“All right, then. Let’s see how you do on the other side.”
“Turn the tables on me.”
“I will. Since we’re not talking about professions, how about this one? If you had an extra thirty minutes free in the day for fun, what would you do with it?”
“Shoot hoops,” he answered immediately. “You?”
“I’d spend more time on Tumblr,” she said, and left it up to him to figure out what she did there. When he gave her an approving nod as he downed more of his vodka, she knew he understood what Tumblr was good for.
“Perhaps we should go back to that pick-up line, then?”
“The one where I buy you a drink?” she asked, as a mischievous look flitted past his blue eyes. Damn, they were gorgeous eyes. A pure and light blue, like the crystal waters off Fiji.
“Or I could buy you a drink,” he offered, and this time the cool charm was gone, and his tone was direct. A direct line to her desire to spend more time with him, here at the bar.
There was a rustle of noise as the man grabbed his phone and his glass and stood up. Was he leaving? No, he moved a seat closer, and that brief few seconds of him standing gave Michelle the chance to look up, and admire his height. He had to be easily over six-feet tall. That height was a basic requirement for dating, she and her friend Sutton had joked. A man needed to be a “standard six” and then some, preferably.
He gestured to the stool next to her. “Is this seat taken?”
“When you sit down in it, it will be.”
“Then I will gladly make sure it’s taken, and that no one else can get it.” He smiled at her, and extended a hand. “I’m Jack. Just Jack.”
She shook his hand as he sat next to her. “Michelle with two Ls. I used to have one L in my name, but it always looked like it was spelled wrong, so I just decided to add the second L. Because I can.”
“Hell yeah, you can. And it’s a pleasure to meet you, Michelle who now has two Ls. I hope this isn’t too forward of me, but you don’t seem like a woman who’s going to get offended easily. I noticed how hot you are when you walked into the hotel an hour ago.”
Hot. He’d called her hot. Not pretty. Not beautiful. But hot. She’d take hot. She’d happily take being called hot, because hot was what she felt when he said it. Hot all over. Bothered in all the right places.
“How hot?” she asked, eager for more of his compliments.
He leaned in closer, and lowered his voice to a sexy whisper. “Fucking hot.”
She shut her eyes for the briefest of moments, letting the words flare through her body, igniting something inside of her that usually was only lit up from her fantasy life. But now she was feeling something in real life, from a real person, who seemed to have real interest.
“I believe we could make a nice mutual admiration society then, because I noticed the same of you. Also about an hour ago.”
He raised his glass and clinked it with hers. “To mutual admiration.”
“And to another drink, and I will buy. Because it looks like we’re ready for another one,” she said, glancing at her nearly empty glass.
“I’m ready for more,” he said, and brushed his hand against her shoulder. A fresh blast of sparks raced through her body as he traced a soft line along her collarbone. The tiny touch that started on her neck spread through her, like a golden comet, leaving heat in its wake. In the span of time, his touch was a blink, but it held the promise of so much more.
“I’d be up for more,” she whispered.
“Much, much more,” he said slowly, seductively, that deep, sexy voice threading its way through her, settling down between her legs, turning her on to the point where she was picturing reaching for that wine-red tie, tugging him close, and learning how that stubbly goodness on his jaw would feel against her. And how much more he could raise the heat inside her body with a kiss.
She ordered but when the bartender returned with the drinks and she reached for her purse, Jack placed a hand on top of hers. Firmly. “I was only joking about you paying.”
“What if I want to pay?”
“I’m not going to let you pay, Michelle,” he said in a determined tone, his bright blue eyes fixed on her.
She swallowed, looked down at his hand covering hers, and already her imagination revved into hyper-drive. Long, strong fingers. Big hands. Holding her down. Pinning her.
He seemed to sense where her mind had gone, or maybe he just felt the tension radiate from her body, because he didn’t move away as he paid for the drinks. Before she knew it, his fingers were laced through hers, and he was holding her hand at the bar.
She’d never known holding hands would feel so erotic, but with the charge in the air between them, this was no kids’ play. It was almost like . . . foreplay. Then, it most decidedly became the start of something when he stroked his thumb over her palm, tracing lazy circles on her skin, a promise of what he might be able to do with those hands. She nearly combusted from the spark he’d set off inside her body, like a fireworks twirler lit up and racing.
She shut her eyes briefly, breathed out, her body betraying her. There was no hiding the lust she felt radiating in the air. It was like heat in the desert, shimmering on the horizon. Undeniable.
He was a stranger who wasn’t quite a stranger, and he was the only thing she was thinking about right now. Her mind was one hundred percent here, and nowhere near her past, nowhere close to anyone else, not lingering whatsoever on the man she had thought she loved for years. Nope. She was present, only present, and she enjoyed this moment so much that she hoped it lasted and knit itself into the rest of the evening.