3. Muddle
THREE
Muddle
TO MASH INGREDIENTS WITH A MUDDLER, A SPECIAL TOOL FOR GRINDING AND CRUSHING INGREDIENTS INTO THE BOTTOM AND SIDES OF A GLASS
This was a mistake.
Maggie had known it when she accepted Trent McGarvey’s invitation for a crash course in cocktails.
She’d known it when she reached for her lacy La Perla bra and matching thong instead of her comfortable cotton crotch covers.
She’d known it when she fibbed to Mark Kelly about her plans for the evening.
She’d known it when she’d given Roxie—her blind, bipolar Peekapoo—an extra scoop of kibble and promised to be back early.
She’d known it with every step that carried her from her temporary sublease two blocks down Water Street.
And she knew it now, standing on the second-story landing outside the door to McGarvey’s place with her knuckles poised to knock and the damp chill of a February evening still clinging to her coat.
It wasn’t too late. If she turned around right now, she could slip down the stairs and back out into the night. Send an apologetic text message. Promise to do it another time.
And then what?
Now that Maggie’s hopes that her first day as a lackluster bartender would be her only day as a lackluster bartender had been thoroughly dashed, her options were limited.
Option one: scrap the bartending gig, even if it meant blowing her chances of getting information from Mayor Spewart , as she now knew several of the locals called him.
The very idea made her stomach clench like a fist.
Gabe had said Townsend Harbor’s famously douchey first dude was a talker once moderately lubed, and she needed him to talk. And just because the mayor had bounced nanoseconds after arriving yesterday didn’t mean he’d do that every time.
Ergo, option two: stick it out at Sirens a little longer.
Which raised another important question: wouldn’t it be a good idea to actually learn a little bit about the art of cocktail making so as not to completely alienate Chris’s clientele?
Damn straight it would.
Sucking in a deep breath, Maggie took a moment to arrange herself for the all-important first look. Fluffing her hair. Reaching inside her coat to wiggle her underwire back below her boob crease. And last but certainly not least, wrestling the overly enthusiastic elastic band of her waist-snatching body shaper back over the soft swell of flesh that had escaped its confines on the walk over.
Then, and only then, did she square her shoulders and raise her hand to knock.
Only, the door swung away before her knuckles could make contact with the wood.
Trent McGarvey stood there looking unfairly handsome in a crisp white dress shirt and tailored slacks of a deep navy, a bemused grin tugging at one corner of his lips.
“Did you want to come in, or were you planning on loitering in the hall all night?”
Loitering. Implying that he knew she’d been standing there for some length of time.
Implying that?—
“Motion sensor camera.” McGarvey’s voice, deep and smooth, caught her off guard.
Christ on a slice. He’d seen her?
Imagining McGarvey watching while she wrestled her chub back into the spandex cincher slowly cutting off the circulation to her ankles, Maggie wasn’t sure whether to be annoyed or aroused.
Unfortunately, her body had already decided for her.
“Just making sure the building is equipped with fire extinguishers,” she said, giving her head a playful toss.
“Smoke detectors, too.” Trent nailed her with a swoon-worthy smile and stepped back to grant her entry.
“Glad to see everything is in working order,” she said, giving him a stiff nod as she breezed across the threshold into an Architectural Digest -worthy foyer.
“Take your coat?” he asked, closing the door behind her.
My coat. My panties. My firstborn…
“Sure.” Maggie made quick work of the buttons and shrugged the classic, figure-flattering trench down her shoulders.
McGarvey’s eyes flicked toward her nails as she held it out him. “I don’t know how you do anything with those.”
Maggie suppressed an eye roll. If she had a dollar for every time she’d heard that, she wouldn’t have to haunt the sample stands at Costco on weeks when her nails and stomach both needed a fill.
Not that that would be an option in Townsend Harbor unless she took the ferry back to Seattle.
