Guilty Needs(46)

But he didn’t see the looks in their eyes, and if he lifted a pint at the end of the day, he didn’t have to wonder what they might think.

A clean slate, that was what he had here, and he couldn’t help but appreciate it.

Perhaps he didn’t like the heat that hit you like a sweaty fist for too much of the year, but any circumstance would have its drawbacks now, wouldn’t it?

And … there were the benefits.

He found himself studying one now and felt a stir of interest he hadn’t felt in more time than he cared to think about.

She stood in the doorway, oddly apart from everybody else even as she studied them, eyes moving to linger on a group here, then there. After a couple of moments, she moved away, and he found himself tracking her progress.

Don’t be here to meet somebody, he thought, and immediately, he wanted to kick himself. What did it matter if she was?

He told himself it didn’t and glanced up as Gary Harnett settled down and ordered his usual. Ian started to build the Guinness as they chatted, but the entire time he watched her from the corner of his eye.

She moved like a dancer, with effortless grace and easy elegance. He could imagine those legs, long and slim, wrapped around his waist, could picture that torso, just as long and slim, bent back as he leaned over to press his mouth to pale, soft skin.

Gary said, “They say it’s going to break a hundred again tomorrow.”

“Imagine it will,” Ian murmured, the easy chatter second nature, while in his mind, he continued to mentally undress the redhead.

She slid onto a vacant stool tucked up against the wall just as he finished Gary’s Guinness, and Ian took a moment to appreciate the fact that he had a heavy, solid bar between the two of them, because, thanks to his wandering mind, his bloody cock was hard as iron and pulsing.

She looked at him then, her mouth unsmiling, but wide and soft and lush.

Fuck me.

He rested his hands on the bar and smiled. You’ve a job to do, so do it.

He opened his mouth.

You’re the sexiest f*cking thing I’ve seen in ages—maybe forever. He could feel those words hovering on the tip of his tongue.

Biting them back, he fell back on the job he’d been doing for ages.

“Well, ’allo. What can I get you?”

A faint smile flirted around her lips, and a hot ball of lust twisted inside, settling down low in his balls. Mad. He’d gone mad—that’s all there was to it.

She nodded toward the Guinness he’d just finished and said, “I’ll have one of those.”

He nodded. Self-preservation told him to move his arse and get to work.

He told self-preservation to get f*cked as he got to work on her Guinness. As he did, four more orders came in, and he filled three of them before her Guinness was ready. By the time he had another minute to breathe, she had folded her hands around her glass and was studying everything around her, almost mesmerized.

“Visiting?”

She blinked, a startled look in her eyes. Her gaze slid away. “Depends on your point of view.” Then she flashed him a wide smile.

It was disarming, that smile, bright and wicked, the kind of smile a temptress would give a saint to lure him into all manner of sins.

Ian was many things—a saint had never been one of them. As she propped her elbows on the bar, he found himself easing closer. “I’m here for … personal things, but that’s for later,” she said, lifting her shoulder in a shrug. “Tonight …? Tonight I’m just trying to not think.”

I can help you with that.

The words popped into his brain and they almost escaped his lips.

He managed to keep them trapped inside, but one thing he couldn’t do was keep his eyes off that mouth.

She noticed, too. He could tell by the hitch in her breathing, the way her pulse slammed against the fragile wall of her throat. Curious, he reached out and pressed a finger against it.

He could very well be doing the stupidest thing he’d ever done.

Her lids drooped and her head slumped, angling slightly to the side. He skimmed his finger down lower, tracing the elegant line of her collarbone. “I’ve had days like that,” he said softly. “Days where the last place I want to be is inside my own head.”

He lowered his hand.

She lifted her head and met his gaze dead-on.

He started to turn away.

“How late do you work?”