“Then let me take you to lunch.”
I glanced at my watch, the Tag sparkling brilliantly against the afternoon sun, framed by California-kissed skin. “A little late for lunch.”
“Then beers. Unless that’s too lowbrow for you.”
I shrugged. “I can f**k in a parking lot; I think I can down some dollar wells.”
His face darkened, and I had already seen more emotion from him in thirty minutes than in the last month with Brant. Ever since my rejection of his proposal, there’d been a gap of sorts. Maybe it was me, maybe he had withdrawn, maybe it was a little of both. Whatever the reason, this man’s passion, his attitude… it was a refreshing change.
We got in his vehicle, a jeep, one that pulled a trailer full of mowers and tools, my eyes skipping over the contents, inventorying everything, his eyes catching the movement. “Sorry. Left my Ferrari at home.”
I sat on a broken vinyl seat, my fingers itching to pull open the glove box and check the registration, put a name and some bit of understanding to the man who sat beside me. The jeep hitched, then jerked, throwing me against the steering wheel as he tore out of the parking lot, my white Mercedes still parked in front, the candy bar craving still present as I let him drive away.
“What’s with the tools?” I had to yell over the music, some country song about broken hearts and Texas, his hand leaving the shaky shifter to turn the dial down, the easy way his hand returned to the shift knob sexual in its dominance.
“I do landscaping. Cut, trim, edge, plant. Work with my hands.” He glanced over. “That work for you?”
“It doesn’t need to work for me.” I gripped the seatbelt. Hoped his next tight turn didn’t tumble us into the ditch. Whoever decided on pulling the doors off these vehicles needed to be shot. I wondered about the vehicle’s safety rating.
“You always such a bitch?”
I laughed. Shook my head. “No.” Brant would never call me a bitch. Didn’t use words like that. Thought of them as unintelligent, a waste of syllables when there were so many more appropriate terms.
“So I’m just lucky?”
“You’re… different,” I mused, unsure how to say all of the things I didn’t need to say.
“I’m just ordinary, Lucky. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
No. I thought a piece of us all yearned to be ordinary. I’d like to escape into it myself sometime.
He pulled up to a bar I had never seen, in a part of town I had never visited. The In Between—sandwiched between two larger bars that probably served food and had wait staff and a sanitation rating above a D. But we walked into the In Between, the bartender looking up with a familiar smile and greeting him by name. Lee. Wouldn’t have guessed that. Lee fit strange on him, would take some adjustment of my mind. Guess we missed introductions in our romantic rush to the parking lot.
The first stool I sat on wobbled badly, my discard of it and attempt at stool #2 also a failure. I accepted the failure, hooking my feet on the rungs and looking up, into the bored face of the bartender.
“Whatcha want?”
“What do you have?”
“Millers, Bud, and Pabsts.”
Super classy. “Miller Lite please. Bottle.”
I got a draft two minutes later, the glass looking less than clean, a Solo cup more welcome, had one been available. I took a strong chug of the beer, happy to find it cold, then set it down, feeling his eyes on me. I turned my head, catching a glimpse of his smile, the glass pausing on its way back to my mouth.
His smile was my kryptonite. It was shy in the way that only a confident man can work, the slow drawl of a mouth that asked you for permission to step inside and f**k your mind.
I took another sip of beer and he watched my mouth. And even when his smile stopped, it continued in his eyes. He f**ked me with those eyes. I felt them pull off my clothes and push me back, climb on top of me and make me his. I couldn’t look away; I couldn’t help but smile back. I should be confident, I should hold the cards, but instead I blushed and lost track of thought. This man, he could be the death of me. I knew that, but feared I could not stay away. It was worth losing the war for time in the battle with him.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Anyone ever tell you you’re weird?”
“In what way?”
He laughed. “Every way.” He took a heavy sip of his own, reached over, and grabbed my stool, in between my legs, his hand brushing against the crotch of my shorts as he gripped the wood and pulled it, my hands gripping the bar top for balance as he drug the stool and me toward him, stopping when I was in between his legs, his hand on my bare thigh, sliding confidently up the muscle until he reached the hem of my shorts.
“You’re pretty weird yourself.”
“You don’t know me yet.”
He was right about that. This man was a complete mystery to me. “I have a pretty good idea.”
“I’m glad one of us does.”
I stared at him, fascinated. By the way his fingers dipped under the line of my shorts, by how he was sexual and frank, yet secretive. Cocky, but with a hint of vulnerability. He showed disdain and attraction for me all at one time, and acted as if it was completely normal. But most fascinating, most tempting: all of the ways he was different from Brant. In the loose gesture of his hand, as he tipped back his head and emptied his glass. The manliness in every movement, the smell of him, one of earth and grass and sweat. Masculinity personified, and proved legitimate in how he had f**ked me against the wall. Hard, invasive. For his own need more than mine. Greedy, animalistic. Marking me with his cock. He was the type of man I had always run from, but might just be the type I had always needed.
He swung back on his stool to me, looped a hand around my back and slid me to the edge of mine, taking a moment to lift one leg, then the other, until I was all but straddling him, the push of his jeans against mine maddeningly stimulating.
“Kiss me.” He pulled the glass from my hand. Set it on the counter and faced me fully. Cupped my face and stared into my eyes. Waited. I closed my eyes, exhaled. Turned my face to his.
Nothing. I cracked an eye open to see his smile, the slight shake of an oncoming laugh.
“I didn’t say, ‘be kissed’. I said, ‘kiss me.’”
Anger made me yank his shirt, fisting the fabric and pulling him close, my butt working its way off the stool and onto his lap. I attacked his mouth, surprised at their meeting, surprised at how soft and supple his response was, his hands curving down my bare back and pulling me tighter to him. I loved my mouth in his, the flex of his tongue under mine. We did not feel like strangers; our mouths instinctively knew each other.