“Enjoy,” she says as she sets a bottle in front of each of us.
I take the beer and hold it up to her in salute. “Thanks, Goldie.”
She winks at me and sets her forearms on the bar, leaning slightly in toward us. It makes the edge of her tank top dip a little, and I can’t help my eyes when they drop for a moment to admire the swell of her breasts and dark shadow of cleavage.
My gaze slides back up to hers, and her eyes are sparkling with mischief. She knows exactly what she’s doing… working her assets and all that.
Sticking her hand across the bar at me, she says, “It’s not Goldie. It’s Casey Markham. I take it you two are new to the island?”
I’ve already held that delicate hand in mine, but I’m not going to pass up another opportunity. I reach my digits across and take ahold of her again. “I’m Tenn and this is Kyle,” I say, jerking my head to the right.
She gives me a soft squeeze, angles her head, and gives a smile to Kyle. When she looks back at me, she pulls her hand back and asks, “Ten? That’s an unusual name. Your parents mathematicians or something?”
I chuckle and shake my head. “No. It’s spelled T-E-N-N.”
“As in the abbreviation for the state?” she asks as her ear dips toward her shoulder in curiosity.
“No, as in the poet.”
“There’s a poet by the name of Tenn?”
“Not that I know of,” I tell her conspiratorially. “But I’m not a real big fan of poetry, so I’m not really sure.”
She looks at me inquisitively and waits for me to enlighten her, instinctively knowing there’s more to the story of my name.
“Lord Alfred Tennyson,” I supply.
“Ah… now that’s a name I do recognize. I think we had to read him in college, but I hate shit like that.”
“Me too,” I commiserate.
“Going to take a piss,” Kyle butts in and stands up from his stool.
Neither Casey nor I look his way but continue to stare at each other.
Her lips curve upward in amusement, and I focus in on how full and soft they look. She leans a little more across the bar, and I struggle not to let my eyes drop to her breasts again. “Your parents are romantics then,” she hypothesizes. “Lovers of poetry?”
I smile at her and shake my head. “Literature in general. And more my mom than my dad, God rest her soul.”
She gives me a sympathetic look over the reference of my mother’s passing but doesn’t dwell on it, which I appreciate. “Interesting. Any siblings?”
“Smart girl,” I compliment her. “Younger brother. Woolf.”
“As in Virginia?”
“As in,” I say with a smile as I hold my bottle of beer up to her again in salute.
Casey takes a hand and traces an unrecognizable pattern on the wood of the bar with a fingertip. She watches her progress for a moment, and then raises her eyes back to mine. It’s a subtle yet flirty gesture. “Your name should be Woolf. It’s a better biker name.”
Chuckling, I shrug my shoulders. “I’m not a biker.”
“Yet you ride a bike,” she points out. “You wear the Harley t-shirt, have your shit kickers on, tats all over the place, and a dangerous look about you. Very Sons of Anarchy.”
I snort and slap my hand on the bar. “You watch too much TV, Goldie.”
Casey slides her hand closer to mine and with the end of her finger, strokes it lightly across the side of my wrist. My skin fucking tingles from the contact, and her subtle flirting goes full on in my face. I find it fascinating that the woman who proclaims to have a boyfriend is so free with her touches, and all of a sudden… I’m not feeling so gentlemanly about her being involved with someone already.
“A shame,” she whispers, her eyes moving from our hands to my face. “Something just really hot about bikers.”
My hand snakes out and wraps around her wrist, my thumb coming to rest right over her pulse, which I can feel fluttering madly against me. “I’m a biker then,” I assure her with a growl. “Whatever you want if you’ll cancel your date with your boyfriend tonight.”
Casey’s head turns left and then right, looking down both ends of the bar and assuring herself that she’s not needed by any customers at the moment. When she looks back at me, her eyes spark with playfulness. “Just out of curiosity, what would you do with me tonight if I didn’t have a boyfriend?”
Many women have flirted with me. I understand it is often a playful, back-and-forth banter that ultimately seeks an outcome of two people coming together. Sometimes, I enjoy that shit, other times, not.
Now is one of the times I’m not into it, because Casey is too direct and forward to engage in that crap. So I just decide to throw the truth out to her. “If I had you tonight?”
She nods at me, her gaze locked to mine.
I lean across the bar and in a tone so low I can barely hear myself, I tell her, “I’d make you come over and over and over again. And when you insist you couldn’t give me any more, I’d make you come again just to prove you wrong.”
Casey inhales through her nose sharply and her pupils actually dilate. Her soft, pink lips part and a tiny huff of spearmint breath blows out. “You don’t mince words,” she observes with a murmur.
“Not when I see something I want,” I tell her, my thumb now stroking the silky skin of her wrist. And then I command her, “Dump the boyfriend, Goldie. Come spend the night with me.”