10 - Sophie
10
Sophie
I was mixing a drink behind the bar, but it wasn’t a busy night. Rather than having customers crowding around three-deep, there were only two men waiting for drinks.
Johnny and Eli.
They smiled at me while I added an orange garnish to the Old Fashioned. Normally I hated when men looked at me like that, full of lust, but these two were different. Their gazes excited me, the base of my stomach warming every time I turned their way.
I could feel a third set of eyes watching, but didn’t look around for them. I was happy serving these two.
“Anything else?” I asked, sliding the two drinks across the bar.
“We’ve got our drinks,” Johnny said smoothly. “What else could we possible need?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Anything you want.”
I blinked, and suddenly the drinks were empty and the two men were behind the bar with me. Leaning against the shelves of liquor. Distinctly in my space.
But I didn’t mind it. Their closeness thrilled me.
“Anything?” Eli asked with that easy smile.
I didn’t trust my voice, so I only nodded.
Eli took a step toward me, a step with intention . God, I wanted to see what he intended, what he wanted, what he needed. There was a promise in his brown eyes that I wanted to make him keep.
But Johnny reached me first, spinning me around and pushing me against the shelves. A liquor bottle smashed to the floor just as Johnny’s lips smashed against mine, full of desperate need. I moaned, my body coming alive underneath his touch as he pushed into me, proving what I had wondered all along.
These weren’t like my normal customers. I wanted these two to want me.
And they did.
Then Eli was wedging his way between us, elbowing Johnny out of the way and taking over. His lips connected with mine like we had been lovers for years, his hand sliding between my legs with erotic familiarity. I gasped, interrupting our hungry kiss, and Eli smiled against my lips.
“Been waiting a while for this, darlin’,” he crooned. “Been dreaming about what I’m about to do to you.”
“What’s that?” I breathed. “What are you about to do to me?”
“The same thing I’m about to do to you,” Johnny said, coming up behind me and dragging his lips against the back of my neck.
I felt that third pair of eyes again, and glanced to my left. There, at the very end of the room by the stage, Sawyer stood with a full bottle of TX Whiskey. He leaned against the wall, took a long pull from the liquor, and gave me a smile that promised he had intentions every bit as scintillating as Eli and Johnny.
Sawyer opened his mouth, and music came out.
*
I blinked as Espresso by Sabrina Carpenter played in my bedroom, triggered by my radio alarm. Why was I here? Why wasn’t I at the bar? What happened?
No. It had all been a dream. I slapped at my alarm and closed my eyes, wishing I could teleport back to the bar in my dreams, the bar filled with three delicious cowboys who wanted to fight over me.
But it was too late. I was awake.
No no no no .
I let out a loud groan. Someone should invent an alarm clock that automatically hit snooze when you were having a sexy dream.
As I showered and got ready, I replayed the dream in my mind. It wasn’t a big deal. I’d had plenty of sex dreams about people I had met in real life. Sometimes they involved men I wasn’t even attracted to, like the chubby barista with the giant mole on his nose.
My dream didn’t mean anything.
“It means you need to get laid ,” Liz said as we walked into the YMCA in downtown Fort Worth. I preferred running outside in the fresh air, but that wasn’t possible in January. My hands froze when the weather dipped below 70 degrees, even when I wore gloves.
“I don’t need to get laid,” I replied.
Liz let out a cartoonishly-loud scoff. “How long has it been?”
“I’m fine.”
“Since you and Trent broke up. Right?”
“I don’t want to talk about him ,” I said testily.
Liz put her arm around me and gave me a little squeeze. “Sorry, babe. I won’t say the T-word again.”
I let out a sigh. “Sorry for snapping. You’re right, I do need to get laid. It hasn’t been easy to put myself out there. The only other time was right after Trent, when I was on the rebound.”
Liz emphatically shook her head. “No. We’re pretending that one-night stand never happened.”
“Agreed.”
Liz smiled warmly at me. “Everything you feel is valid. But you can’t push everyone away just because you dated one asshole. They’re not all like him.”
I glanced sideways at Liz.
“Okay, a lot of them are like him,” she admitted. “Which is why you should jump on the ones you find who aren’t like him.”
“They seem nice,” I said. “But they’re still rodeo guys. From Colorado. They’ll leave in three weeks and I’ll never see them again.”
“A perfect chance to get laid!” she exclaimed. “All the fun without any of the commitment.”
I opened the gym door for her. “Yeah, but… I kind of want commitment.”
She rubbed my shoulder as we went inside. “Aww, sweetie. I know. But maybe if you get laid, you’ll be able to think more clearly?”
“Maybe. In the meantime, I guess I’ll get all sweaty on the treadmill instead.”
Liz groaned. “I hate the treadmill. I call it the dreadmill . You should hit the weights with me instead. Today I’m working on my glutes.” She skipped forward and struck a pose, sticking out her ass. “I’m trying to get some cake . Have you seen how much Cassandra gets in tips?”
“I’m pretty sure she’s gotten a Brazilian Butt-Lift,” I said.
“Yeah, well, I can’t afford a BBL. So I have to cheek up the old fashioned way.”
“I think you have a nice butt!”
She gave me a loving look. “Aww, thanks.”
We scanned our IDs at the front desk and walked into the weight room. Since it was January, it was crowded with all the New Year’s resolution people. Half the machines were occupied, and there was no space with any of the free weights.
“Oh well,” I said. “Maybe if we hit the treadmill for a while we can come back and—”
Liz was fearless, immediately walking up to the nearest power rack and tapping a guy with dirty-blond hair. “Hi! Are you almost done with the barbell? My friend and I…”
She trailed off as he turned around. Sawyer had traded his black hat and leather cowboy gear for shorts and a tank top, but it was him. That harsh gaze and chiseled cheeks with a dusting of a five-o’clock shadow were unmistakable.