Still, she’d already wrangled a brunch invite from the two adorable, ruckus-raising late-in-life lesbian life partners who’d made her evening infinitely more tolerable after the mayor had fucked off.
And women over fifty almost always sent you home with leftovers, in Maggie’s experience. Probably she’d be able to put off a grocery run for at least a few days after this weekend.
“Carefully,” she said belatedly. Her standard, if totally untrue, answer. Mostly she accidentally punctured things and swore a lot.
Trent’s grunt sounded less than convinced as he opened a closet door and plucked a black velvet hanger from the rail. “I have a purse hook too if you want to offload that.” He tipped his chin toward the Prada clutch dangling from her forearm.
A purse hook? In a bachelor pad?
Oh, this guy was good.
“Thanks,” Maggie said, clipping open the buckle to extract her phone. McGarvey’s eyes followed it as she tucked it beneath her bra strap below the neckline of her sweater.
She couldn’t afford to miss Gabe’s call.Not after what she’d learned about the Palace Hotel.
Namely that, like the mayoral mansion, it was owned by Mayor Stewart, but had ties both to Madame Katz and the Townsend family. Who, Maggie was quickly learning, were balls deep in just about every account of this picturesque Pacific Northwest hamlet’s history.
History that was proving to have some rather interesting inconsistencies, depending on whose version of it you were reading.
Which was why she intended to make Ethan Townsend—Townsend Harbor’s golden boy, according to Gabe—her next target.
“Do I need to take my shoes off?” Maggie asked, pointing to the orderly rack beside the door.
Trent’s Adam’s apple bobbed above his crisply starched collar. “Your call.”
Glancing down at the creased cuffs of his pants, she noted the Gucci slides on his socked feet.
His indoor shoes—she’d deadass bet her Neumann U 87 Ai Set Large-Diaphragm Condenser Microphone on it.
Maggie stepped out of her heels and placed them in one of the available spots in the pristinely ordered rows, grateful she’d had the foresight to wear toe panties, but wishing she’d had the presence of mind to get a pedicure.
Not that she’d had that kind of time.
In the twenty-four hours since she’d accidentally lit the ancient bar at Sirens ablaze, she’d had to fill out a small mountain of paperwork, speak with an insurance adjuster, and sit through a millennia-long meeting with a Jurassic gasbag from the Townsend Harbor Historic Development Division accompanied by one Caryn Townsend.
Who, Maggie had decided, would vastly benefit from either a decent dicking down or a solid elbow to the hinge of her jaw. When Gabe had informed her that the platinum-haired former first lady actually used to be much worse, Maggie had crossed herself and pretended to shove a head of garlic down her shirt.
For such a small town, Townsend Harbor was proving to be a hotbed of rather sizeable egos.
“The kitchen’s this way.”
Maggie followed McGarvey down the hallway and couldn’t resist—not that she tried overly hard—stealing a peek at his ass, which was even more perfect than she’d imagined.
And she’d imagined real hard.
So hard, in fact, that she’d had to pick up an extra pack of batteries for the only self-care device she’d bothered to bring with her when she hurriedly left Boston.
But in exactly none of her feverish fantasies had she anticipated that McGarvey’s decorator-ly sensibilities would rival his fashion sense.
Maybe even outstrip them, she thought as he led her past a rustic wooden table adorned with a fresh bouquet of flowers, and into a serene living area that would make Martha Stewart weep rivers of Lanco?me mascara down both buttery cheeks.
Maggie’s gaze swept the room, taking in the tasteful minimalist décor and impeccable mid-century modern furniture. The bookshelves held an array of titles that Maggie suspected had been selected more for their size and color variation than for content.
Unless McGarvey harbored a secret obsession for Mykonos , Dali , and Fifty Dresses that Changed the World.
No family pictures. No college wrestling trophies or B-movie posters. No gym bag with boxing gloves or a lucky basketball. Not even a junk bowl to collect mail, keys, or pocket contents.
Well, this is no help whatsofuckingever .
