Stripped Bare (Stripped #1)(34)

Good grief, he had a great ass. It filled those pants out to perfection, just tight and peachy enough...

My mind was in the gutter again, and there wasn’t much I could do about it. I sighed and dropped my head back against the headrest. It was getting hotter, and fast, so maybe wearing jeans wasn’t my smartest idea—nor was the three-quarter-sleeve blouse. So I turned the air conditioning up and looked out the window at the bank.

Five minutes dragged like hell, and when he finally emerged from the shadows of the doorway and entered the sunlight that drenched the sidewalk, he looked like some kind of modern god.

Hell, he was wearing his uniform of a white shirt with rolled-up sleeves and black pants well today. Really well.

Desire tingled through my veins, but I beat it back down with the equivalent of a baseball bat. Self-control! I possessed it. I needed to use it. I needed to wield it like it was pepper spray.

Pepper spray. Maybe that was the answer to resisting West. Well...it’d piss him off, sure. Was pissing him off the answer to resisting him? Maybe. Maybe it was both. I guessed it’d work both ways.

I jolted back to attention when the car door slammed.

“Fuck me. It’s like a mobile freezer in here.” West shuddered and turned the air down. “You look freezing.”

I blinked at him. “I’m good. I was getting hot. I got caught up in my thoughts, I guess.”

He raised an eyebrow at me but didn’t ask questions.

“Hey! Is there a Starbucks near here?” I turned to him.

“The next block over. Do you want to go?” He paused after starting the engine.

“Do you mind?”

“No. Let’s go.” He peered in the side mirror and then pulled into the traffic.

It was starting to pick up now, but we made it to Starbucks in a few minutes without speaking. We ordered, West paid—much to my annoyance—and then we moved to the next window.

By the time we made it back to Rock Solid, I’d barely sipped my ice-cold raspberry-acai green tea, and he’d all but finished his hot coffee. I just wanted to get inside and put a little distance between us. If being in a normal car was confining, being in this Audi was something else. It was so small and constricting that it was impossible not to feel him.

I climbed out, clutching my purse and my drink, and walked toward the club. Somehow, although he had gotten out after me, West beat me to the door and pushed it open. His smile made my stomach flip.

I dipped my head and mumbled a, “Thank you,” before walking through it.

The air was blowing full force, and I found myself thankful for it. Even in the few minutes between the car and the front door, my temperature felt like it’d rocketed up several degrees. I didn’t know it was West or the weather, but I’d bet it was both.

“Do you want to go upstairs and talk?” West dragged my attention back to him with that question.

I swallowed, my mouth drying out. “Um... Maybe it’s best to stay down here.”

He quirked an eyebrow, amusement shining through the blueness of his eyes.

“I need to see where posters could go.” That was the lamest f*cking excuse I’d ever given for anything, ever.

He knew it too. His smile grew. “Let’s go sit down by the stage. It’s bright there and you can see the whole club. For your posters.”

I pursed my lips as he walked to the opposite end of the stage from the bar and pulled two chairs from beneath one of the round tables. All right. Okay. I followed him down there and sat in one of the chairs, setting my drink in front of me and my purse beside me.

“So,” I started, pulling my laptop and my notebook out of my purse. “You’re gonna need a lot of fliers in case of drink spills, so we really need to decide what promotions are happening when, and what long-term ones—think the bachelorette deals—will go on the back of those. They’ll sit with the drinks menus so everyone will see them every time they get to a table.” I opened up my laptop and clicked my pen. “The happy hour one is good and doesn’t affect the others too much, but the long-term deals really need to be ironed out so I can start doing at least one side of the fliers tonight.”

“Mia.”

“And I’m meeting with my mixologist friend, Lili, in San Diego on Saturday, so we could make a bachelorette cocktail where the first one would be on the house for the bride-to-be and the bridal party. Everyone else gets fifty percent off. You price it a buck or two higher than the others on the menu since it’s a special and everyone who likes it after the first round will keep buying.”

“Mia.”

He was staring at me hotly. I could feel myself getting flustered, but self-control, self-control, self-control. I whispered it inside my head like it was my mantra and carried on. I had to keep talking. If I stopped, he’d take control and that’d be the end of anything I was trying to do.

“I think, if we could come up with at least three special offers for special occasions like the bachelorettes and milestone birthdays, we could be onto something. There’s easily enough space for three offers on the back of an average A5 flier.”

“Mia.” West grabbed my hand.

I stilled, looking up at him from beneath my lashes.

“You haven’t looked at me since we left the bank, and as much as I appreciate your efficiency, I’m already lost.”