Chapter 1 #2
“Great show tonight, Becks,” Jo said, twisting a lock of her platinum blonde hair around her finger.
The muscular tattooed man blushed, the tips of his ears turning crimson. It was remarkably easy to embarrass the alleged bad boy, a fact which absolutely delighted her. “Thanks, Jo,” he mumbled. Then, to his twin, “C’mon. The guys are waiting.”
Jo and Mr. Silver Fox watched as the brothers wound their way towards the back hallway and the side exit. So much for another big tip. She hated asking for an extension on the rent—again—but it didn’t seem like she was going to have much choice.
“You know the guys?” he asked, a hint of disapproval in his tone.
She slid off the polished surface, landing back behind the bar and taking his empty beer bottle with her. “A bit.”
She felt his eyes on her as she collected empty bottles and glasses, carefully drying the few beer-damp bills left for her on the side of her skirt.
The heat of his gaze burned, embarrassment crawling up her throat as she tucked the tips into her bra for safekeeping.
His eyes tracked every move, his hands curling into fists on the bar top.
She grabbed a rag and began wiping down the area in front of him.
This was her bar, her town, and she would not be ashamed of the life she’d built for herself, even if it was crumbling beneath her.
She would smile and flirt, like she always did, and later she’d comfort herself with the knowledge that, for a little while, this sophisticated man had cared enough to worry about her safety.
For one night, she wished she could lose herself in the fantasy that a guy like him, with his tailored clothing and his fancy shoes, might choose the girl behind the bar.
But Jo long ago stopped wishing for things she couldn’t have.
“Derek, was it?” Mr. Silver Fox nodded. “Aster Bay’s a small town, Derek. My friend Hannah is close with Jackson, and this isn't the first time Midnight Storm has played a show here on my shift. But I’m betting you already knew that, seeing as you’re… from the label?” she guessed.
He grunted in affirmation.
“Jackson’s not all that fond of the label,” she said, leaning unnecessarily on the last two words.
“The label’s not too fond of him lately either.”
“Must be tough to go from being the golden boy to the villain,” she mused.
Mr. Silver Fox’s eyes lifted to hers, assessing. The tick of his jaw was the only indication that he might have something to say.
“He says he’s changed,” she said, not entirely sure why she was goading him.
“And you believe him?”
Jo shrugged, polishing a new section of bar. “Hannah does, and I trust Hannah.”
“Hannah Matthews? The Broadway actress?” Jo nodded, but Derek huffed out an exasperated breath that could have been a laugh if he wasn’t being rude about her friend. “We’re not all so eager to take the word of the woman who helped him lie to the press for months on end.”
“No one seemed to mind when it was getting him headlines.”
“A fake relationship with his co-star is exactly the kind of irresponsible behavior the label wants to avoid being associated with.”
She tossed the rag back into the bin under the bar, frustrated though she couldn’t quite place why. “Well, I believe in second chances.”
“What about fourth chances?”
“Those too. And fifth and sixth chances. Some of us screw up before we get it right.”
“Can’t imagine you screwing up much of anything.” He blinked, looking away, as though he hadn’t meant to say that out loud.
A slow smile spread across Jo’s face. Apparently, he didn’t mind her bratty attitude.
In fact, if she wasn’t mistaken from the way the tips of his ears were turning red and his nostrils flared, it seemed he liked it.
She tapped her index finger gently on the back of his hand.
His fingers unfurled beneath her touch, reaching towards her, but he didn’t lift his hand.
“That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me all night. ”
He grunted again. “Your standards are too low.”
Her grin grew wider. This was going to be fun.
She dragged her index finger back and forth over his knuckles, the slow rise and the valleys between. The pad of her fingertip skated across his skin, and she leaned closer. “Want to help me raise them?”
She wanted to chisel away his gruff exterior, wrinkle his shirt and his perfectly pressed dress pants, see the spark in his eye flame higher, burn brighter. She wanted him undone, and to know she was the one to do it.
It had been a year since she’d booked a modeling job.
Her friends had all gone and gotten grown up careers and husbands and she was still in the same place, in the same apartment, only now she couldn’t even afford her rent.
The scraps of success she’d cobbled together were slipping from her grasp with each passing day without a call from her agent.
