Thirty minutes before open, Eve took the spiral staircase to the main floor. Natalie and Chad stood behind the bar. They must have achieved some level of détente about the music because while Natalie’s iPod was plugged into the sound dock, rather than her usual boy band extended playlist, the lead singer for Whitesnake wondered if it was love he was feeling. At least it wasn’t New Kids on the Block.
Nat turned down the music as Eve crossed the floor and climbed up onto a stool in front of Chad. Without being asked, he filled a glass with ice and water, then set it in front of her. She gave him a smile that matched the flashing, purposeful look through her lashes, then sipped at the cold water.
“Looks like you’re ready to kick some ass on a Saturday night,” Natalie complimented.
Eve had compensated for stress with attitude, choosing black knee-high boots, a knee-length black leather skirt that clung like a second skin to every curve of her hips and bottom, and a black leather bustier with hook-and-eye closures. The stiff construction made the most of her average cleavage and left her midriff bare from rib cage to hip bone. She’d taken ten precious minutes to style her hair into a sexy, tousled mass that brushed her cheeks and lips and hung in her eyes.
“When the world hands you lemons, put on heavy boots to stomp them into lemonade. That’s my motto,” she replied. “How’s prep coming?”
“We’re almost done with twenty minutes to spare,” Nat said. “Lover boy here is good with his hands.”
Chad said nothing, just flicked Eve a look as he decimated the last of the limes and swept them into the plastic storage tubs.
“We could use a couple more cases of the pinot, though,” Nat said.
“I’ve got it,” Eve said, shifting off the bar stool and down the hall, her boots thudding against the cement floor.
Chad was right on her heels, wearing the ubiquitous running shoes, jeans, and Eye Candy T-shirt. His wiry reddish hair looked a little more rumpled today, the faint lines around his eyes telling her he hadn’t slept much more than she had and maybe he’d had a hard morning too. He followed her into the storeroom and closed the door behind him.
“Something up, boss?”
“Why?” she asked, stacking empty boxes by the door to clear a path to the wine. “Break those down, would you?”
“You seem a little stressed,” he said as he ripped apart the bottom of a box and dropped the flattened cardboard on the floor.
So much for a bold, sexy outfit. She hefted a case of wine, and said, “It’s just new business stress.” She was getting far too good at this half-truths/half-lies thing.
He took the box from her and set it on the crates stacked by the door. “Hey. Talk to me.”
“It’s no big deal. It’s just … things aren’t going so well for the East Side right now. That upsets me.” It was the strain of single-handedly running a new business, and dealing with Lyle and her family’s well-meaning concern for her reputation and her future. Her liquor costs were going up as gas prices rose, and if the business park initiative failed, her odds of survival plummeted. Maybe she was wrong about her methodology for helping the East Side. Maybe she needed to apply for that job in marketing, and start volunteering at the SCC. Lots of kids needed help with math. She could run basic financial-management classes for teens and adults, help keep them out of the vicious cycle of check cashing and rent-to-own. “Could you see me working at an insurance company?”
“What?” he asked, clearly startled.
“Never mind. I’m fine. Once we open the doors and this place is rocking, I’ll be better than fine.”
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on? Maybe I can help,” he said.
Her heart lifted at the offer, because deep down inside he felt rock-solid, trustworthy. But if he wouldn’t open up to her, she couldn’t afford to tell him any more secrets. “Thanks, Chad, but I think I’m going to keep this one close.”
He folded his arms, looked at her. “Why?”
Edgy nerves made her stomach and pulse jump. She copied his stance, folding her arms and opting for flat honesty. “Because despite enough chemistry to turn lead into gold, you’ve given me no indication you want anything more than friendship. Tonight, I need more than a friend.”
A muscle in his jaw jumped, and, as if he’d opened the grate on a roaring furnace, the temperature in the room shot up ten degrees. The look he cut her, suddenly, shockingly full of edgy masculine demand, seared her skin and stopped her breath. “Fine, boss. If sex is what it takes to get you to talk to me, then let’s do it.” He stepped toward her, hands on the buckle of his belt.
She held up a hand. “Now?”
“Right now,” he said as he jerked back the leather to release the prong.
“Are you insane?” She lowered her pitch and volume to avoid alerting Natalie. “Do you have any idea how much work goes into this hairstyle?”
