Breathless (Steel Brothers Saga #10)(13)

My eyebrows shot up.

Their own pace.

Little boys weren’t the only creatures who needed to go at their own pace. Was I rushing Bryce?

He’d wanted me last night. The physical evidence couldn’t have been faked.

But Bryce was fighting his own demons—demons I understood well.

Many times I’d wondered if I might be headed down the same path as my own mother. Insanity. These things could be genetic, though Melanie insisted that if any of us were going to follow the path of our mother, we’d have shown signs by now.

Bryce was concerned, with good reason.

His father was a complete psychopath—possibly even worse than Ruby’s father had been.

Tom Simpson had lived a double life—devoted husband and father, attorney and mayor of Snow Creek by day. Psychotic pedophile rapist by night.

The stuff nightmares were made of.

Nightmares Bryce must have every time he nodded off to—

“Marj!”

I turned. Jade was doubled over in her chair. I rushed to her. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t know. Get Talon. Please.”





Chapter Eight





Bryce





I signaled the bartender at the dive in Grand Junction. “Another here, please.”

He pushed the rotgut bourbon down the wooden bar. It landed right in front of me. The guy was good.

I shot it quickly, letting it claw like fire-dipped tentacles down my throat until it warmed my belly.

Joe had told me about this place. He’d stumbled in one night when he was at his worst and had gotten some really good advice from an old-timer. I wasn’t looking for advice so much as an escape. The Steels were bound and determined to make me some kind of honorary brother. I should be flattered. Thrilled.

But I didn’t want it. All I wanted was to make an honest day’s pay for an honest day of hard labor.

I signaled to the barkeep for another. The glass slid down the wooden bar once more and then stared up at me, the brown liquid swirling.

I turned my head away from the drink. Another man about my age sat at the end of the bar, and a few stragglers sat at tables. A cocktail waitress was taking their orders. She sported cropped platinum-blond hair with black roots. Her face was pretty but worn, but her body… She wore a pink tank top and a denim miniskirt with stiletto sandals. I wondered if she also worked as a stripper. Her legs were muscular and could easily make their way up and down a pole. A decent chest too.

She met my gaze. Her eyes were a striking dark blue.

I smiled and picked up my shot, gesturing to her.

She turned back to her customer.

Okay.

So much for that.

I’d told Marjorie Steel that all I could give her was a good fuck. It had taken every bit of my strength to leave her bedroom yesterday. Every damned ounce.

And now I was getting shot down by a worn-hard cocktail waitress.

Served me right.

I shot my third bourbon quickly.

Only to look down to see the waitress shove a napkin toward me before disappearing into the back room.

I get off at 7.





Scribbled underneath was an address in Rosevale, one of the more crime-ridden areas in Grand Junction. About a fifteen-minute drive from the bar.

I checked my watch. Six forty-five. I signaled the barkeep. One more shot, and I’d be on my way.





“What’s your name, cowboy?”

I gazed at the woman in the denim miniskirt. How she’d beaten me here was beyond me. I’d left my car at the bar and taken a cab. I felt okay, but after four shots, I didn’t trust my blood-alcohol level.

“You deaf?” she asked.

I cleared my throat. “Bob.”

“Yeah? I’m Alice.” She giggled. “Bob is not your name. You don’t look like a Bob.”

“I am a Bob, but you are definitely not an Alice”—I eyeballed the nametag she still wore—“Heidi.”

“Okay, fine. We’ll play it your way. Come in, Bob.”

I entered the modest studio apartment. The queen-size bed in the corner was neatly made, and my gaze zeroed in on it.

That was where I’d fuck this woman.

My groin was tight.

“You want a drink, Bob?”

“Sure. Bourbon if you have it.”

“I do. Not crazy about it myself, but I keep everything on hand.” She walked into her kitchenette and pulled a bottle out of a cupboard.

“What are you having?” I asked.

“I don’t drink.”

“Really? And you work at a bar?”

“Precisely why I don’t drink. I smoke a little weed, though. You want some?”

I shook my head. “Never enjoyed it.”

She handed me the bourbon in a half-pint mason jar. Cute. “You mind if I have a little? Just helps me unwind. Get in the mood.”

“Uh…sure. Whatever.”

She pulled out a black jar from her refrigerator and then grabbed a pipe out of a drawer. “Make yourself at home.”

Again I eyed the bed. We both knew why I was here. If I took a seat there, we could move forward quickly.

But I couldn’t do it. I sat down on the love seat across the room and set my drink on the end table.