Getting to peep McGarvey’s landing pad had been the deciding factor in accepting his invitation. A chance to scour for clues as to who the hell he was and, thereby, what it was he wanted with her.
Because after confirming that Trent McGarvey’s living quarters were just as perfect as the man himself, she knew for damn sure it wasn’t a conquest.
“You could have at least run a vacuum around the place,” Maggie teased, trying to sound casual as they entered the spacious open-concept kitchen. It was just as immaculate as the rest of the apartment, with gleaming stainless-steel appliances and neatly arranged utensils.
“I just need to grab a couple things from the pantry,” he said, pointing down a hall off the kitchen. “Be right back.”
It was all the invitation Maggie needed.
Fueled by the same investigative instinct that had led her to peer into windows as soon as she was tall enough to reach them, Maggie began easing open McGarvey’s cupboard doors, glancing at the contents, mentally cataloging anything about him she could glean.
It was, in effect, the same insatiable curiosity that had initially led her to internet sleuthing and, ultimately, starting her podcast.
She just had to know.
“You should see my sock drawer,” McGarvey said, opening the double-door fridge with a smirk. “It’s a work of art.”
Maggie whirled around, her heart doing the flamenco within her chest.
“Easy, my guy,” she said in a voice far breezier than she felt. “I never look at a man’s sock drawer on the first date.”
“Date?” asked McGarvey from behind the fridge door. “And here I thought I was pretty clear that I just wanted to show you how to make some cocktails.”
For the first time since he’d extended the invitation, Maggie actually believed him. Because he seemed like exactly the kind of dude who was so picky about his shit that he’d even be willing to offer free instruction and consider it doing the Lord’s work.
Damned if that didn’t make her feel… What?
Messy. Lazy. Sloppy. Careless. Impulsive. Reckless. Thoughtless.
Words her army drill sergeant father had welded to her when, as a teenager, she’d lost interest in following the rigid structures he’d set forth like an eager shadow.
Fuck.
“And here I thought you had at least a passing familiarity with sarcasm,” she shot back after a pause several seconds too long.
A symphony of muscles flexed beneath his shirt as he set down a food-blogger-worthy charcuterie board on the polished granite counter. Piled high with gourmet cheeses, meats, and olives, the spread made her stomach rumble on sight as her salivary glands splooshed their metaphorical panties.
Please, God, don’t let him have heard that.
“Hungry?” he asked
Thirsty, more like. In every sense of the word.
“I’m good for now, thanks.” Another oft-repeated and totally inaccurate answer. “Maybe in a bit.”
McGarvey’s broad shoulders jerked upward in a suit yourself shrug as he cut his eyes toward the bar. “Shall we?”
“After you,” Maggie said, hanging back a couple of steps for maximal gluteal admiration.
McGarvey brought the tray, goddamn him, sliding it onto the bar’s counter before swinging around behind it. “I’d offer to make you a drink, but…”
“That would defeat the purpose of my being here,” she finished for him.
“You catch on quick, rookie.” His wink shot a bolt of heat straight through her middle.
Had any other man called her that, Maggie would have been tempted to introduce his gonads to his epiglottis by way of her knee. But somehow, Trent McGarvey pronounced it with a casual affection that made her feel like the loose cannon in every buddy cop comedy ever.
Movies she’d gladly watch over a rom-com every day of the week and twice on Sunday. It was one of the few things she and her father had ever done together that didn’t end with him volubly critical and her silently seething.
“Well?” McGarvey asked expectantly.
She blinked at him. “Well what?”
“You’re on the wrong side of the bar for bartending,” he said.
“Oh,” Maggie said. “Right. I knew that.”
She joined Trent behind the expanse of sleek black marble and polished cherry wood, the limited space forcing them to stand hip to hip.
Her hip to his thigh, anyway.
As she was absent her heels and stood a thoroughly average five foot four, the crown of Maggie’s head barely grazed McGarvey’s chin.