She couldn’t pay her rent, she couldn’t figure out what the fuck to do with her life, and she definitely couldn’t ask for help.
But she could pick apart this man’s careful composure, unravel him bit by bit.
He held her gaze, as though he was waiting for her to take it back. But Jo Baker did not back down from a challenge, especially not one that came gift-wrapped in a tall, dark, and muscular package with blue eyes that seared her skin and a rasp in his voice she wanted to feel against her throat.
Jo tilted her head towards the now-mostly-empty room behind them. “Dance with me.”
“You’re working.”
“My shift’s over.”
“I don’t dance.”
She sighed and pulled her hand away, but he reached out and gripped her wrist, stilling her movement. Heat thrummed through her veins at the command in his touch, at the promise in it.
“How old are you?” he rumbled.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you it’s rude to ask a lady’s age?”
He waited, unimpressed. “How old?”
“Twenty-seven.”
He released his hold on her, digging his hand into his hair as he muttered curses to himself. “I’m too old for you.”
She dragged her gaze across his chest and the tempting swell of his biceps. “Definitely not.”
“I’m forty-four,” he bit out, a bitter laugh tinging his words.
“Like I said, I don’t see a problem here.”
He considered her, his tongue running over his teeth as he traced the lines of her face, lingering on her mouth, the jut of her collarbone, the shadow between her breasts.
His eyes went dark, liquid. She might not be wanted by the photographers and local designers who used to clamor for her to work with them, but tonight, here, this man wanted her. That would be enough.
“Tell you what, Derek.” She lingered on the consonants of his name, the scrape of the r and the snap of k, as she turned his hand over, palm up on the bar top, tracing the lines that crisscrossed his skin with her long fingernails. “This line right here? It says you should dance with me.”
He chuckled, deep and dark, like a secret. “You’re a palm reader now? I thought you were a bartender.”
“Honey, I’m everything.”
His eyes locked on hers, dazzling liquid blue in the dim bar lighting, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “I bet you are.” He cleared his throat and tilted his chin towards where she still held his hand. “Palm reading’s not real.”
“I’ll make you a deal. You let me read your palm and if I’m wrong, I’ll close out your tab and we’ll say goodnight. But if I’m right—”
“You won’t be right because palm reading isn’t real,” he insisted despite the slow curl of his lips. She wanted to feel that smile on her clavicle, on the inside of her thighs.
“If I’m right,” she repeated, “you’ll dance with me.”
He took his time considering her proposal, long enough that Jo thought she might have miscalculated.
Maybe she was going home alone to her half-empty apartment after all.
At last, his eyes sparkled, part challenge and part invitation, and he dipped his chin in assent. Electricity skipped across her skin.
Jo bit her lip and forced her attention to his hand, the thick fingers and wide palm making her own hands appear small, fragile by comparison. She dragged a fingernail along the curve at the base of his thumb.
“This line says you’re single, but you’re not alone.” She flicked her eyes up to his. “People rely on you, and you like that. Being someone they can count on. I bet you were the guy everyone called to help them move their crappy couch in college.”
“I didn’t go to college.”
“But I’m not wrong about the couch.”
His eyes narrowed as he watched her but some of the tension left his shoulders. She moved to the crease at the top of his palm.
“You like the simple things in life—clean sheets when you climb into bed, a cold beer after work, a home cooked meal. You’d rather stay in than travel, curl up with someone you love, like your dog...?” His lip twitched and he shook his head. “Not a dog, then. But I'm right about the rest of it.”
“You are,” he conceded.
She dropped her fingers to his wrist, tracing the lines at the base of his hand.
“This line says you should dance with me.” He shifted on his stool, leaning closer to see what she was seeing.
“You’re so busy holding everyone else together, you’ve forgotten how to let loose.
Maybe you’ve forgotten how to have fun, like dancing with a pretty girl you just met.
” She slid her palm along his, the slow glide of skin over skin, and laced their fingers together.
“Or we could skip the dancing. Come home with me, and we’ll see where the night takes us. ”
Derek scraped his free hand over his jaw. His voice was rough and low. “I’m only in town for one night.”
Jo reached across the bar with her free hand and straightened the collar of his shirt, her finger trailing over his chest as it fell away. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and she had the strongest urge to press her lips to the spot. “Then why are we still talking?”