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“Hear any good lines on the way back?”
Her pulse jumped. She set a napkin down on the little shelf and placed the beer on top. “I’m at work, sugar. We don’t date customers.” On the other hand, she was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t time to reevaluate that policy. She stared at his mouth wondering how it tasted.
“So you’re allowed to tease but not to close on the deal?” he asked in amusement, putting the mouth of the bottle to his lips to take a drink. “You ought to at least come up with a way to let your customers down easy, encourage them a little so you get a lasting draw.”
Mallory raised a brow. “And are you looking for encouragement? That’ll be three dollars, by the way.”
“I’m probably not your target clientele, but yeah,” he said, pulling out his wallet.
It was a challenge. Mallory gave him a smoky look. “So you don’t think I can provide a lasting draw?” She was rewarded when his eyes darkened.
“I get the feeling you can pretty much do anything you want to do,” he said, holding her gaze until she felt something in her begin to heat and soften. “Then again, I haven’t seen you up on the bar.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen anything like me.” The words were a challenge, the tone a promise.
He looked at her. “You’re right. I haven’t. For you, I’d make an exception and stay. That’s why you should polish up your shut-down line. Teasing is a tricky business. Sometimes people expect you to finish what you start.” He took another drink.
“I never start anything I’m not prepared to finish,” she said coolly.
He tipped his head to one side and eyed her. “Now, that’s a thought that’ll keep me awake tonight.”
“On the other hand, flirting is just flirting. It doesn’t mean I’m starting anything.”
“That’s a pity. And here I was just going to buy another beer,” he said.
Her lips twitched. “And it doesn’t mean I’m not. You’ll just have to buy that beer and see how well I follow policy. Or buy two,” she said, remembering her promise to herself.
“And then do I get to see you dance?”
“I don’t dance,” she said automatically.
He finished his beer and set it down on her tray. “Can’t or won’t?”
“Don’t.”
“Really? You don’t strike me as the type who would be afraid to be up in front of a crowd.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Of course not.”
“Get that idea out of your head.”
“I don’t doubt you,” he said agreeably. His smile grew wider.
Was that condescension she saw? “I should take care of the other customers,” she said at last. “Are you in for another beer?”
“Sure.” He eyed her assessingly. “I figure I’ll stick around to see if you get up there. Since you’re not scared.”
Recklessness snatched at her control, but she held on. Mallory turned without a word and went back behind the bar. Normally the routine of drawing beers and pouring drinks soothed her, but not tonight. She wanted to wipe the smirk off his face. He thought he knew something about her from a five minute conversation? He was dead wrong.
The tinny bang of three guitar notes heralded the start of INXS’s “You’re One of My Kind” on the jukebox. The monster groove begged her to move, and without thinking about it she found herself up on the bar.
SHAY’S MOUTH WENT DRY. Had he thought that the dancing was harmless? He’d been catastrophically mistaken. Long and lean and the stuff of men’s dreams, she moved on the bar with lithe grace, whipping her hips and arms to the beat of the music. Raven hair swung around her shoulders, her eyes fastened on his, hot and dark and full of promise. A teasing smile played over her mouth. At that moment, every man in the room might cheerfully have fought to have her.
But she was looking at him.
The song went on, a tale of teasing and seduction, the moan of a man luring his lover. As she was luring him. Moving to the beat, she mouthed the words and slid one fingertip up her leg, over her hip, across the bare skin of her flat stomach with its gleaming gold ring. Trailing her finger up between her breasts to shouts from the crowd on the floor, she slipped it between her lips, pursing them around it as though she tasted something sweet. Shay felt his body tighten.
The blonde and the redhead climbed back onto the bar to flank her and go through their gyrations, but they were like backup singers behind the lead performer, forgettable and easily dismissed. She and she alone had the crowd surging in a frenzy. She and she alone lured him with the hot promise in her eyes.
Need pumped through him.
