Arm Candy (Real Love #2)(8)

Her cheeks color and she snatches her hand away. With a murderous glare at me—what did I do?!—she turns and stalks out of the bar, climbs into a red Smart Car, and zips down the road. Davis, the coward, slinks back to his seat once she’s gone.

“Thanks, Gracie Lou,” he says, relief in his voice. “I owe you one.”

He reaches for his bottle but I grab it before he does and empty it down the sink. He shouts a protesting “Hey!” but I keep pouring, giving it a few hard shakes to get the last drops out.

“You’re cut off.” I slide his cellphone back to him.

“That’s my first one! I only drank half of it.” He grimaces and damn if he still isn’t attractive.

“Not the beer. You’re cut off from picking up girls in my bar.”

“McGreevy’s isn’t your bar.”

“Close enough.” I’m one of the managers. The owner, Dax, has been absent all summer doing God knows what. He hired me, then went missing like the FBI was on his tail.

“You can’t keep having sex with them and not letting them know it’s over, Davis.” I toss the beer bottle into the trash. “It’s inhumane.”

“Is that what she told you?” He leans forward and lowers his voice. “That she and I had sex?”

“She didn’t have to tell me. I have eyes. She has blond hair.”

Davis smirks like he has something on me. I cock my head to one side in consideration.

“You mean…you didn’t take her home?” I probe.

“I took her home, but nothing happened.”

“Ha!” Surely he’s kidding. My smile falls when he continues to watch me earnestly. “You left with her last night. I assumed…”

He shakes his head. “That’s not how it works, Gracie.”

What, like there are rules?

Relief washes over me and the feeling is so foreign, I’m tempted to turn and check the mirror behind me to make sure I didn’t Quantum Leap into someone else’s body. To cover my reaction, I grab a bar towel and start wiping down the bar in front of him.

“I wouldn’t know, since you have a type and I’m clearly not it.” I point at my hair. Once I jokingly suggested Davis try out a redhead sometime, and he stormed out of the bar. He avoided me for a good bit after that. When he did return, I received a mumbled apology without eye contact. I’m guessing he had a bad breakup with a redhead, but he never said that was the case.

“I don’t have a type,” he argues. “Give me a Sam Adams or I’ll go drink somewhere else.” He stabs the bar top with his finger.

I clutch the towel to my chest with both hands and let my chin tremble as I feign devastation. “No, Davis, please. Anything but that!”

By the time I throw my arm over my forehead in telenovela style, he’s scowling at me. I grin and toss the towel aside.

“This is a tender topic, I know.” I flatten my palms on the bar in front of him. “We’ve known each other awhile now. Level with me. Why the blondes? Why pastel-wearing Barbie dolls with large, vacant eyes and tiny little frames? Don’t you want a woman who can handle it if during the throes of sex you back her against a wall, or…I don’t know, break a headboard or something?”

Davis’s gray eyes heat so much I could swear they’re smoking. He leans forward, his voice a seductive husk when he asks, “Damn, Gracie Lou. Are you offering?”

I’m a blusher when caught off guard—blame the red hair. Heat steals up my neck, warmth enveloping me as I imagine just that scenario. Davis pushing me against the wall. Hard kisses. Shouts of completion as his bed frame bangs the wall….

I clear my throat but my voice is thin when I say, “You wish.”

He sits back in his chair and fiddles with his phone, tapping it on the bar before flipping it facedown again. “I admit, I didn’t know you were interested.”

“I’m not interested.” I’m flustered. My heart ratchets up a few beats per minute, and I reach for the bar towel again so I have something to do with my hands.

“Care to make a wager on that?” he asks.

I roll my eyes. “Don’t you do enough gambling at your day job?”

“Not gambling, Gracie. I’m a stock analyst. I analyze.”

The spark in his eyes matches the thrum in the air between us. It’s the sexual tension I’ve always felt around him. It lingers because we have no outlet. Like an overfilled balloon, we’re in need of a release valve—or a sharp pin.

“Fine. I don’t mind easy money.” I lift my chin. He wants to play? I’ll play. Time for Davis to put his money where his contoured, firm mouth is. “I’ll bet you one hundred dollars you won’t ask out the next nonblonde who approaches you.”

He grunts, his eye roll suggesting he could do that in his sleep.

I grin, knowing I have him. “Two hundred if she’s a redhead.”

His cocky smile falls, which was the reaction I expected. What I don’t expect is for his hand to shoot out and grip my wrist, his thumb rubbing the soft skin there.

His voice is barely above a whisper when he says, “I win.”

It takes me a full count of three to understand his meaning. Much like the blonde who was standing in front of me a few minutes ago, I snatch my arm away. “Not me!”