He stopped close enough for her to feel heat radiating from his body against her upheld palm, then took another step, pressing her hand between his chest and her leather-clad breast, his hand to her bared abdomen. “I won’t mess up your hair, Eve. I promise.” His voice was low and rough, vibrating with need. The tension humming between them turned the air thick and syrupy.
“Okay, I was kidding about sex in the storeroom,” she stage-whispered. “Natalie’s right outside the door! I want complete privacy and a bed.”
He bent his head, carefully not touching her hair, and murmured in her ear, “It’s even hotter when you have to be quiet.”
Heat flicked through her, weakened her knees. “Later,” she said with a push completely contradicted by her soft, intimate voice, but he backed up a step and lifted his hand from his belt. “Later you can mess up my hair all you want.”
She took a deep breath, put her hand to her hair, then checked to be sure the bustier was fastened all the way up. The mixture of male interest and genuine curiosity in his eyes as he watched sent another flare of heat deep into her belly.
“I can’t figure you out,” she said, studying him.
A shrug as he looked at the floor, then back at her. He folded his arms across his chest, his biceps straining at the sleeves of his Eye Candy T-shirt. The shirt hem lifted just enough to reveal the brown leather through the belt loops of his jeans. “I don’t like to see you under so much pressure.”
She’d gotten him to acknowledge their chemistry, but with some distance between them she remembered why she’d held back in the first place. “You want my secrets, you have to give me something, Chad. I want you, not some enigmatic half-stranger.” When he turned away, started to object, she added, “That’s how relationships work. I tell you my problems and you help, and you tell me your problems and I help.”
At the word “problems” his gaze sharpened. “What do you want to know?”
“Family means everything to me, you know, and you never talk about yours. Tell me something, because right now I’ve got the impression you sprang fully formed from the help wanted ads, custom-made to work at my bar and dig into my secrets.”
The tips of his ears went red in the long moment that passed before he answered. “I live with my younger brother. Our parents died in a car accident a few years ago and he was paralyzed. We didn’t have any other family, so I’ve been raising him.”
Outside the storeroom Natalie sang along to ’NSync’s “Bye Bye Bye.” Her back to the closed door, Eve blinked with astonishment. “Chad, I’m so sorry. How old were you? How long ago did this happen? “
“Eight years. I was twenty-two. Luke was fourteen.”
Twenty-two. At that age she’d been searching for a proper job, hanging out with Natalie, concerned about nothing more than enduring another grilling from her parents at Monday night supper. She couldn’t begin to imagine the care required for a paraplegic, let alone dealing with the psychological and emotional consequences for them both. The medical bills routinely sent even people with good jobs and health insurance into bankruptcy. Knowing Chad as little as she did, she could guess that he’d kept it all inside. Suddenly the boxing made sense.
“How’s he doing?” she asked, a general question that covered physical and/or emotional concerns.
“Good,” he said with a shrug. “Just graduated college. He started a year late, but took summer classes to make up for the time he spent in a hospital bed.”
His attitude was too casual; she’d spent enough time with teenagers to know how wearing raising them could be. With a nod at his hands, she said, “Taking out some stress on the bag?”
He looked down. Denial crossed his face, then he said, “Maybe.”
“Everyone needs a release. That’s the premise of my business plan, so I hope that’s the case,” she said, flicking a glance over her shoulder toward the bar. “There are worse outlets than boxing.”
“It’s just to stay in shape,” he said dismissively.
“Sure,” she said. If she’d learned anything in eight years as a cocktail waitress it was that you could tempt a man, tease him, flirt with him, but you’d better not push too hard for emotions.
He shrugged, then offered her a slightly crooked grin. “How’s that? You going to tell me what’s on your mind?”
“Not yet,” she said. Instead, she crooked her finger at him, and the air around them crackled to life with a potent mix of desire, restraint, and anticipation.
He shoved his hands deep into his pockets, shoulders hunching a little at the move, and looked at her. She didn’t move, simply waited, her gaze locked with his, not bothering to hide anything she felt. Fear, confusion, longing, interest, attraction, they all flowed through her and therefore across her face until he pulled his hands from his pockets, closed the distance between them, and lowered his mouth to hers. The kiss didn’t even pretend to be sweet. Something aching and desperate tinged the way his mouth melded to hers, and that emotion, hinted at by his restraint and his dark eyes, raced through her. She wrapped her fingers through his belt loops and pulled herself up into his muscled body. Plastered together from lips to knees, the leather of her outfit softened under his body heat and his erection pressed insistently into her mound. The ever-present charge between them flared up again, as bright and hot and tantalizing as always.
