Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
I felt words bubbling up inside me and I knew I wasn’t going to bother stopping myself. The tequila was winning.
“You know,” I said, “you said you make a bad boyfriend, but it turns out you make a bad cuddle buddy, too.”
His eyes widened a little. “Cheeky tonight, aren’t you?” he said.
“We haven’t cuddled in two weeks.”
“And you’ve been counting?”
“I’ve been fucking lonely and hopeless,” I said. Yep. There went the last of my filter. “God, what is it going to take to find someone who wants to fuck me and has a good personality? Do I need to make an offering to a rain god or something?”
Three women who had almost sat down on the barstools next to mine looked my way and then decided against it, heading over to the opposite end of the bar instead.
“Come here,” Rush said, waving me over toward the hallway that led to the back.
“But I don’t—”
“Come. Now,” Rush said, demanding it.
I got up from my seat, feeling a little wobbly. I took my passion fruit margarita with me, following Rush down the dim hallway that led to the back offices and storerooms. He opened the door to a small room filled with boxes and boxes of liquor bottles, checked that it was empty, then closed the door behind us.
“Listen,” he said. “You’re making this bad for the other brewery customers. You’ve got to stop sad-sacking all over the place in here, Eeyore.”
“I’m not sad-sacking,” I protested. “I don’t sad sack. I’m a friendly neighborhood contractor. I’m always nice. Nathan calls me a people pleaser, for God’s sake—”
“And you ‘people please’ everyone but yourself,” Rush said. Strangely, he looked even better in this dimly lit storage room. Against a backdrop of liquor bottles, Rush looked like some beautiful, exotic animal. Like a tiger, comfortable in his lair.
He looked like he owned this place, and of course, he actually did.
“Sorry I’m hurting your chances of flirting with Charlie,” I said. I regretted it the moment the words left my mouth.
“I’m not going to fuck Charlie,” Rush said. “Contrary to what you seem to believe about me, I don’t want to fuck anything that moves.”
“Bullshit.”
Rush rolled his eyes. “Charlie’s in some weird love affair with a guy named Jim, apparently, and he’s so wrapped up in it I swear he’d probably call out Jim’s name even if my cock was buried inside him.”
I swallowed. “Your precious cock that you’ll give to anyone but me.”
I couldn’t tell if he was amused or pissed about how brazen I was being.
Probably both. Definitely both.
He looked me up and down, lifting an eyebrow. “I’d give it to you if I thought you could handle it.”
A flare of heat rushed through my body. “You know I could.”
He was pinning me with his gaze again, his eyes smoldering in a way I didn’t even know they could. “Actually, I know you could handle my cock. In fact, I think you’d worship my cock, and drive me crazy in exactly the right way, and make me come like you were fucking born to do it, if you want the truth.”
My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat.
“Maybe,” I said, my voice coming out a whisper instead of the emboldened, rash confidence I’d stumbled on tonight.
“What I don’t think you could handle,” Rush said firmly, “is what would come after that.”
I cleared my throat, lifting my head up and trying to muster the bravado that I’d had earlier. “What?” I asked. “You don’t think I could handle it if you kicked me out of your house after a hookup? Boo hoo. I get it, you don’t let other guys sleep over. I watched a guy walk-of-shame out of your house just this morning.”
Rush clicked his tongue. “You thought that was a hookup, huh?”
“Of course it was.”
“Knew you were jealous,” he said, shaking his head once. “That’s kind of cute.”
“Give me a break.”
“Peter’s just a friend, and all we did was talk,” Rush said, taking a step closer toward me. “Shawn, it doesn’t matter how hard you beg me. You deserve the best. And I'm no good for you.”
I bit my tongue. I felt like I was a volcano, ready to erupt at any moment. “You haven’t seen me beg.”
I set my margarita down on a shelf near me, and then I dropped to my knees.
Literally dropped to my knees, right there in front of Rush on the cold stone floor like a fool. Because I couldn’t help myself.
I half expected Rush to burst out laughing. To tell me to stop coming into his bar and making a damn idiot of myself. But he didn’t laugh at all. He was staring at me, his gaze like fire. He took another step forward and reached out, running his fingers through my hair and then bringing his palm down to the back of my neck, giving it a little squeeze.