Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1) Page 2

  Lacy had been lost, watching his nimble fingers work the cards with expert precision. No ring, which she could have guessed from the way he’d practically undressed her with his eyes back at the pool table.

  She tried to guess his profession, a bar game she and Connie had perfected on long nights with few tips to keep them sane. His nails were trimmed short and clean, but his hands were tanned, like someone who worked in the sun for a living or enjoyed the outdoors. Imagining where else he might sport tan lines elevated her pulse and made breathing a conscious effort.

  Pull it together, Lace. He’s just a tip like any other.

  An overly dominant tip.

  She fanned her cards out face down on the bar and pulled up the top corners, trying to ignore his searing gaze on her. A three of clubs, eight and six of hearts, eight of diamonds, and eight of spades.

  Not the best hand for a hustle, but she could make it work in her favor. Hell, at this point, she should go for the full hustle. Raise the stakes to cash and drop the profits into the tiny account she and Connie had started over a year ago to open their own place. She might be able to fleece first and last months rent on a place along Main Street from the guy if she played the cards right and used Connie as a lookout for Charlie since hustling the customers was frowned upon only slightly less than meaningless sex in the single stall bathroom.

  “Huh,” she uttered, looking up from her cards and finding him staring her down like a slice of grade A beef tenderloin.

  “You keep calling me cowboy? Why?” His timbre was low and strained. The roughness grated her nerves and sent them sparking under her skin.

  “Your outfit.” She gave him a deliberate once-over. “Black leather racer’s jacket. Polo. Designer Seven jeans. Motorcycle boots and,” she pointed a blue-polished fingernail at the dusting of dark chest hair peeking up from his collar, “Aviators.”

  Reaching out to flick the pair of dark glasses dangling from his open collar wasn’t one of her normal flirty moves, but the sudden need to touch him, to take some semblance of power in this game of wills, overrode her normally sound reasoning skills. “You’re the quintessential anti-cowboy. You belong in some mass-produced trendy clothing company ad more than a seedy little dump in no-place Tennessee. So, naturally I’d call you cowboy.”

  She’d meant it as a joke, but the way his gaze narrowed and his chin lifted ever so slightly, he’d missed the humor.

  “Really?” His mouth lowered into a frown, but under the dim light of the bar his eyes sparkled. “So we’ve just met and you’re already trying to change me? Are you always so possessive with your patrons?”

  “Possessive?” The word was abrasive to her ears. “You asked a question, and I answered. Besides, you’re the one who’s stalked around this place for the last week like you own the deed to the building and a contract on everyone in it.”

  He furrowed a brow and twisted his lips into a bemused scowl. He turned the corners of his cards up. “So, you enjoy branding people for their clothing choices, but that’s not considered a possessive trait?”

  He watched her, his stare sharp in what she first perceived as drunken bravado. But his hands were too steady, his speech too clear, his gaze too penetrating to be anything but an air of supercilious confidence.

  He was searching out her weak spots and making a direct hit with each condescending accusation.

  His intense attention made every movement of her body feel overstated and scrutinized.

  Damn, why did she have to be attracted to this guy with his darkened features and brutish good looks? Why did she always go for the hotheads? The possessors?

  By the way he commanded control of the bar since first stepping in last Sunday and hitting things right off with the Rebel PD who hung out after shift change, he was no doubt a hotheaded and possessive bastard just like the rest of them.

  She glanced at her cards, desperate to look anywhere but into those deep brown eyes staring at her as if the world had just suffered a zombie apocalypse and she was the last healthy woman standing. “People tip better when they think they’ve connected in some intimate way with their bartender. Nicknames pay the bills.”

  “And you give them no choice in their nickname? Cowboy isn’t really my thing.”

  A slow, sexy grin slid from one side of his face to the other, but underneath that layer of smugness she saw the hidden threat that awaited anyone who challenged his authority.

  The intensity in his body made her shiver.

  God, if there wasn’t something drop-dead sexy about the way this man did everything from hold a beer bottle to breathe.

