So they chatted on and off as she served more customers. She asked him about the deal he’d worked on today, and he told her what he could tell. He asked her about the night she’d had, and she nodded to a skinny guy slouched over the corner of the bar, and there was something so easy – so completely lacking in the bullshit and abrasiveness of office hours — about talking to her.
As she mixed up a purple concoction with sugar on the rim, she crooked a finger toward him, signaling for him to lean closer across the bar. He obliged; he wasn’t going to complain about being near to her.
“Do you want a Purple Snow Globe, Clay?”
He met her gaze straight on, her green eyes so inviting. “If it’s that a drink, no. If purple snow globe is a secret code word for something naughty, I’m game.”
“Well played,” she said, raising an eyebrow. She eyed the drink she’d just made with a proud sort of look. “It’s my signature cocktail. Some day, I’m going to win an award for this bad boy.”
He leaned back in the stool and took a slow measured drink from his beer glass, then set it down. “Will I regret not ordering then? For the chance to say I drank a Purple Snow Globe once at a bar in San Francisco?”
She flashed a sexy smile, then whispered. “It’s absolutely delish, so you might regret not tasting it. But I’m glad you didn’t order it because it’s nothing a man should ever ask for at a bar and expect a woman to want him,” she whispered near his ear, her hair brushing his cheek, making him instantly hard. But that wasn’t entirely true. He’d been borderline hard for most of the conversation. The feel of her silky strands along the with the words want him just ratcheted things up a notch or two.
She stepped away to deliver the drink to a customer and tend to more orders. As she returned to his end of the bar, he picked up where they’d left off. “What do you think a man should drink at a bar?”
“Scotch,” she said, punctuating the word with a perfect O shape to her lips. “Or whiskey,” she said, her voice a purr now. “Bourbon works too.”
“I believe you just named all my favorite drinks.”
“I had a feeling you might like those.”
“Did you?”
“I always know how to match a drink to a man.”
He tapped the side of his beer glass. “Then I’d like to know why I have a beer here in front of me. Tell me that, Julia.”
She paused, tilted her head to side with a mischievous flare to her moves, then licked those luscious lips. Damn her; she was hotter than words, and she knew how to play. “When it comes right down to it, a man should drink what the bartender gives him,” she said in a sultry voice that made him want to hear her say other things. Lots of other things. Like Hold me down hard. Or Tease me with your tongue. Yeah, those sorts of things. “That’s the best match I can make.”
“I don’t want you making that match for anyone else then tonight,” he said firmly, giving her a hard stare, reminding her that he could play too. Because he knew exactly what he wanted. Her. And he didn’t want anyone else to have a shot. “Especially because I’m finding the bartender has excellent taste.”
She raised an eyebrow. “She does. She has impeccable taste, and she’s only making one match tonight,” she said, layering her words thick and hot with innuendo.
He wasn’t entirely sure where the evening was going next, only because he wasn’t the kind of man to take a woman like Julia for granted. He wasn’t going to make any sort of assumptions because assumptions got you into trouble in life. He knew that well from his line of work, and from the crap he’d dealt with from his ex, who’d brought heaps of heartache to him in their last few months together before it ended. It was also entirely possibly that Julia was a shameless flirt, angling for a big tip with her saucy little mouth. You couldn’t rule anything out, and regardless of where the night ended up, he planned on tipping her well for her bartending work because the woman was doing a hell of a job.
There were other jobs he’d like from her though.
Soon the crowds thinned, and Julia finished up the last call, and then she leaned across the bar, her lips dangerously near his jaw. “You don’t have to go when I lock up. In fact, you are more than welcome to stay.”
Oh yeah. He was entirely sure where the evening was going now.
CHAPTER THREE
The sound of the lock snapping closed was wholly satisfying. It was the sound of one part of the night ending and another part beginning. A better part. A possibly delectable part.
The no strings attached that she needed. This man, in town and then heading out of town, seemed like the absolute perfect fit for her.
She could act all prim and demure like she planned to just kiss Clay and send him on his way. But the thought of getting hot and bothered and then forbidding any south of the border activity had zero appeal to her. She was going for him, for all of him. She didn’t care if that made her sex-hungry. She was hungry for sex. She was jonesing for the kind of roll in the hay that would demolish the tension in her shoulders, let her forget the things she wanted to forget. She had so much trouble in her life, thanks but no thanks to her ex, who’d left town and saddled her with all his problems. Life had been non-stop pressure and worry since then, and she needed a break from it for one night.
Yeah, she was ready to screw the stress right out of her system, and this man seemed the ideal candidate.