“Later,” she said, her voice low.
He opened the door, lifted two cases of the pinot, and headed down the hall. She watched him go, his shoulders straining against the tight cotton, triceps taut with the weight of the crates, and wondered how he bore the daily strain without cracking.
Probably because he had to.
Originally she’d thought Chad needed to give in to an impulse every now and then, but she now understood why he’d be so careful with himself, his energy, his emotion. Taking care of a child or a sibling was a huge responsibility, but aside from the conversations about music, he’d given no hint of anything he did for himself. He didn’t drink. He didn’t smoke. He’d stopped listening to music, and he flat out refused to engage in casual sex with a woman who was all but throwing herself at him. He boxed. That was it.
They were going to have a long conversation about the value of a hobby or two.
But not tonight. Tonight she was going to finish what she started in her office.
* * *
The steel Matt used to lock away his own needs was buckling, rivets popping left and right. He was supposed to be testing Eve, making sure she had the mettle to stay strong through a dangerous undercover operation, but instead she was working away at not only his cover but his time-tested strategy for dealing with the demands of his life. She wanted to know the people she let into her life, understand them, share their burdens, not just take from them. Unfortunately, when he told her the basic facts of who he was, she’d never trust him again. There was nothing he could do to change the events set in motion days earlier when he walked into her bar and interviewed for the job. Maybe if he hadn’t hit on her—but then he wouldn’t have the information he’d obtained—he might have been able to come back and apologize—but … but …
He was going crazy, so he shut down his brain and focused on the work. Absolutely nothing unusual happened at Eye Candy that Saturday night. He recognized a couple of uniforms in plain clothes circulating in the bar. Eve kept a low profile, letting Natalie handle most of what came up. She emerged from the office at nine-thirty to join a large, shrill, and totally out-of-hand bachelorette party for a few minutes.
“They have a designated driver?” he asked when Eve came behind the bar to sip from the glass of water he kept cold and full for her.
“Limo,” she replied. “Keep an eye on them, would you? It’s almost time to cut them off, at least the bride”—easily distinguished by the sparkly tiara on her head, a veil trailing over her long blonde hair—“and the maid of honor.”
“They’re pretty raucous,” he said.
“That’s the point, remember? Blow off steam, have fun, relax, bond over shared experiences,” she replied, checking his stock of garnishes and giving the ice tub a good shake. Bent over in the black leather dominatrix getup, her pale breasts nearly swelled out of the corset she wore. In a move as smooth and hot as the leather clinging to her body, she straightened, standing far too close to him for a public place, her leg brushing against his, one hand resting on his hip. “We’re going to give that shared experiences thing a try later,” she said, low and seductive, then walked away.
He turned to see Tom glaring at him. “You got something going with Eve?” he asked.
“Yeah.” He added, “So step the fuck back,” for his own satisfaction.
Tom’s eyes widened slightly, but he edged back to his station. Matt took a deep breath and tried to stuff the bristling cop back inside the bartender suit that was starting to feel like a straitjacket.
Finally, last call came and Natalie worked her way through the bar, ushering the stragglers out into the parking lot, calling a cab for anyone too drunk to drive. Matt helped the limo driver get the loose-limbed, completely intoxicated bachelorette party into the backseat, an innuendo-filled process that brought back not-so-fond memories of his days on patrol. At least no one puked on him.
When he came back inside, Eve came around his end of the bar, leaned one hip against his station, and watched him work. It was rare for her to slow down even for a moment until the last employee left. He wiped down his section of the bar, then looked at her.
“Something wrong, boss?”
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, her face serious.
Oh, thank you Jesus, she’d come to her senses and he was off the hook. He paused to wring out the bar towel, because this close he could smell the mint and rosemary in her hair, feel heat rising from her skin. “About…?”
“My dad knows the VP of HR at Lancaster Life. They’re hiring in the marketing department. Shocker, given the economy, but there you have it. I know you don’t have a business degree, but sociology’s pertinent to marketing, and I can vouch for your work ethic. Do you want me to see if I can get you an interview? It’s probably entry level, but you’d have a career track, and benefits. You could keep some shifts here for the money.”