MALLORY LEANED HER BACK against the brass pole on the bar and slid down it and back up. She was conscious of him watching every move she made, sitting out in the dimness, utterly still. She was up and dancing because he’d goaded her into it. Now she continued because she knew he was watching. Slide over here, and give me a moment she mouthed to him, tracing her hands up her body, then lifting the heavy weight of her hair.
As though their minds were linked, she knew how much she was arousing him. It was as though she were dancing for him alone, swaying for her lover, and her hands were his hands, touching her. The buzz spread through her system.
When the song ended, she found herself stepping down to a roaring ovation. Perhaps she ought to get on the bar more often, she thought. Then again, she’d only enjoyed it so much because of the stranger. She passed out beers and shots quickly, waiting for her system to settle.
“Nice job.” The words jolted her system.
She looked up to find him leaning on the hinged panel of the walkthrough at her side, those midnight blue eyes on her. He might have had her up against the wall, mouth and hands on her, for all that she felt his presence. The air between them almost sizzled.
Liane tapped her shoulder and she jumped. “Hey, the keg on line two is out.”
Mallory blinked, still looking at the stranger, then registered what she’d heard. “Where’s Randy? He’s supposed to be working the back.”
“He’s disappeared. Maybe he’s on a break or something.”
Mallory cursed as she looked for the bar back who kept them supplied with liquor and fresh glassware. Reliability wasn’t his strong suit; strength was. Still, with one tap down, she wasn’t going to stand on ceremony. Not that she was thrilled with the idea of wrestling kegs, but there was nothing for it. “Okay, I’ll go down and take care of it.”
“You’re out of your mind!” Liane hollered. “Those kegs weigh a ton.”
“You want to tell these guys they can’t have their Bud? Send Randy down when he shows up.” Mallory flicked another glance at the stranger, then ducked through the door behind her, heading into the back where she could get access to the cold room in the cellar.
She passed the dishwasher filled with glassware and opened the door to the basement. It wasn’t that her mystery man was so fabulous, she thought as she snapped on the light and clattered down the stairs. It had simply been too long since she’d had a lover, that was all. Taking a lover had just become too much of a bother. For some reason, no matter how often they said a physical relationship was fine, once she started sleeping with a guy, sex wasn’t enough. Suddenly they’d be pushing for more, wanting to get into her head, which was simply not an option. For Mallory, the barriers were high and solid and nonnegotiable. In her world, anything more than sex was impossible. Once you got beyond sex, you ran the risk of giving the other person power over you. The years of watching her father drown his pain in drink were all the proof she needed of that.
The trio of bare bulbs that dangled from the ceiling of the cellar did little to banish the shadows. Along the far wall, the stack of silver kegs gleamed dully. Behind her was the door to the cold room, where the kegs that fed the taps upstairs were kept.
She opened the door to the cold room and stepped inside with an involuntary shiver. Temperatures that were perfect for keeping beer icy cold weren’t quite comfortable if you were hanging out in a miniskirt and thong. The sealed door thudded shut behind her. Even though she knew it had an inside release, it always gave her the willies to be stuck inside what was essentially a walk-in refrigerator. The faster she finished this job, the better, she thought, staring at the neat row of kegs with vacuum lines snaking up through the ceiling. At least they kept a couple of spares in the cold room for easy access. Pulling the tap off the old keg with swift efficiency, she rolled the new keg into place and hooked it up.
Shivering, Mallory stepped outside and stared at the wall of kegs. Now for the ugly part—wrestling a new keg into the cold room. It was her strict policy that anyone who changed out a keg always put a new one in. You never knew how much beer you were going to go through in a night, and nothing pissed customers off more than warm beer. She kicked her heels off and cursed as her bare feet hit the chilly floor.
Then a noise behind her had her whirling with a gasp.
3
IT WAS HIM.
Adrenaline surged through her, mixed with little bolts of desire. “What are you doing here?”
He studied her. “I thought you might need some help. Kegs aren’t exactly light.”
“Customers aren’t allowed in the back. We’re not insured for it.”
