I sighed. It was for the best.
“She never said she was married.” Holden’s voice was low, frustrated.
A warm hand gripped my thigh. Way too big to be Holden’s hand. I snapped my eyes open as the man, whose name I didn’t know, leaned into Holden. “My wife doesn’t have to tell you shit.”
My thoughts froze, every cell in my body zoomed in on that syrupy voice. His wife? So he didn’t know I was married? A tangle of relief and confusion sifted through me.
Had he said it to mark his territory? Stake his claim? Kind of a strange way to go about it. Strange in a really sexy way.
Which pinched my stomach with guilt. Letting him believe I was available made me feel horribly dishonest. But why? I wasn’t married in the conventional sense.
Holden glared at the hand on my thigh and blinked up at the intimidating man’s scowl. “Your wife? Then why have you been sitting over there eye-fucking her all night?”
My husband slipped his hand beneath my skirt, spiking my pulse as he traced a finger along the strap of my garters. “We’re having a little fun tonight. Role-playing our first date.” He slid me a smile that was so disarmingly hot I felt it in my panties. “Isn’t that right, baby?”
For a moment, I let myself imagine that, to forget I didn’t know this beautiful man, to simply enjoy the unexpected pleasure of his game and his warm hand against my leg. “Mm hmm.”
Holden stood, his earlier grin replaced with flattened lips. “It was nice to meet you, Kaci.” He glanced at the other man then strode toward the entryway.
My lungs released a breath then seized again when the gorgeous stranger grumbled, “Kaci.”
If there was recognition in that expression, it was eclipsed by his dark brows and overall growly disposition.
I narrowed my eyes, every molecule in my body gravitating toward the fingers caressing my thigh. “And you are?”
He lowered onto Holden’s stool without removing his hand, his legs sprawled around me, his heavy gaze in full force. “Logan.”
I nodded. The name fit his serious, rough-hewed edge. I wanted to ask about the hand still touching my leg, but I didn’t want him to remove it. “Why did you tell him we were married?”
“I didn’t like the way he was looking at you.”
The impact of his glare and the deep rumble of his timbre spread warmth through my body, no doubt reddening my cheeks.
He tilted his head, his hair all kinds of sexed-up as if he’d mussed it with aggravated fingers. “I heard you tell him no. Should I call him back?”
“No,” I said a little too desperately. “Not interested.”
“What about me?” The possessive hand on my thigh clenched. Relaxed. “Are you interested?”
Oh, let me count the ways. And each one led to heartbreak. I glanced at his forearm, where it disappeared beneath my skirt, his hand on my thigh coaxing a low-burning flame in my core. I should’ve shoved it away, but I liked it too much where it was.
I looked up into his golden-green eyes. “Is that really what you were doing all night? Eye-fucking me?”
“No.”
No?
He wedged his fingers between the crease of my thighs and gripped the edge of the stool beneath. His body blocked the view from prying eyes, but the position was dubious. I squeezed my legs around his wrist, both trapping and hiding his hand, as if that would stop rumors.
With his grip on the seat, he dragged the stool across the wood floor, wrestling his hand free when my knees brushed his denim-clad groin.
Perfectly-fitted denim, as if it were cut exactly for his build and molded to outline the size and shape of the man beneath. Damn. The way the material stretched over his formidable bulge was offensive. Revealingly, erotically offensive.
The nightclub had a strict dress code to match its retro-classy women and eccentric gentlemen. Logan’s collared shirt was crisp and white, the top button undone, framing the thick column of his neck. But his dark jeans bordered on not-allowed. Didn’t matter. No one would turn him away. With his moody disposition and pensive eyes, he had the kind of look that craved a smoky room in the red-light district, longing for the bluesy rhythm of ragtime piano.
He was a dark poem, a sexy attitude, the epitome of rebellion. He was The Watch personified.
And God, those eyes. Gold with a thick emerald outline that seemed to burn brighter the longer he studied me. He was even more handsome up close, his beauty thrumming with masculinity.
But it was his intense focus that held every cell in my body in breathless captivation. He stared at me as if there was a distressing question trapped behind his lips. As if he could find the answer in a deep, hidden part of my eyes.
I raised my chin. “Just ask it.”