Jesus. She was offering to help get him a job. A better job. The kind of job a bartender with a paraplegic brother and a stack of medical bills would want.
He gaped at her for a long moment, then pulled himself together. “Thanks,” he said. “Let me think about it.”
She blinked, and he knew he’d fucked up. A guy in his situation should have been all over that, and connections were the best track to a good job. “I’m not suggesting you need to be something other than a bartender,” she said. “I just thought—”
He cut her off. “Not a problem, boss. I’ve got a couple of other options, that’s all. I didn’t want to say anything because it would mean quitting here.”
“Oh,” she said, her face clearing. “If you leave for a better job, not because I’ve had to fire you for public indecency, then I’m happy to see you go,” she said. “Maybe I wouldn’t even have to miss you too much.”
She flashed him a smile and turned to the bar to collect the night’s take. Under the bright lights, the pale skin of her shoulders gleamed, the taut muscles and line of her collarbone completely transfixing before she flashed him a smile and disappeared upstairs.
As soon as the door closed Natalie gave her two-fingered, piercing whistle. The DJ, eyes closed, swaying to a slow, relentless Euro-techno-groove, snapped to attention. Nat made a cut-it-off motion across her throat and the DJ pulled the plug. That strange, reverberating silence hung in the bar while everyone cleaned up. As the staff trailed out, Eve walked through the building, clicking off the lights and checking door locks. Tired to the point of incoherence, Matt braced a shoulder against the doorframe and watched her walk, mesmerized by the smooth shifts of her body in the leather. In that vibrating silence permeating the point of no return, his conscience battled duty.
His conscience won. “Eve. I can’t.”
She took a deep breath in through her nostrils as she looked around the bar. Mario and Tom were finishing cleanup. Natalie was upstairs getting her bag. Cesar sat by the open door, watching Eve.
“Then we have a problem, Chad,” she said, quiet and even to put his instincts on full alert. “I like you. I like talking to you. I like listening to music with you. But I’m under a lot of stress right now. I need sex, and if you’re not willing, then I’m going to make a couple of calls.”
She wasn’t threatening him, just being Eve. She knew what she wanted, and how to get it. “Don’t do it,” he said over the sick lurch of his stomach. He was her friend, and he knew it, even if she didn’t, but that friendship he found himself hoping would hold through the inevitable betrayal hung in the balance right now. “It’s not that bad, boss. Let’s get dinner and we’ll talk.”
“Sure. After you bring all that intensity you’re locking down inside to bed with me.” She looked him straight in the eyes, and he felt the emotions sear along his nerves to the tips of his fingers, down his thighs, tightening him. Her gaze flicked to the hand resting on the bar, and he followed her glance.
The hand was clenched into a fist. Worse, one of the scabs had cracked open. Blood trickled from his first knuckle into the hollow of his hand.
He consciously relaxed it. When he looked back at her, those ocean-deep, ocean-dark, ocean-dangerous eyes had softened with understanding.
“I think we both need this,” she said, very, very quietly. “You might eat what’s bothering you, but I think it’s eating you alive.”
He felt he’d taken a leg to the backs of his knees, sweeping his feet out from under him and knocking him flat on his back. The thought of her walking over to Tom and with a few smiles and a choice comment or two, suggesting he hang around after close while Matt walked out the door and got in his Jeep made him sick to his stomach. Not just because he’d go home alone and nearly out of his head with lust but because he knew, he knew he’d driven her to that point. The last thing they needed was another man in the mix, when he could be that man.
Rationalize much?
“Say yes,” she said, low, intent, thinking she understood exactly why he was hesitating, thinking he was a good guy, trying to do the right thing by her, not afraid to nudge him a little.
You can’t. You can’t say yes. You can’t say no either.
There was no clear right thing to do here. She’d already hate him. Might as well eat something else and keep Tom out of it. She’d need a friend afterward.
Yeah, you’re a saint.
“Yes.”
Her gaze searched his, then she said, “Lock the front door for me.”
For a brief moment the emptiness he felt when he woke settled into his mind. Chad crossed the dance floor, glanced out over the parking lot to make sure it was empty, then kicked up the stopper bracing the door open. Chad secured the bolt and repeated the movements on the second steel door. Chad watched Eve return from locking the storeroom door. Chad watched her cross the dance floor and hold out her hand.
But Matt Dorchester took Eve Webber’s hand and followed her up the spiral staircase into her office.