Or would, if he were to, say, fold his massive arms around her shoulders and pull her in for a long, lingering lip lock.
Maggie shoveled the unhelpful thought onto the growing pile and pushed the sleeves of her clingy cashmere sweater up her forearms.
“So, what are we doing first? Slicing lemon wedges? Making those ridiculous zest curls?” Maggie reached for the bowl of sunshine-yellow fruit on the counter but was arrested by a gentle grip on her wrist.
“Wait.” His fingers were long and dexterous, adorned with a simple silver pinky ring. She imagined those capable hands gripping her waist, moving lower to?—
Open a cabinet and withdraw an apron. One of those old-fashioned jobbers with big pockets and a pithy message that always said something like “Kiss the Cook.”
“Can’t have you getting anything on that cashmere.”
Maggie held her breath as he walked around behind her and looped the halter strap over her head. His warm fingertips brushed the sensitive skin of her nape as he lifted her hair to adjust the fit. Goosebumps cascaded down her torso and arms when he captured the ties on either side of her hips and knotted them behind the small of her back.
His hands lingered for a moment before finally retreating back into his own space.
“Not bad,” Maggie said when her lungs remembered how to process oxygen. On the rare instances when she’d had occasion to don an apron, her tits had typically ended up playing peekaboo with the panel of fabric meant to cover the average chest.
And Trent McGarvey’s chest was a good deal broader than hers, if not quite as convex.
A fact he seemed to also notice as he followed her gaze, then cleared his throat.
“What should we start with?” he asked, consulting the array of bottles. “A rum and Coke?”
Maggie arched an eyebrow at him. “I’m pretty sure I know what goes in a rum and Coke.”
“But do you know how much of each goes in it?” he asked. “Because Myrtle was three sheets to the wind after two of yours, and I’ve personally seen that woman drink lumberjacks under the table.”
“I knew there was something I liked about her,” Maggie said, accepting the bottle of Bacardi McGarvey held out to her.
Their fingers brushed during the exchange, sending a jolt up Maggie’s arm that nearly made her fumble the bottle. Her nails clicked ridiculously against the glass as she nearly dropped it.
“Careful, rookie,” he said. “A bartender who can’t hold her liquor isn’t going to last long around here.”
“I can hold mine and yours.” Maggie planted the bottle on the counter with a satisfying thunk. “How’d you get to be such a cocktail snob, anyway?”
“Snob?” Trent chuckled and began arranging cocktail tools on the polished countertop. “That sounds like a judgment.”
“Not a judgment,” Maggie said. “An observation.”
“So you like to watch?”
Maggie’s cheeks grew warm as the suggestive words hung in the air. He was close enough now that his breath stirred the hair at her temple as he leaned in to snag a bottle of simple syrup.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “What about you?”
Trent’s eyes flickered to meet hers before he turned back to the counter, his movements slow and deliberate as he set various implements on the gleaming counter. “All the times.”
Maggie’s heart took a header into her nether regions.
She knew what he was insinuating, and truth be told, she suspected she’d rather enjoy it. But this shit here was a disaster waiting to happen. Townsend Harbor was bent to be equal parts recovery ward and hidey-hole. As geographically distant from the life she’d led in Boston as she could get while remaining in the same country. And for reasons she didn’t want to think about while standing this close to the man who occupied this pristine palace of solitude, she needed to.
Maggie cleared her throat, trying to ignore the heat that was pooling low in her belly. “You didn’t answer my question about the cocktail snobbery.”
He looked thoughtful for a beat.
“Spent my twenties focused on quantity,” he said, his voice low and smooth. “My thirties are about quality.”
She wondered if that maxim had applied to all of his appetites.
“I enjoy the artistry of it,” he continued. “And how that art rewards precision.”
Precision. Artistry. Order.
Oh, this man was so not her type.
So, what was it about the way he moved, the way he talked, that made her feel like someone had buried a live coal behind her sternum?