My breath caught in my throat. I already knew he was reasonably fit, but seeing him in a tank top showed just how ripped he was. His shoulders were like boulders, with powerful arms that he crossed over a thick chest. In the blink of an eye, I was back in my dream, Sawyer watching me from across the room with a hint of a smile twinkling in those dark eyes.
Those eyes passed right over Liz and settled on me. His expression was already full-scowl, but somehow it darkened even further.
“I can’t get away from you,” he growled.
That knocked me out of my daze, and I frowned right back at him. “You have it backwards. I can’t get away from you . You’re the one invading my city, my bar, my gym.”
“This is the closest gym to my hotel.”
“Hotel? You’re not staying at the rodeo camp?”
He narrowed his eyes at me. “Heat’s broken on my trailer.”
“Your hotel doesn’t have a gym?” I shot back.
Deadpan, he replied, “I need free weights, not a fucking elliptical.”
“Speaking of free weights!” Liz cut in hopefully. “Are you going to be done with the barbell soon?”
Sawyer glanced at his watch. “Nope. I’ve got five sets of power cleans, then five sets of squats.”
“Damnit,” Liz said.
Sawyer glanced at me, then exhaled softly. It might have been a sigh, except a man like Sawyer didn’t sigh. “I’ve got three minutes of rest between each set. We could alternate, if you want to share the bar.”
“Pass,” I immediately said. “I’d rather wait for one of those barbells to free up.”
Without looking in that direction, Sawyer told me, “You’ll be waiting a while. Those guys just started, and they have no fucking clue what they’re doing.”
I groaned internally. Glancing at the guys using the other barbells, it was immediately obvious that Sawyer was right.
Sawyer shrugged those massive shoulders. “But if you’d rather wait on them, be my guest…”
Liz gave me a pleading look.
“Fine,” I gritted out. “But please don’t ogle us.”
He snorted, but said nothing. Then he turned around, facing away from us. He bent at the knees, sticking his ass out as he wrapped his fingers around the barbell. There were two plates on each end of the barbell, a significant amount of weight.
Then Sawyer jerked upright, pulling the barbell up in a violent—yet smooth—motion, resting it on the front of his collarbone. He rolled his elbows back and lowered the weight back to the ground, then repeated the motion seven more times.
“What weight do you need on the bar?” he asked.
“We can do it,” I said.
“It’ll go faster if I help,” he said.
“One fifteen!” Liz said.
As the two of them removed a plate from each side, I said, “You’re going to wear yourself out before tonight’s event.”
“Saddle bronc riding?” Sawyer snorted. “I’m not worried.”
“Maybe you should be. You’re throwing a lot of weight around in here. You might pull a muscle.”
He sneered at me. “Thanks for the advice.”
Liz crawled under the barbell, and I helped spot her while she did a set of glute thrusts. Then I took over and repeated the exercise. It was harder for me; Liz was beating me in the cake department.
I started to say so, but Sawyer was standing right there , pointedly not watching. His presence annoyed me; going to the gym together was one of the few times Liz and I got to hang out besides work.
“Saw you at Billy Bob’s last night,” I said.
Sawyer added weight to the barbell and positioned himself for his next set. “I know. You were offended I ordered from the other bartender.”
“I wasn’t…” I began to say, then stopped myself. “I didn’t mean at the bar. I saw you later in the night. You were watching me.”
He was silent while doing eight power cleans. When he finished, he said, “Want to know why I was watching you?”
I felt my throat tighten. “Sure.”
“Because,” he said while focused on the weights, “you had just shouted Eli’s name at the top of your lungs. And then I watched him practically carry Johnny out of the bar. I was wondering what you had done to them. I figure you poured yourself fake liquor while serving them the real stuff.” He raised a dark eyebrow in challenge.
Damnit. I had shouted Eli’s name to get his help with Johnny.
I didn’t respond, and Sawyer took that as a victory. He even smiled—if the tiniest curl of his lip could even be called a smile.
Liz filled the silence with gossip about her brother, who was in a throuple with his roommate and girlfriend. I only listened with half an ear. Whenever Sawyer was lifting, I found my gaze drifting in his direction. The tank top fit his muscular body like a frame around an oil painting, highlighting every single muscle in his upper back, shoulders, and arms.
Liz caught me looking at one point, and raised one knowing eyebrow at me. I rolled my eyes.
At least Sawyer wasn’t constantly flirting with me like Johnny and Eli. He was politely sharing the barbell and otherwise not engaging with us at all.
But as we switched to the next exercise using the same barbell, that kind of annoyed me, too. Why wasn’t he into me? He seemed interested when I handed him a flier that first night, and had showed up at Billy Bob’s an hour later. I’d caught him looking at me a few other times, not just last night when Johnny needed help. And out of all the bars in that massive honky tonk, he’d chosen to stay near the one where I was working.
Then why was he totally ignoring me the rest of the time?
I gave myself a shake. Stop it, Sophie. You shouldn’t let his stupid “I’m not into you” act work.
Although right now, it didn’t seem like an act. I was wearing tight booty shorts that flattered me in all the best ways, yet he didn’t even glance in our direction when I squatted the barbell.
And the longer we worked out together, the more I caught his musky scent. Just a hint of it, masculine and strong, giving me images of all the other ways I could make that hard body sweat…
“I think I’m done,” I told Liz. “I’m going to hit the treadmill to cool down.”
I walked away, feeling annoyed. For a guy who claimed he didn’t like to play games, it sure seemed like he was playing one with me now.
As I started jogging on the treadmill, my phone vibrated with a text message. It was Liz.
Liz : He was staring at your ass the whole time you walked away!
I grinned to myself as I turned up the treadmill speed.
I fucking knew it .