“I’ll be careful not to drop the keg on my foot, then,” he said, with a grin hovering around the corners of his mouth.
That utterly delectable mouth.
She looked until she realized she was staring, then relented. “Well, if you want to help, I need two kegs from the stacks on the left. I can roll them, I just can’t lift them down.”
He crossed to the tiers of kegs and brought two of them to the floor with approximately the same amount of effort she’d expend on a bottle of whiskey.
“Guess you keep up your gym membership,” she said, struggling not to be impressed.
“Or something,” he said, grabbing one of the kegs and carrying it in the cold room.
Mallory took the other, tipping it onto an edge and rolling it along. The grating sound it made was magnified in the close quarters of the refrigerator, then he took it off of her hands.
“Just stack them on that side wall,” she directed. “That’ll give us enough for the rest of the night, I think.”
Back out in the storage room, she looked up at him, studying the hard planes of his face. She was tall for a woman; it wasn’t often that a man met, let alone bested her height. “Thanks for coming down to help.”
“No problem.” The bare overhead lights threw his eyes into shadow, bringing out that pirate look again.
It made her heart thud a little. Mallory rubbed her arms and shivered.
The look in his eyes changed. “You’ve got to be freezing in those clothes,” he said, closing his hands around her shoulders.
Heat was all she could register for a moment, heat from his palms flowing into her arms, heat from his body radiating out toward her. It made her exquisitely aware of the fact that a sizable, strong, and extremely attractive specimen of a man was just inches from her. This close to him, she could look her fill. “I wasn’t really thinking about the cold,” Mallory murmured, staring in fascination at his mouth.
“Well, you could use some warming up now.” He ran his hands up and down her arms lightly, chafing the skin into warmth, tantalizing the nerve endings.
“Does that mean you’re volunteering?”
His teeth gleamed in a half smile. “I told you, I’m here to help.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“There are all sorts of ways to warm you up.” He moved in closer to her. “What was it you said about always finishing what you start?” he murmured, sliding his hands down to hers and raising them to kiss her fingers.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. “What kind of a finish are you expecting?”
“It changes by the minute,” he said, his voice suddenly sober.
Abruptly she slid her hands up his chest to pull his head down to hers. “I guess we’ll just have to see, then, won’t we,” she whispered, and fastened her lips on his.
Mallory didn’t bother with teasing nibbles and pecks. Since his arrival she’d watched his mouth, wondered how it would feel under hers. Now she would discover. She dove into the kiss with abandon, tasting the tang of beer, the spice that was him. His tongue dipped and circled around hers, the silky stroking making her suddenly greedy for more. She made an impatient noise and pushed herself closer to him. The long cords of muscle in his back were sharply defined under the cloth of his shirt. Against her hips, she could feel him growing harder.
Need sliced through her, sharp and intense. She needed his hands on her, his skin against hers. She needed his mouth on her, hot and wet.
“When I first saw you I wondered what this would be like,” she murmured.
Desire slammed through him. Earlier, he’d watched her dance as though he’d been under some spell. Seeing her sway and tease, he’d imagined what it would be like to taste her, to feel her body against his. Imagination was nothing compared to the reality, though.
Hot and sweet, her flavor infused him, left him craving more. Her wild, sultry scent seemed to be everywhere. He could feel her breasts, warm and yielding against his chest, and the sensation threatened his control. He wanted to touch her everywhere at once. He wanted her, period, on the floor, against the kegs, anywhere, as long as it was now.
They were in the bar cellar, he struggled to remember, running his hand down her back to where her top ended and warm skin began. He definitely had no business wrapping himself around an employee on the clock and on the premises, but the sound of her soft moan made a mockery of his common sense. Her hands stroked the denim of his black jeans and he felt himself strain against the fabric, against the heat of her touch. Instead of stepping away and getting out, he found himself slipping a hand up under her tank top, sliding his fingers over the soft swell of her breast. With his eyes closed and the noise from the bar only a soft murmur in the background, they could have been anywhere. Then the insistent firmness of her nipples against his palm tore a groan out of him.