“Fair enough,” she said, hoping to distract herself from her own thoughts. “Which precision-rewarding drink will we be starting with?”
McGarvey gestured to the array of components on the counter. Fresh mint. Limes. A glass jar of raw sugar. “How about a mojito?”
“Fine by me,” Maggie said. “The mint goes in first, right?”
“Right,” McGarvey said.
Maggie twisted off a small bunch of leaves and dropped them in the glass before reaching for the wood pestle.
McGarvey’s jaw flexed.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Go ahead,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s see your technique.”
Looking at the pestle with its long, thick wooden shaft and blunt head, Maggie had a sudden flash of inspiration. Her skill set might just overlap with this particular activity after all…
Wrapping her fingers around the handle, she began to work it up and down within the glass. In the suddenly oppressive silence, Maggie would have sworn that she could hear the individual plant cells rupturing.
“What?” she demanded.
“Nothing,” he insisted.
“Look, you might as well tell me before that vein in your forehead bursts and you stroke out.”
McGarvey swept in like a man relieving an inept copilot of an airplane’s instrument array and quickly added a slice of lime and a spoonful of sugar.
“Gives you a little extra friction and helps release the zest’s essential oils,” he said.
“God forbid we don’t maximize the essential oils,” Maggie muttered before resuming her task.
Not even ten seconds had elapsed when she heard a muffled sound of dismay.
“What now?” she asked.
McGarvey’s toffee-colored eyes cut to the pestle. “May I?”
“Seeing as it’s that or listen to you aggressively grind your teeth, I’m going to say you may.” She stepped aside as much as the compacted space would allow and watched as his large, long-fingered hand wrapped around the blunt-ended wooden implement.
But it was her thoughts that were becoming muddled as her gaze strayed from the green pulp in the glass to the smooth ridges of muscle flexing in his forearm as he began to work the pestle.
“We’re just trying to open up the mint,” he explained, “not punish it for the sins of its ancestors.”
Maggie didn’t quite manage to stifle her snort, but his teasing only made her more flustered. Each time he gently corrected her, it set her freckled cheeks aflame.
“There,” McGarvey said, aiming the rim of the glass toward her so she could appreciate the perfectly pummeled contents.
“So that’s what they mean by bruised?” she asked, despite already knowing the answer. If her years of investigative reporting had acquainted her with any truth, it was that men were always willing to teach you something.
“It’s all in the wrist,” he said, setting the pestle aside.
Yeah it was.
“So, what’s next?” she asked briskly, eager to move things along. “Do we add the bourbon now?”
Trent’s grin wilted.
“Kidding,” Maggie insisted. “I totally know bourbon doesn’t go in a mojito.” As of the last thirty seconds. “It’s rum, right?”
“Right,” he said, looking immeasurably relieved. “I like to add it first so the liquor can draw out the oils before we add more acid with the lime juice.”
“Makes sense.” Maggie grabbed the rum and unscrewed the lid.
McGarvey slid a double-sided silver jigger between the bottle and the glass. “We’ll need one and a half ounces.”
“What is it with men and measuring?” Maggie poured out what seemed like an exceedingly stingy amount of the clear liquid and upended it into the glass.
“Now you’ll want three-quarters of an ounce of lime juice.” McGarvey handed her another wooden implement with what looked like a rudimentary drill bit at one end.
Because of course he expected her to juice the limes herself.
Maggie grabbed one from the bowl and plopped it onto the cutting board for dissection.
“Can I show you a trick?” McGarvey asked.
“Several, I’d wager.”
“What?” he asked.
“What?” she repeated.
Placing his wide palm over the fruit, McGarvey began to roll it on the cutting board in smooth strokes. “Releases the juices,” he explained.
Boy, does it ever.
Scarcely had the tip of Maggie’s knife pierced the gleaming green skin than a little spurt shot up.
“Oops,” she said, proceeding with a modicum more caution. “I usually get a little warning before that happens.”
