“When we got out of our truck, we saw you walking inside.” I shrugged. “I called dibs but he whined because he saw you first. It’s a stupid game that he likes to play. One that annoys the piss out of me.”
“So you weren’t playing any games?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.
“I find that it works out better for me in the long run if I’m completely honest and open about my intentions,” I admitted. “It allows for fewer misunderstandings.”
She tilted her head slightly. “What kinds of intentions are you having right now?”
My lips curled up at the edges.
“Ones that have you in my hotel room at the end of the night.” I shrugged. “I’d offer you more but, as of eight tomorrow morning, I’m on a flight home to Vermont. Unfortunately.”
She blinked owlishly at me.
Just before she opened her mouth to say more, our drinks were placed down in front of us.
“I’m not sure you’re ready for me,” she confessed the moment her ‘Papa’ walked away again.
I took a drink of my beer, nearly groaning at the taste.
Shit, that was good.
I hadn’t had an ice-cold beer in so damn long.
“Good?” she asked after I took my second sip.
“The best,” I admitted. “Haven’t had a beer in a really long damn time.”
“Or a girl,” Swayze teased.
My lips twitched. “Or a girl.”
“Do you have a girlfriend?” Swayze wondered.
My eyes were caught on her breasts as she swung around to face me on her barstool, her legs going to the rungs on the barstool between us before she leaned forward, giving me an even better view.
My eyes automatically went to the space between her breasts.
Then to her nipples, which were hard.
“No girlfriend,” I admitted. “Don’t have time for one. Nor would I have come onto you if I did.”
“Why don’t you have one?” she asked, moving her hands to rest on her knees.
I licked my lips. “I have a sister that needs special care. When I’m not doing something, I’m at home with her.”
“Special needs?” she asked.
I nodded. “My sister is thirteen and has Down syndrome. My mother is… non-existent.”
Swayze wrinkled her nose. “Your mother doesn’t help? With her own child?”
I snorted before taking another sip of my beer. “My mother doesn’t help herself. How could she help her own child?”
Swayze’s eyes were curious as she took a drink.
“And that makes you responsible?” she asked.
“It makes me what it makes me,” I shrugged. “Enough about me, though. Tell me about you.”
She wrinkled her nose again.
Damn, it was cute when she did that.
“I’m here meeting my father on my mother’s request. Apparently, he has a ‘birthday’ present for me. I would rather pluck my eyes out with a thousand pinches of my own fingernails. But my mother urged me to be nice, so here I am. Guess who didn’t show.”
I leaned slightly to the side.
“If you hadn’t showed, I wouldn’t have met you,” I told her. “Now where would that have left me?”
• • •
SWAYZE
“If you hadn’t showed, I wouldn’t have met you,” he rumbled softly. “Now where would that have left me?”
The man next to me had no clue just how powerful he was with that voice of his.
Not only was he sexy as hell, but his voice was to die for.
He was tall. Much taller than my five feet two inches. If I had to put a number on it, I’d say he was at least six foot three.
He had a sharp, angular jaw that made me want to run my fingers along it, and ice-blue eyes just like my half of one.
He was tan, as if he’d been spending quite a bit of time in the sun, and he had smile lines around his eyes and mouth.
I couldn’t quite tell what color his hair was, though.
Brown at least, but hell, maybe black. It was buzzed so short that there was no telling at this point.
“What color is your hair?” I blurted, unable to stop myself.
His eyes sparkled with amusement as I deftly sidestepped his earlier comment.
“The lady at the driver’s license place put brown,” he said.
“But…” I knew there was more.
“But technically it’s black. It lightens up a bit in the summer, giving it a dark, coffee brown appearance. But I would consider it black.”
I eyed the shortened stubble.
“Now that you’re out, are you going to let it grow?” I asked curiously.
He shrugged. “Probably not. Shaving it means that I don’t have to pay some chick thirty dollars to give me a five-dollar haircut.”
My lips twitched.
“You sound like you would know,” I teased.
“I would,” he grunted. “I wasn’t allowed to shave it when I was younger. I had to keep it neat and trimmed. Couldn’t have a beard. Couldn’t look ‘scruffy’ at all.” He ran his big hand over the length of his jaw, his fingers scraping along the stubble there. “My mom hated it when I got scruffy. When I didn’t look ‘clean’ and ‘acceptable.’ But she also wouldn’t pay for my haircuts. Meaning I had to pay someone to do it. And I just don’t see how a five-minute haircut can cost thirty bucks. When I was younger, thirty bucks broke me.”