  “All right, Ace. Give me two cards.” She laid her discards on the bar and waited for him to take two off the top of the deck. He trailed his long fingers along hers suggestively. Heat shot up her arm, making the rest of her body tremble.

  “Call.”

  He watched her again from under those thick lashes, trying to intimidate her, she guessed. An invisible band of excitement-laced fear tightened around her belly and that familiar undertone of danger followed.

  The first time a man tried to bait her into trusting him, she’d been eight and the challenge almost ended her life. Every man who’d dared try after failed miserably.

  She flashed a smile upward, sending a silent Hail Mary to the gambling gods, trying not to imagine what it would be like to throw a hand, just this once. To let go. Be free. Live a little.

  Lacy leaned back against the liquor shelf and studied her hand. She could almost feel the weight of his stare stroke across her body.

  “Connie,” she called across the bar without lifting her gaze from her cards. “Go ahead and start a tab for…?” She cut her gaze back to the stranger.

  “Mitch. Mitch Kilpatrick.”

  She glanced back to the bartender. “Start a tab for Mr. Kilpatrick.” His name rolled off her tongue, smooth with an air of danger. “He’s buying a house round tonight.” She turned back to Mitch. “Show ’em.”

  Mitch laid both the six of diamonds and spades on the bar. He pulled a third card from his hand and took his time turning it over, making the gesture as agonizing as possible.

  Six of clubs.

  “You’re enjoying this too much.” Tension pulled on her shoulders. She tried to relieve the stress by rolling them but stopped at Mitch’s baffled scowl. “Has anyone ever told you you’re intense?”

  The corner of his lip twitched in answer. He held the next card between his fingers, taunting her by flicking it back and forth.

  “Has anyone ever told you you’re impatient?” He stared at her, a mix of fire and frustration and something else she couldn’t quite read seemed to spark in his eyes. “Learning to be patient can be a very enjoyable experience.”

  He was trying to throw her off the game and succeeding mercilessly. His next card dropped to the bar.

  Eight of clubs.

  “I’ll take a Maker’s Mark.” Lacy fanned her cards out on the bar and turned to Connie. “Make it a double.”

  She had him, but the smile on Mitch’s face didn’t read defeat.

  “You’re so sure of yourself, aren’t you? Confidence can be a damning trait.”

  She watched his final card land face up between them. Her lungs clamped down, forcing a sigh out through her parted lips.

  A freaking wild deuce.

  Shit. Four of a kind.

  Grammy’s rules had never failed her before.

  “Lace.” Connie’s elevated pitch caught Lacy’s attention. Connie’s hand hovered over the white panic button underneath the bar. “White Stetson’s plastered again.”

  Across the bar, Bret Adams, the same barely-legal boy who’d smacked her ass earlier and made the last several Sunday night late shifts a nightmare stood, staring at Connie as if he could reach across the bar between them and strangle her to death.

  Lacy had been so absorbed in the card game and the stranger she hadn’t even noticed him enter the back room.

  He swayed on his feet at the
bar. “This shit’s watered down and tastes like ass. I’m not paying a dime for any of it.” He leaned his long torso across the bar, his jaw clenched. He brushed the empty shot glass beside him to the floor, and it was followed by the high-pitched shatter of glass.

  The game behind them quieted. All eyes turned to the drama at the bar.

  Connie, never one to back down from a good bar brawl, leaned in closer. Another inch from either of them and their foreheads would touch. “You weren’t whining a round of tequila shots ago. Where was your discerning drink palate then?”

  By the way some of the regulars glared at Stetson, they’d jump in to defend their favored bartender soon if Lacy didn’t do something to stop the argument.

  She needed to dissipate the tension, fast, before Connie laid Stetson out on the ground, and Charlie had yet another lawsuit on his hands.

  Before she could speak, Mitch stood and kicked his stool back with a heavy, booted foot. “You drank the booze, kid. Now pay the tab so the rest of us can enjoy our night.” His voice was smooth and good-natured, but the authoritative undertone added weight to the already heavy air in the room.