McGarvey’s warm chuckle allowed her shoulders to sink away from her ears as he placed a small wire strainer over the glass measuring cup. “Disembowel at will.”
This, at least, Maggie did with enthusiasm, stopping when the pale green liquid nudged the one-eighth cup notch on the cup’s side.
“Perfect,” he said. “Toss it in.”
Maggie decanted the juice into the glass.
“Ice,” McGarvey said. Leaning down below the counter, he pulled on a handle that revealed a slim freezer drawer. Inside, Maggie saw several varieties of ice in all shapes and sizes, from oversized Old Fashioned cubes, to delicate spheres with slices of lemon and orange suspended in their perfectly transparent centers.
“Wow,” she said, her eyes widening. “I thought only those OCD TikTokers actually did this shit.”
McGarvey gave her that knee-softening grin as he pulled out a metal tray. “OCD TikTokers and motherfuckers like me from the Southwest.”
“Becaaause heat stroke?” she guessed.
“Because sometimes air conditioning and a cold beverage is all that stands between a you and a desperate act.”
Maggie narrowed her eyes at him in exaggerated scrutiny. “Is this where you pull out an ice pick and make vaguely menacing comments?”
One of McGarvey’s dark brows lifted as he pressed a tab on the side of the tray that made the iconic cracking sound.
“Oh,” Maggie said, pulling the tray toward her.
“About five cubes ought to do,” he said.
“Really?” she asked. “Exactly five?”
Heat radiated from McGarvey’s broad chest as he turned his torso to face her. “That ice is going to turn into water, and the amount of water it adds to the drink is as important as every other component we’ve added.”
He had a point. Maggie really hated it when that happened.
Using the wickedly pointed tip of her nail, she pried out the appointed number and slid them into the glass. “So Albuquerque, huh?” She would not have pegged that. Austin. Phoenix, maybe. “How’d you end up out here?”
“Work,” McGarvey said, his answer as artfully casual as her query had been. “All we need now is some soda water.”
The condensation-kissed bottle hissed as Maggie opened it. “How much?”
“Just top it up.”
Maggie fluttered her lashes and dramatically swept her fingertips to her chest. “You mean, I get to…to… eyeball it?”
Speaking of eyeballs, McGarvey’s seemed to have fixed on the spot where Maggie’s nails fanned across the swell of her breasts.
“Don’t make me regret it.” But something darker and deeper had sanded away the teasing edge to his voice.
Maggie swallowed hard as she streamed in the soda, the bubbles making it necessary to pour even slower so she could stop when it kissed the rim of the glass.
“Beautiful,” McGarvey said. But he wasn’t looking at the drink. “Go ahead and give it a stir.”
Plucking a metal straw from the container, Maggie slipped it into the glass and swirled.
“ Gently ,” McGarvey said. “The bubbles are part of what makes it so refreshing.”
Having completed several painstaking revolutions, she slid the beverage toward him for final approval.
“Not bad,” he said. His gaze flickered up to meet hers. “Want to taste?”
Lord, do I .
Maggie nodded, her mouth already watering as the tangy, minty flavor exploded on her tongue, savoring the coolness that spread through her middle.
“Oh wow,” she said, opening her eyes to find him watching her intently.
“Good?” he asked, his voice low and husky.
“Really good.” She offered him the drink, praying the single sip would somehow cool her nerves.
Trent took it, his eyes staying fixed on hers as his lips wrapped around the straw where hers had just been. Maggie felt a delicious shiver race through her veins at the casual intimacy of the gesture.
“Not bad,” he said, setting down the glass.
“Not bad?” She snatched the drink back again and downed an additional gulp, as much for the alcohol’s mood-enhancing effects as to dispute his noncommittal flavor assessment. “This is fan-fucking-tastic. Probably the best mojito I’ve ever tasted.”
“You drink a lot of those on Long Island?” McGarvey asked. But before she could respond, McGarvey stepped closer. “Or was it Boston where you became such a connoisseur?”
