A Little Less Conversation (7 page)

“Uh, yeah. I better get back to the bar and help out or it’ll be a nightmare when Miller opens tomorrow.”

“He’s the new bartender you hired, isn’t he?” she asked, taking a sip of the Heineken she still clutched in her free hand. “The big scary-looking guy?”

“Yeah, though I don’t think he’s all that scary,” he said with a low laugh, “so much as intense.”

“I accidentally ran into him on my way out of Roy’s the other morning, and he looked pretty scary to me.”

He sought her eyes in the mellow darkness of the night. “Was he rude to you?”

“No, he just didn’t look overly friendly. But maybe you’re right,” she said with a small shrug. “It was probably just that whole intense look he has going. He’s got the dark brooding thing down to a T.”

“He’s a hell of a worker though. I was up to my ass in that place until he came on to help me out. And Cain still pitches in from time to time, like tonight.”

“You should be really proud, Mark. You’ve done amazing things with the bar. It’s popular with both the locals and the tourist trade. I don’t think Kyra and I have ever been in when it wasn’t busy.”

His chest swelled with ridiculous pride at her praise, and he squeezed her hand, reluctant to leave her…and knowing that if he didn’t, he was going to end up taking her to bed. Christ, if he thought there was a chance in hell he wouldn’t ruin things by doing it, he’d already be in her pants, without a second thought. He wanted it—god, did he want it—but he couldn’t shake the feeling that if he followed through on the need, he’d be screwing his chance for more than a casual relationship. And he needed more. Hell, he needed all of it. He took another long swallow of his beer, enjoying the sharp chill against his dry throat, and finally said, “You’ll have to come in more. I’d like to see you in my place.”

“Yeah?” Her head tilted as she shot him a questioning look.

“Yeah.”
As in all the time
. He had a vivid vision of her laid out over his bar, his face buried between her splayed thighs as he licked and sucked up her drugging, delicate juices, and wondered how in hell’s name he was going to survive this waiting. “Why don’t you come in tomorrow and I’ll take some time for lunch?” he suggested, trying to sound casual. “We can kick back and talk, and I’ll show you around.”

And maybe…if I can work into it slowly and manage not to blow it with my damn cock, I’ll be able to convince you to take a chance on a guy like me for something serious. Something that’ll last.

They neared the quaint seaside building that housed her upstairs apartment, pausing at the slim stairway that hugged the side wall, leading up to her own little private balcony. She turned to him, the expression in her shuttered gaze difficult to read in the pale moonlight, the mellow glow of her outside light not quite reaching her feminine features, leaving her face in soft shadow. “Have you had a good time tonight?”

“You know I have,” he answered in a low voice, struggling not to grab her and pull her against the hungry urgency of his body. His dick restlessly disagreed with his response, and he silently snarled for the damn thing to shut the hell up—then wondered when he’d started having conversations with a prominent body part.

One growing more prominent by the second, he realized, thinking of her apartment so very near. Her bedroom…and a bed that would smell of Melanie. Of the wicked, wonderfully intimate things he could do to her in that bed.

Desperate to distract himself, he searched for something safe to say. “You’re very easy to talk to,” he murmured, but the second the words left his mouth, he knew they weren’t the ones she’d wanted to hear. And the temptation to tell her what he really wanted burned so fiercely in his gut, he felt twisted with pain.

“Hey, what’d I do?” he rasped, when she looked away, pulling her face back toward him with the gentle clasp of his callused fingers against her chin. “I’m trying not to screw this up, but I keep getting the feeling that I’m saying the wrong things here, Mel.”

She sucked her lower lip through her teeth. “Do you…do you want to come up for some coffee?”

I’d sure as hell like to come, but without the coffee
.
Better yet, I’d like to take you upstairs, lay you out over the first available surface, and shove myself so far inside you, you can feel me pumping against the pounding beat of your heart.

Mark shook his head at the dangerous thoughts, ready to strangle his damn libido, if he could only get his hands on it. “You know, I’m not sure that would be a good idea, Mel.”