  Stetson’s lips curled back with a silent argument, but when Mitch pushed aside the front of his coat and revealed the Glock holstered to his hip, Stetson’s face paled, and he retreated a step.

  His mouth worked back and forth, ready to spew more hate speech, she guessed, but Mitch took one step forward and halted the unspoken words.

  Anger registered in hot, red marks across his face, and Stetson reached in his jeans pocket and threw a stack of bills on the bar. “Fucking cunts.” Spitting a wad of tobacco on the floor, he shouldered through the gathered crowd and stormed away.

  Connie stashed the money in the register and went back to the drink she’d started before Stetson threw his hissy fit; the true professional she was didn’t anger easily.

  Despite the tension in the room, Lacy forced a smile, signaling the regulars back to their game.

  “And I thought beating you at cards was going to be the highlight of my night.” Mitch draped his coat back over his gun. “Does that happen often on a Sunday?”

  “You’d be surprised.” Lacy took the drink Connie offered and rounded the bar to the stool beside Mitch. The bourbon stung going down but did little to ease her frayed nerves.

  Connie wrenched the cap off a beer bottle and handed it to Mitch. “That asshole comes here every Sunday. Has a thing for Lace. Always puts on a show to get attention. Probably didn’t like having competition.”

  Mitch’s forehead wrinkled like he was letting that little tidbit of information sink in. “And what happens when someone isn’t here to scare him off? He could have taken you both out before any of these guys jumped in.”

  “We know how to handle pissed-off drunks.” Lacy put her drink down, hoping Mitch didn’t notice the adrenalin rush still shaking through her fingers. Charlie’s was her job, her life, as unexciting and small as it was. No stranger, even one as hot as the man sitting next to her, making the act of sipping a beer look like foreplay, was going to question her ability to handle the bar. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t have a hunting rifle in his truck after you flashed your gun in his face.”

  “Sure looks like you’ve got everything under control.” He cut his gaze up from the rim of his beer. His voice lowered. His eyes heated. “You should be better protected. Connie’s a great guard dog, but what happens when you’re faced with someone who doesn’t back down from mere threats?” A question Lacy had asked herself. “What happens when Connie starts something you’re left to finish? He could be waiting out in the parking lot for you right now. Damn, he could be a fucking sociopath, and you wouldn’t know it until he killed one of you.”

  Sparks of ice danced along Lacy’s skin, and she couldn’t stop the tremor that started near her shoulders and worked across her body like a wave. “I’ve served worse.”

  “Really?” he answered back fast. He leaned closer, his voice turned to gravel in his throat. “Somehow I doubt you come even close to understanding what a deranged killer is capable of.”

  That was where he was dead wrong.

  The last thing on earth Lacy wanted, or needed, was another dominant male in her life, shouting orders and setting rules and telling her what she did and didn’t know. She leaned away on the stool. “Look. It’s been real, but before we get too deep—”

  “You call this deep? I thought we were just getting acquainted,” he interrupted, his tone mocking.

  A rule Charlie taught all his female bartenders flashed to mind. Flirting sells drinks; stupidity sells pregnancy tests.

  “You won at cards, and you saved Connie from a night of scrubbing Stetson’s blood from the wood floor. I’m not in the market for a relationship, no matter how hot I think you are.” Had she really just called him hot out loud? Her cheeks flamed. As if saying it wasn’t embarrassing enough, now she had to wear the irrefutable evidence in bright pink scald marks across her face. She was letting this man get to her. Down deep, under her skin. Why?

  Her gaze dropped to his mouth and the way he sucked in his lower lip and bit down. He shifted closer, his knee pressed into the seam of her legs until she had no choice but to open to him and the rounded bone pushed on her inner thigh. He smelled of beer and the strong spice of aftershave, a heady mix of masculinity that left her wondering how a man like Mitch would taste. How his hands would feel on her bare skin. Soft and gentle after all that hard talk? Or would his touch be as rough and grating as his personality?

