Close Cover (Masters and Mercenaries #16)(21)

She opened the door, her robe tucked firmly around her now crustacean-free body. She wished she could say the same for the glitter, but damn it was hard to get off. “You don’t take your dates out for a meal before getting down to dessert, huh?”

She knew she sounded like a brat of the first order, but she couldn’t help it. If her walls were coming down, sarcasm was her last line of defense.

He stood there in the hallway, his massive body taking up all the space. He looked a little like a lion who felt regret for his prey. “Like I said, there was nothing at all intimate about those relationships. No relationship at all. I found a woman and hooked up for sex and sent her on her way in the morning. Sometimes she would come back for seconds, but only if I truly believed she didn’t want anything from me but sex. It has been pointed out to me recently that the way I behave makes me some kind of a douchebag.”

Did it? If she didn’t want to be slut shamed for what she wanted, she couldn’t exactly do the same to him. Stupid logic. Maybe if she hadn’t had all those dumb ethics and philosophy classes she could have been self-centered and intolerant. “You said you were honest with them?”

“Always.”

“Then you weren’t a douchebag. You were a healthy male looking for sex and trying to be upfront about it. Believe me. I know a douchebag when I see one. I dated several.” She looked up at him, tilting her head so he could take in her face and neck. “How bad is the glitter?”

He reached behind her, picking up the washcloth she’d used. “Not bad. Just some right here.”

He drew the cloth along her jawline and on her neck, right down to her clavicle. She was deeply aware she was naked under that robe and all he would have to do to make her drop it was tug that knot loose. “There. That’s some of it, but I think it’s going to take multiple scrubbings to be free of it. You know it does make you glow.”

She was way too aware of how close he was, how easy it would be to brush her body up against his. She wasn’t sure it was the glitter making her glow. Being close to him seemed to make her whole body light up. “You said there was pizza.”

If she stayed too close to him, she didn’t trust her dumbass self not to go up on her tiptoes and brush her mouth against his. She dreamed about sucking that plump bottom lip into her mouth.

He smiled, an almost self-deprecating expression. “Yeah. There’s pizza. I’ll even suffer through a few veggies, though they don’t really have a place on a pie.”

Good. That was good. If they were talking about his eating habits, then he wasn’t staring down at her lips like he wanted to devour her, glitter and all. “I hardly think mushrooms and olives count as vegetables.”

She followed him down the hallway to her small bistro kitchen where the heavenly smell of pepperoni and sausage with the aforementioned “vegetables” permeated the air and reminded her that she hadn’t eaten for most of the day. She’d downed the last of the oatmeal she had and had a piece of buttered toast before going to the interview.

She’d been planning on stopping at Laurel’s in the morning because her sister always made breakfast for Mitch and their toddler and usually had extra. Except she’d forgotten she didn’t have a car.

“Hey, don’t get sad on me again,” he said, holding out a chair for her. There were only two, and Remy looked like he’d made the most of the small space. The table was set beautifully with her nice plates and the good silverware. Two wine glasses sat at their spots, and the bottle had been opened and allowed to aerate.

The man might not eat vegetables like a good boy, but he knew how to present a meal.

She sat down, Remy handing her a paper towel like he was passing her fine linen. He poured the wine with one hand, by the bottom of the bottle, with perfect grace and control.

“You pour that like a sommelier, not a bar owner,” she mentioned, trying not to let him know how attractive she found him and his impeccable manners. There was something about the controlled grace he displayed that fascinated her. She wondered what his bayou bar was like.

“A dive bar owner,” he corrected with a wink. “But wine is important where I come from. Food is important. We take both of those things seriously in Papillon Bayou. My grandfather loved wine and he taught me all about it. And here you thought I was a beer-swilling mongrel.”

She picked up the wine glass. “Well, you apparently were surprised I knew how to pour a drink.”

“Touché,” he replied, sitting down across from her. “I was, actually. When did you start tending bar?”

He allowed her to get a slice first before pulling his own.

“I put myself through college tending bar. Mostly scholarships, but I worked about twenty hours a week at this dive bar up in Denton. It was right off the TWU campus. It took me a while to realize that almost the entire clientele was female.”

He grinned. “Lesbian bar?”

“Yep, and they were awesome. I was this dumbass thing who’d barely been out of her trailer park. The town I grew up in wasn’t small, but it was oddly isolated. Everyone was very homogenous. I got to Denton and it was like this huge city and I was overwhelmed. That bar became my family,” she said. “They taught me…well, everything about living in the larger world.”

He sat back, his brow furrowed. “I’m sorry. Laurel once mentioned a trailer park, but are you telling me you actually grew up in one?”