“Why not?” There was an off note of frustration in those two little words, but with her expression in shadow and his head fuzzy with lust, in was difficult to determine the problem. Did she think he was ditching her? Or was it something more than that?

“I…uh, really should probably head back to the bar now to help get the kitchen closed down before Cain makes a wreck of it.”

And before I totally lose it and fall all over you like a rabid dog.

It was a lame excuse, and they both knew it—but he didn’t have a hell of a lot to work with here. His hard-on had sucked all the blood out of his damn brain.

Her downstairs neighbor turned on an indoor light, the golden glow of a lamp sneaking out like a thief from the edges of their vertical blinds, gently illuminating her face. She studied him through eyes that suddenly looked far older than her years. They were too disillusioned. Disappointed. “Why won’t you come upstairs, Mark? I…I’d like to know the truth,” she said quietly. “It’s Friday night, and I know you keep the kitchen open later than usual.”

“I think you know why,” he grated out in a low rumble of words, silently cursing, and he knew she understood when her breath caught. “I had a great time tonight, though,” he added lamely, inwardly wincing over the banal comment. “The conversation was…er…great.”

He watched as her eyes closed, the long curl of her lashes casting shadows against the creamy perfection of her freckled cheeks. When she looked back up at him, there was no mistaking the thick wave of desire roiling through her cinnamon gaze. It nearly took him to his knees then and there, and he felt a flash of anger at everything—fate, her, himself—for the temptation he was forced to fight. It was a tight, aching throb of pain in his gut, making him sweat…making his jaw grind as he struggled not to take her to the ground and cram himself inside her in a frenzy that was all about slaking that burning, raw ache of lust. He didn’t trust himself, because he knew there’d be no controlling it. She was probably daydreaming about slow and easy, smooth and gentle, when he knew there wouldn’t be a goddamn thing easy about the way he’d take her. He felt like a man hanging by his nails, the crumbling ledge of a rocky mountainside his last lifeline…and any second now he was going to go crashing over the edge.

He took two deep, hard breaths, grasping for a hold on the slippery surface of his control, and tipped his beer up to his mouth to distract himself from his carnal fantasies, when she floored him by slowly licking the sexy curve of her upper lip with her pink little tongue in an act that screamed seduction. A mutinous expression washed over her features, and she said, “Yeah, talking. Conversation. That’s my specialty.” Her voice was breathless, her tone throaty and low. “I’ve always been so bloody easy to talk to. But would I be easy to have sex with, too, Mark?”

He choked on his swallow of ice-cold beer and could have sworn that the chilled liquid nearly shot out his nose. “
What?
”

She climbed the bottom stair, bringing her closer to his height, and turned to him, the fierce color in her face evident now in the glowing arc of moonlight, painting her fey features in an ethereal, otherworldly glow, glinting off the soft honey of her hair.

“You’re right about this being a small town and people talking. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t heard rumors of your legendary reputation with women. Mark Logan never,
ever
takes a woman out without giving her mind-blowing orgasms at the end of the night. So despite what you said about not looking for that when you kissed me earlier, I’m wondering if you’re going to—”

“If I’m going to what?” he asked, not sure whether he was more shocked or angry or disappointed, and unable to sort his way through the tangle of conflicting emotions suddenly crashing down on him. He should have thought this was heaven, Melanie Green looking up at him with raw hunger smoldering in those big brown eyes, apparently asking to come, but now he felt strangely like a fool. And a cheap fool at that. She made it sound like she’d singled him out for stud service, and here he’d had stars in his eyes the entire damn time they’d been together.

For the first time in his life, he’d actually enjoyed getting into a woman’s head before he made his way into her pants—only to find that it’d meant nothing to her. The companionship and shared secrets. Holding hands and laughing with one another. Hell, he sounded like some kind of wimped-out, maudlin fool, but there was no help for it. She’d worked a major one on his head, all right—and despite the one-night-stand reputation he knew he was famous for, it made him sick to think of sinking into Melanie Green, becoming an intimate part of her, penetrating her with his body…and then just walking away. He’d fallen too hard for the entire package, instead of just her sweet little body, to be able to do it.

