

  “Shh, it’s okay.” He stroked her hair, and despite the beads of sweat forming between her breasts, she locked both arms around his waist and plastered herself to every inch of him…including the steely length of his erection, perfectly aligned with his zipper. When she flinched, he incorrectly assumed it was out of fear, and tried soothing her. “You’re safe,” he whispered, trailing his fingers down her back. But she found herself wanting a whole lot more than comfort. Her heart sprinted, and all her stress and fear catapulted her libido into the stratosphere.

  Trying to ignore the shouts outside, not to mention the warmth settling between her thighs, she pulled in a deep breath through her nose, savoring Trey’s masculine scent. That only made things worse. Flashbacks of his teasing touch, his wicked words, his promise to leave her breathless, swirled in Bobbi’s mind, and it didn’t help knowing he obviously wanted her too. Closing her eyes, she focused on unsexy things, like student loans and attorney fees, but her thoughts always circled back to the memory of Trey’s hand massaging between her legs.

  She tried to be still, tried to ignore the urge to wrap her calf around Trey’s hips and strain against him. Holding back took so much effort, she ended up fisting his T-shirt and clenching her teeth. Then Trey went and ruined everything. He pushed his bulge against her belly and swept one hand down the length of her backside.

  In the distance, the bar had fallen silent, but Bobbi barely had time to register the fact before Trey dipped his head and brushed his soft lips across her earlobe while simultaneously inching her dress upward. All rational brain activity halted, replaced by surging passion, and the outside world ceased to exist.

  “You know,” he whispered, “we could…”

  “…finish what we started,” she replied, reaching around to stroke him through his jeans.

  A low groan vibrated his chest as he thrust to meet her hand. “Just this once.”

  “Get it out of our systems.” It sounded reasonable to her. One quickie—nobody would ever know—and she could stop wondering how his rough hands would feel against her bare stomach, or how deliciously he’d fill her, long and thick and hard. Once she’d had him, she could finally quit obsessing and focus on her job. She tore at the button of his jeans and lowered the zipper. “Do you have protection?”

  “No.” His breath hitched when she slipped her hand inside his boxer briefs and curled her fingers around him. “I mean yes, but no sex. I promised your brother.”

  She started to object, but quickly bit her lip when he tugged the dress to her waist and nudged her legs apart. Slipping two fingers beneath her panties, he murmured, “I can still make you forget how to breathe…and make you see stars too.” With a touch that could only be described as sinful, he stroked her halfway to ecstasy while she matched his rhythm, pumping with her fist. “I want to get on my knees,” he whispered in her ear, “and hook your leg over my shoulder,” he dipped his fingers inside her, just deep enough to bring a sigh to her lips, “and lick you till you scream my name.”

  Oh god. She longed for that too, in the worst way, but she wanted to leave him shaking with pleasure even more. “It’s your turn first.”

  When he didn’t argue, she sank slowly until she knelt beneath him on the concrete floor. Trey used both hands to brace himself against the wall, and she pulled him free of his briefs.

  Unfortunately, that’s when a sheriff’s deputy threw open the door, caught Bobbi with her hand in Trey’s pants—and proceeded to arrest her for prostitution.

  As the official led her outside by her cuffed wrists—right past her gawking cameraman, who, naturally, got the whole thing on film—two things occurred to Bobbi. One: the sheriff hadn’t arrested Trey. What a sexist double standard. Weren’t they equally guilty of this theoretical crime? And two: if she didn’t get her shit together right now, hooking would be the only job she’d ever be able to find. She had to figure out how to stay away from Trey and his siren call of sex. For real this time.

  Well, just as soon as he posted her bail.

  Chapter 7

  Trey propped both elbows on the slate countertop and glared at his coffeemaker in an effort to coerce it into dripping faster. Stifling a yawn, he scrubbed his bleary eyes and groaned at the prospect of another twelve-hour day on the job with nothing fueling him but the stale Folgers he’d found at the bottom of the pantry. Until this week, he’d never been a coffee drinker—had seen caffeine addiction as a weakness—but he needed that sludge more than air today.