Maggie’s heart began to thump like a rubber mallet against her sternum, her mind racing as McGarvey’s lips curved into a slow, wicked smile.
It wasn’t like she’d made a secret of the fact that she knew Gabe and his family, so Boston was a pretty logical leap. But Long Island? Maggie knew for a fact that the only person who’d even heard her mention anything remotely adjacent was Kurt. And even then, in a totally offhand way when McGarvey was on the other side of the bar.
Which could mean one of two things. Kurt had been running his incessantly smirky yapper…or McGarvey had been doing some research.
Neither option felt like a good thing, considering what there was for McGarvey to find.
“Neither,” Maggie said, arranging her lips into a smile that felt several sizes too tight. “I went on a booze cruise for my birthday last year.”
She took another sip of the mojito and offered it to him again, her fingers brushing his as she handed it over.
“From Boston?” His voice held a teasing lilt that made her second-guess herself.
“Why do you want to know?” Maggie met his gaze, refusing to be the first to break eye contact.
He was so close now that she could make out the individual filaments of his ridiculously long lashes. “Maybe I find you intriguing. Maybe I want to know what a woman like you is doing in a town like Townsend Harbor.”
Maggie tensed. This was the moment she’d been dreading.
“Just looking for a change of scenery, I guess.” Not technically a lie.
“And decided to take a job bartending at Sirens?”
She shrugged. “They had an opening. I needed to make some money. Seemed like a pretty easy solution.”
“Even though you don’t know the first thing about mixing drinks?” Trent raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you’re a woman of many talents.”
She leaned into him, damage control mode now her sole focus. “You have no idea,” she said.
The tension that had been simmering just below the surface since the moment they met was rapidly reaching its boiling point.
Their lips were a hairsbreadth apart now. The playful banter had shifted into something far more dangerous. Maggie knew she should pull away, but her body refused to cooperate. She was drowning in the intoxicating nearness of him.
And in no hurry to be saved.
Her eyelids fluttered closed, a brazen invitation to end this topic.
Any moment now, she’d feel that first brush. His lips on hers. Danger of discovery seared into oblivion by the very real heat between them.
“What did you do?” McGarvey’s question ripped through the haze of desire.
Maggie took a steadying breath, searching for an anchor. “In Boston? Oh, all kinds of stuff. Waitressing, data entry?—”
“No.” Trent’s expression turned serious, sending a jet of icy alarm spilling down Maggie’s spine. “You left Boston and traveled all the way across the country just to take a job as a bartender despite knowing nothing about mixing drinks and having a temperament terribly suited to the service industry. So, I’ll ask again,” he said, his breath warm on her lips. “What did you do ?”
It was bad.
Whatever she’d done was unspeakable. Illegal, probably.
While Trent prided himself on having a keen investigative mind, he found it in no way necessary to apply his training. The evidence was in the way she grabbed his face and mashed her mouth to his to avoid the question.
And…if the intensity, passion, and skill of her kiss was any indication of her guilt, she’d probably done something worth twenty-five to life.
Yet Trent couldn’t pull away to save his skin.
Or anyone else’s.
Shit, someone could have been robbing the wine seller across the street, complete with an Equalizer -style shootout, and he wouldn’t have noticed or cared.
Because Maggie Michaels kissed like the act was an Olympic sport and she was defending her gold medal.
Which was usually his thing. He had a formula, one wherein he applied hard-earned skill to turn a woman’s knees to quicksand and her insides liquid.
Then he’d really start trying, his every movement thought out and controlled in order to make certain the evening went the way it was supposed to, and she left singing his praises.
But tasting Maggie was like drinking a fine wine or a perfect cocktail, and Trent found himself helpless to do anything but savor every note and nuance.
Christ, she was sweet…but not cloying. Warm but not scalding. With a hint of liquor and an aftertaste of lime. He sampled it all. Her mouth, the slick glide of her tongue. The sweetness of her breath.