But then, maybe she wasn’t really who he’d thought she was. No, he’d had his head up his ass and let himself get taken along for a ride. It was like some kind of cosmic payback for the women he’d so casually taken to bed without a second thought. In a move he’d perfected like a pro, Melanie would screw him tonight and forget him tomorrow, getting from him exactly what she thought he was good for.

She licked her lower lip, took a deep breath, and when she spoke, a husky tremor of physical hunger shivered through her words. “I’m not asking you up to talk, Mark.”

“S’that right?” he asked softly, while a hard, cynical smile twisted his mouth. Disgust and disappointment for the whole gut-twisting situation filled him, but shouldn’t he have known he had this coming? Why in hell had he ever thought a woman like Melanie Green would seek anything worth more than a fast, furious fling with him? How fucking stupid could he get? “You’re just wondering when you’re going to get the fuck, aren’t you?” he asked, angry with himself for sounding so damn surprised by the situation.

She opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

“Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it?” he said with a slow nod, studying her through narrowed, piercing eyes that he wished could peel away the layers of soft, sweet innocence surrounding her, one by one, until he could get down deep and see what really made her tick. Discover what she was really after here, despite those soft eyes…and even softer mouth. “You agreed to go out with me tonight so you could get some hard cock and a couple of creamy orgasms, didn’t you, Mel?”

Instead of answering his question, she shook her head at the new ugliness of his tone…at the suddenly hard set of his face and asked one of her own. “Why do you sound so…upset, Mark? Are you actually
angry
at me for asking you upstairs?”

“Oh, I’m not angry, angel,” he drawled with a slow, mean smile, lying through his teeth as a cold, brutal fury burned through his veins, all of it centered on himself for being such a damn fool. “Tell me, is this why you’ve been staring at me across the street every goddamn day, whenever you didn’t think I was looking? Were you just wondering when I’d finally come sniffing around and you’d get the chance to take a ride of your own? Check out my reputation firsthand?”

A strange expression washed over the delicate features of her face at his taunting words, and she seemed to harden, all that beautiful softness dulled by disappointment. “Would it come as such a shock?” she asked softly. “Is it so ridiculous? You said that’s not what you were looking for from me, but then you’ve spent the entire evening flirting with me. All those slow, wicked looks and brushes of your body against mine.”

“Just what did you have in mind, sweetheart? A go at it upside the wall? Should I take you right here on the stairs? It might be a little rough, but then you might like it like that,” he rasped in a smoky tone that rumbled like thunder, moving closer, crowding her with his size. “Honestly, baby, you should have explained this to me at the beginning of the night and then I wouldn’t have wasted my time trying to figure out how to get inside your pants without scaring you off. But I guess those innocent little looks are just that, aren’t they?” he asked, tilting his head as he studied her, his free hand reaching out to tuck one honeyed curl behind the delicate shell of her ear. “No, they don’t do justice to the hot, hungry little wanton living inside. Just tell me what you were looking for, Mel. Never let it be said that I didn’t live up to my fucking reputation,” he drawled with a cold, taunting smile. “Or should that be my
reputation for fucking
, sweetheart?”

Chapter Five

Melanie met Mark’s taunting stare with a twisting, sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach. She hadn’t meant to come right out and blurt her frustrations in his face, but everything had suddenly built up like a pressure cap inside her and she couldn’t control it. One second he’d been telling her what a “great” time he’d had, and in the next, she was exploding all over the place like an emotional rocket.

Oh god
. She swallowed hard, struggling to keep herself together, but there was a pain in her heart that hurt like all get out. He’d been ready to leave her at her damn doorstep with a smile and maybe, if she was lucky, a platonic kiss on the cheek, when every other woman got the full, mind-blowing treatment of incredible sex. And there was no way in hell she was settling for less.