  His eyes sparked, dark and dangerous, though the sultry smile on his lips stayed playful. “You were planning to at least kiss me goodnight.”

  Her body felt electrified. Confused. Like the cells beneath her skin were running in all directions and pulling her apart from the inside. She glanced back to Connie for support.

  “You don’t need her.” He angled his face to catch her gaze again. “You’re a big girl. Make the decision on your own.”

  Conceded much? “I may have thought about kissing you.” Her gaze hovered on his mouth and the delicious way his lips curved up into one side of his cheek in a half grin.

  “Then it’s only fair to tell you kissing wasn’t exactly how I pictured the night ending.” His Adam’s apple jumped in his throat, hollowing out the base of his neck.

  She battled the sudden need to run her tongue along the rim of his concaved flesh. To taste him. To feel his heat under her tongue.

  He rubbed his knee along her inner thigh. Darkness flashed in his eyes. Gone was the guy who moments ago had been concerned with her safety. This guy looked like he could eat her alive.

  “Do you want me to stop touching you?”

  Yes. Don’t let him reel you in, Lace. She struggled not to glance at Connie again. Connie knew how to handle guys like Mitch. She lived to knock them off their high horse and make them her puppets. But she couldn’t look without Mitch noticing. She had to handle this one on her own. “No.”

  A low, rough laugh erupted from his throat.

  Lacy pulled her ponytail through her fingers and fanned her hair out over one bare shoulder. The nervous energy building inside threatened to rip her sanity apart. “How did you picture tonight ending?” Playing coy would get her in trouble, but it felt too good, too dangerous to stop.

  “You really want to know?” He slowed his knee at the apex of her thigh. He nudged it forward and rocked, sending waves of pleasure-filled panic riding up to her core.

  She nodded, her own sharp intakes of breath audible in her ears. Her heart ran marathon sprints through her chest. She didn’t want him to stop, ever. But if he didn’t, she’d fall apart from the inside out.

  A loud cry of excitement blasted from the pool table behind them, but Lacy was sure she felt the low rumble of his groan. He leaned forward. His mouth hovered above her ear. His leg pinned her to the sharp edge of the wooden stool, pinching the tops of her thighs.

  “First, you’re going to trust me enough to tel
l me your real name and come home with me. Then I’m going to spread your glorious body facedown over my bed like you did to that pool table over there, and I’m going to tease you with my fingers and my tongue until you can’t remember anything but what that beautiful name sounds like against your ear, the hard feel of my fingers milking you for come, and what it feels like to beg me to fuck you.”

  Lacy’s breath caught. She cut a glance to Connie, who’d taken over serving on her own and didn’t hear a word of his explicit offer.

  Her head told her this was all wrong. He talked so direct. So forceful. She should be offended. Force him to leave the bar. But her body responded in a different way. Her hips rocked forward and pressed her center harder into the curve of his knee until the wave of pleasure drowned out the warning bells in her head.

  He excited her. Being wild and wicked would be thrilling. When he leaned back to get a read on her reaction, she blew out an unsteady breath. “Is that how you sweet talk all your one-night stands?”

  “Yes.”

  The answer was plain. Somehow it sounded more provocative than his explicit details about how he’d drape her over his bed. A sudden flash of the scene and the movement of his knee sent damp heat down between her thighs.

  What the hell was she doing, letting this stranger talk to her in a way that should make her freak-dar flash red? Damn, she was rubbing herself against him in Charlie’s, like a horny teenager restricted to dry-humping in public. This should feel wrong.

  But it didn’t. It felt good.

  Sinfully good.

  Desperate for space to clear her head and regain what sense of self-preservation she still controlled, Lacy pushed him off with a hand to his chest. The thick wall of muscle constricted under her touch. And there was something else. Something hard and oval dangling from a chain around the middle of his chest.

  She pressed her palm against the hard shape. All the sensations she’d been feeling turned from loose passion to a tight fear that began in her chest and gripped her heart in a fist.

  She should have guessed it, the way he handled Stetson. And the gun.