  Between bouts of fitful sleep and waking “up” with a boner every few hours, these friggin’ sex dreams were going to kill him, especially now that he knew the feel of Bobbi’s slick heat and the softness of her palm wrapped around him. How was he supposed to spend the next two months around her with that memory tickling his johnson? Because he’d never, ever forget. Unfortunately, neither would Bobbi, which explained why she still wasn’t speaking to him.

  She wouldn’t even let him apologize, and he felt awful. The worst part was that he hadn’t been able to do anything to help her that night except fetch Colton, who’d ridden to the rescue and plucked Bobbi from the sheriff’s paddy wagon like a knight in shining shit-kickers. She’d been so grateful to Colt, she’d kissed him everywhere but on the mouth—just a dusting of pecks, but it still hit Trey like a punch to the junk. He and Bobbi had skipped first base and gone straight to third, so she’d never kissed him, and it’d chapped his ass to see her lips smacking all over Colt’s gloating face.

  The phone rang, and Trey closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and filling his nose with the pungent scent of strong coffee. It was probably his mom, and he had no intention of picking up to hear the latest installment of As the Divorce Turns. In the most recent development, the Colonel had offered Mom seventy percent of their liquid assets in exchange for a quick break, but she’d refused and nearly given her lawyer a stroke in the process.

  “Hey, asshole,” Luke’s voice grumbled from the ancient answering machine in the other room. “Pick up, so I can apologize.”

  Trey smiled despite his lousy mood. He answered the cordless phone in the kitchen. “Let’s hear it then.”

  “Don’t be a dick. I’m sorry.” Luke paused to swallow, probably sipping his own coffee. “We cool?”

  “Yeah, we’re cool.”

  “Cool.”

  Trey suddenly appreciated how guys didn’t need a twelve-step program to get over a fight like women did. He pulled a mug down from the counter and watched the last few drops trickle into his Mr. Coffee carafe.

  “Hey,” Luke said without a trace of resentment in his voice, another reason men were better company after a fight. “I need to talk to you about Bo.”

  Trey froze with his fingers clenched around the mug handle. “’Bout what?”

  “Did something happen to her in the last few days?”

  Before or after she got busted with my dick in her hand? “Not that I know of. Why?”
/>   “She’s acting weird. Rearranging shit and organizing the whole house. I went to grab some batteries out of the—”

  “—junk drawer.” Where every man kept the batteries.

  “Right. But she moved ’em, along with my duct tape and box cutter.”

  “Dude, what sinister plans are you cookin’ up this morning?” Trey teased.

  “That’s not the point. I can’t find a damned thing in my own house. Plus, she’s all jittery and being pissy with me.”

  “Probably that time of the month.” Trey poured himself a steaming cup of liquid motivation while guilt gnawed at his gut. “Just keep your head down for a few days.”

  Luke considered on the other end of the line. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

  “She’s tougher than you give her credit for, buddy.” Trey brought the mug to his lips and sucked a scorching sip, recoiling at the bitter taste. He’d made it too strong again.

  “So, what’re you gonna do with the house?” Luke asked, changing the subject. “When you leave?”

  Trey walked into the living room and leaned one shoulder against the wall, scanning his humble furnishings, while a tingle of regret needled at his chest. It wasn’t the Taj Mahal, but he had the basics: black leather sofa, oak coffee table, entertainment center, big screen TV, and a few withering potted plants. He’d come to Sultry Springs a decade earlier with nothing but a duffel bag and a temporary job offer, not expecting to settle in this tiny town. Didn’t take long before he’d been able to afford a handyman’s special—a fourteen-hundred-square-foot ranch right off Main Street—and he’d fixed it up slowly over the years, with his own two hands.

  “Think I’ll rent it out,” he decided, hooking one finger through his denim belt loop. “Should cover the mortgage and taxes.”

  “Good.” Luke cleared his throat, and Trey could almost see him glancing away to hide his discomfort. “You’re more likely to come back if you don’t sell the place.”

  “Maybe.” But what tied him to Sultry Springs wasn’t the property, it was the people, and Trey’d found himself starting to let go—picking fights with Luke, declining Miss Pru’s dinner invitations, making excuses to stay home when his friends wanted to go barhopping in the city. After two years of distance from everyone, would he want to come back? He couldn’t say.