Chapter One #2
His skin is warm and rough against mine. My pulse jumps where his thumb settles over the inside of my wrist, and the slightest change in his expression tells me he feels it.
“There,” he says quietly.
His free hand rises.
I should stop him.
I don’t.
His thumb brushes the edge of my lower lip, rough from work and warm against skin still hot from the ring. The touch lasts less than a second.
But it feels like five whole minutes.
He draws his thumb back with a thin red smear across it. Sheila must’ve clipped me harder than I noticed.
Whiskey looks at the blood.
Then at my mouth.
Not breaking eye contact, he sticks his goddamn thumb in his mouth and sucks the blood clean off.
The noise of Heck’s Kitchen doesn’t actually disappear, but my body stops paying attention to it. All I hear for a second is my own pulse and the scrape of his thumb over my skin that isn’t even happening anymore.
I release his wrist.
He releases mine.
“You enjoy that?” I ask.
“Watching you beat somebody up?”
“Putting your hands on a deputy.”
“Seemed like you enjoyed it more than I did.”
“I could arrest you.”
“You keep saying that like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
I step closer, forcing him to straighten away from the bar.
I’m damn near six feet in my bare feet, so not many men get to look down at me. Whiskey is one of them, taller by enough to make the move stupid, but I’ve never found size particularly persuasive.
“You think I’m scared of that patch?”
“No.”
“You think I’m scared of you?”
Whiskey sets his glass on the bar behind him.
For the first time since I walked over, every trace of amusement leaves his face.
“No,” he says. “That’s the fucking problem.”
The answer lands differently than all the teasing before it.
Before I can decide what the hell he means, my father appears beside us.
Daddy doesn’t shove himself between us. He doesn’t need to. Sheriff Dix has spent thirty-two years perfecting a look that makes grown men suddenly remember outstanding warrants, expired tags, unpaid taxes, and every bad decision they made after midnight.
Whiskey looks over my shoulder.
“Evening, Sheriff.”
“Whiskey.” Daddy says his name like it’s a diagnosis.
Whiskey glances at me. “Fine match.”
“Move along.” Daddy shifts one boot half a step closer to Whiskey. Not enough to start anything. Just enough to remind everybody which one of them is wearing a badge.
“Ain’t finished my drink.”
“Take it somewhere you can’t see my daughter’s backside.”
“Daddy.”
“What?”
“You’re discussing my backside in public.”
“I’m discussing him looking at it.”
Whiskey lifts his glass. “I was appreciating local athletics.”
“You can appreciate your way out that door.”
“Can’t arrest a man for supporting small business.”
Daddy’s left eye twitches harder.
I bite the inside of my cheek.
Whiskey catches it. “What brings you here, Sheriff?”
Daddy rises on both feet. “Report of an active shooter at the bar.”
Whiskey laughs, glancing toward a woman surrounded by her girlfriends encouraging her to take another shot. “And you came alone?”
“Backup already here.” Daddy is talking about me.
“Well, the only active shooter here is that redhead over at the bar. Name’s Andi, I think. Shootin’ Fireball like it doesn’t taste like spicy piss.” He tips his glass toward me, entirely too pleased with himself.
“You’re not funny,” I tell him.
“Wasn’t trying to be.”
“That’s what makes it sad.”
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth again, and the humor leaves his face. “Careful, Deputy.”
“With what?”
“Looking at me like that.” His fingers tighten once around his glass as his eyebrows raise a hair.
Heat climbs my neck. I tilt my head. “How am I looking at you?”
“Like you’re trying to figure out whether handcuffs would improve the situation.”
Daddy takes one step forward.
Whiskey sets his glass down and immediately raises both hands.
“Go,” Daddy says.
Whiskey pushes away from the bar. He passes close enough that the leather of his cut brushes my bare arm, leaving a brief trail of heat behind.
“See you around, Twister.” He glances back over his shoulder.
I watch him disappear into the crowd, hating the confidence in his walk almost as much as I hate myself for noticing it.
Daddy clears his throat.
I take another drink of water. “Don’t.”
“Nary a word.”
“You’re mean muggin’.”
“This is my regular face.”
“Constipated?”
“Watching a forty-year-old outlaw touch my unmarried daughter’s mouth?”
“I’m twenty-eight years old.”
“Still unmarried.”
Daddy bends, picks up an abandoned beer bottle with two fingers, and drops it into the nearest trash can like it’s contaminated.
I turn toward the hall leading to the locker room. “This conversation is why I wrestle.”
“You wrestle because you’re fixin’ to send me to an early grave, Twila Dawn.”
I laugh despite myself and push through the locker-room door.
The women’s changing area used to be some courthouse office and still feels like one if I ignore the smell. Somebody has shoved plywood benches against the walls beneath a row of dented lockers, and the two old mirrors over the sinks cast a green tint that makes everybody look mildly deceased.
The room smells like sweat, cheap body spray, and whatever menthol crap somebody rubbed into sore muscles after the last match.
Sheila sits on one bench with an ice pack pressed to her shoulder, still wearing half her makeup and all of the red vinyl. “Medics missing again.”
“They must’ve scheduled Cal.” I shrug. “You good?” I ask.
“You wrench that hold any harder next time, I’m filing a complaint.”
“With the sheriff?”
“With your daddy.”
“He’ll blame your outfit.”
She looks down at the bodysuit. “It cost two hundred dollars.”
“It sounds like busted windshield wipers.”
“Jealous.”
“Deeply.”