Mallory gave a soft laugh of delight. His arousal was an aphrodisiac, and a sudden frenzy of desire tore through her. She wanted to know how he felt inside her, how his body convulsed at orgasm. She wanted to feel him hard in her hand, in her mouth. Hastily she fumbled for his zipper.
Heat raced through him. There was no room for practicality, only for the rush of sensation from her mouth, the warmth of her hand through the denim of his jeans. In the bar overhead, someone began whooping. Then he felt the tug, heard the growl of his zipper. He could tell himself to quit all he wanted to, but his hands still slid over her curves to find the hem of her skirt. “This isn’t smart,” he said, “we’re in public.”
“Not at all,” she said, running her tongue along his neck. “I know for a fact this is private property.”
Shay ran a hand up under her skirt, moving between her thighs to find her already wet. “What’s your boss going to say about you disappearing?” he managed, the slippery evidence of her arousal making his head pound. Feverishly he wondered what it would feel like to be inside her, to have her hot and wet beneath him.
“Don’t you worry about the boss,” she said breathlessly, her gasps catching as his fingers began to slide against her.
“I don’t want you to get in trouble,” he said raggedly, as her clever fingers searched him out and wrapped around him.
Mallory laughed deep in her throat. “Trust me, I know she’d approve.”
Then he felt her begin to stroke and he groaned, abandoning his attempts at control in the face of the delicious friction, the tantalizing touch. He pushed her back against the wall of kegs and kissed her hard.
The door at the top of the stairs slammed open.
“Mallory, get up here quick. We’ve got a fight,” someone yelled down.
They broke apart, breathing hard, eyes wide.
“The bar. Oh my God.” She broke away and lunged past him, rounding the banister and heading up the stairs.
Mallory, Shay thought dazedly, zipping up his pants. They’d called her Mallory. Mallory was Dev’s sister’s name.
Which meant she was Dev’s sister.
Shouts filtered in from the barroom, the sounds of a fracas underway. The noises galvanized him and he ran up the stairs. Whatever was going on, another pair of hands would surely help. He wasn’t much for fighting, but in his years of bartending, he’d learned a few nasty tricks that were useful for dealing with rowdies.
As it turned out, his help wasn’t necessary. By the time he’d ducked out from behind the bar, the bouncers had grabbed the fighters in painful come-along holds and were leading them out the door. No obvious damage had been done, aside from a stool or two overturned. The rest of the patrons were milling around. The redhead jumped on the bar and began to dance, working to bring the energy of the room back up. Slowly people filtered back toward the bar, but the crowed was smaller than before.
Shay saw Mallory in a corner, talking sympathetically to a weeping girl, and he was abruptly furious at himself. Dammit, he’d been the worst kind of idiot. One minute he’d been sitting in the bar checking it out, trying to figure out what to tell Dev. The next, he’d seen Mallory and she’d driven all thought and responsibility out of his head. He’d gone from chatting her up to groping her in the cellar. He could say he’d gone down to help her, but deep down he knew it was because he wanted to be near her. Needed to be near her. And now he, who always prided himself on being the responsible, trustworthy guy, had wound up almost doing the sister of one of his best friends.
He saw Mallory holding the girl’s hands and talking to her soothingly. Just for a moment, the purity of Mallory’s profile stopped his heart. He didn’t date often. His responsibilities more or less precluded it, but it also wasn’t often that a woman captured his interest. All Mallory had had to do was walk into his line of sight. It wasn’t just the face, although admittedly, that had gotten his attention first. It was the intelligence and humor that sealed the deal.
And of course the physical stuff.
That was history now, he thought, slipping unobtrusively out the door. He was going to be smart and stay away. If Dev wanted his input, he’d give it, but that was all. He was going to keep a healthy distance from Ms. Mallory Carson. Certain things were unforgivable, and one of them was sleeping with a friend’s little sister, he thought, as an image of his own sister, Shana, rose in his mind. Especially when you were supposed to be watching out for her.