The world outside his open window melted away. The smell of fresh rain dampening pavement, the sound of a lone motorcycle engine growling in the distance, and a car door slamming shut. Who could mark those things when they were busy learning what desire tasted like?
He swore he could hear the blood throbbing in her veins. Could make out the individual twists and whorls of her fingerprints as she softened her touch against his face and charted the angles of his jaw with questing fingers. For a moment, Trent forgot everything else. Forgot about his job, his responsibilities, his own identity. All that mattered was the woman in front of him, the way her lips moved against his, the way her body pressed closer to his. It was a dangerous game they were playing, but Trent couldn’t bring himself to care.
Couldn’t summon the terror that truth should have wrought.
How could he when she was a balm and an irritant all at once?
His blood felt like warm honey, but his skin was on fire. His hands would tremble unless they splayed over her abundant curves. The curve of her back, her waist, the swell of her ample ass.
Holy Christ, he was in trouble.
And he loved how trouble tasted.
The moment was as perfect and slow burning as a summer night. The air around them felt heavy and heady, like the prelude to a storm. Trent pulled Maggie closer and moved his lips against hers reverently, tasting her in ways that had nothing to do with sex.
Her response set him on fire. She pushed herself up onto her toes, pressing her body even closer to his own. Her hands moved up from his face to his chest, testing the dips and swells of muscle.
Trent groaned into the kiss and knew that there was no going back now. He wanted this woman in ways that were both primal and poetic all at once. Without breaking contact, he led Maggie over to the couch.
She sank down. He followed, settling into the cradle she made with her gorgeous body.
The kiss only intensified, their hands exploring each other while their mouths spoke words too profane for language. It was something out of a dream—pure bliss wrapped up in an embrace so tight it felt like it would be this way until one of them finally conceded ground so they could remove the clothes that dared keep their skin from touching.
With their mouths fused, she clawed at his shirt, undoing a few buttons below his neck while he slid her zipper down.
Damn, his mouth was watering violently.
“Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads started blasting from her phone.
“Gah! Balls.”
It was the first time that word had been spoken into Trent’s mouth.
Maggie performed some improbable jujitsu roll and unfolded from beneath him to her feet, snatching the phone from her bra.
He could do nothing but pant like a man who’d run a marathon and watch her while still balancing on one knee in the world’s most awkward I almost had sex but the phone rang position.
How could she pick it up?
Not that he thought himself that good. Well…he did, but that was only half the problem. Not only did she answer the phone like it might be the lottery calling, she’d done it after sexing him up so completely he’d forgotten what a phone even was.
He watched her expressive face light up as she unceremoniously wiped the gloss of their kiss from her swollen lips.
“Uh-huh… Fuck yes… Uh-huh. I’ll be there.”
After the shortest phone call in the history of ever, Maggie was stuffing her phone back in her purse and grabbing her keys with a self-satisfied glee that made him shrivel.
“Sorry, Trent,” she said with a smirk, “I gotta go—it’s an emergency.” She winked as she turned away from him, as if she didn’t know it would be painful to follow her with what was going on in his pants.
She suddenly wouldn’t look at him, and every investigative sense he had began to steal some of the tingle from his more engorged parts.
Was she feeling awkward? Shy?
Guilty?
“Everything okay?”
She swallowed hard and flashed him a grimace that was meant to be a smile as she stumbled on her way to the door. “Oh, yep. Yeah. Just got some news I’ve been waiting for, and it’s…time sensitive.”
Didn’t she have work in an hour?
“Well, um… We should…” Her eyes darted to where he was unfolding from the couch. “Thanks for the…the lesson. I’ll see you!”
“Maggie, wait?—”
The door slammed behind her.
Trent collapsed on the couch, his legs splayed and his veins still throbbing as he scrubbed his hands over his face.
He’d dodged a few bullets in his day, but if he wasn’t careful, Maggie Michaels just might be the end of him.