“Oh, I believe it. But I’m guessingyoudon’t generally have to make the first move.”
I frowned at that. Tyler wasn’t wrong. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d picked someone to flirt with. I usually waited for them to come to me, and they did.
Shaking off the idea, I smiled again and batted my eyelashes. “Usually not. ‘Cause I’m so pretty. Irresistible, really.”
Tyler smirked and shrugged my arm off his shoulder. “Yeah, I don’t think—”
Behind me, someone snorted. “Some of us are quite capable of resisting you, Ross.”
I twisted around on my stool to find Micah Bloom standing between Tyler and me, looking at me with a single raised eyebrow.
I scowled.
If life were fair, someone with a stick lodged so firmly up his ass would look the part. He should be oily and sneering, hooked-nosed and dressed in black… He should basically look like Severus Snape, but before we all got sympathetic toward him.
Instead, the world’s injustice was clearly displayed in the slim-fitting jeans that hugged Micah’s hips so much better than his usual cargo shorts, and the oh-so-tight olive-green t-shirt clinging to a well-defined chest I’d never imagined he’d been hiding under his work shirts. His brown hair was messy, but in a deliberate way that almost highlighted the silver at his temples and the little crinkles at the corners of his eyes.
“What the hell are you doing here?” I ground out.
“Getting a drink. Thisisa bar, Ross. Not my first time here either.”
As if on cue, Jordan came by to drop off a fresh drink for me and gave Micah a wide grin. “Hey, cutie. Your usual?”
I looked at Jordan in betrayed outrage and she rolled her eyes at me.
“Yes, please,” Micah said. The smile he gave her in return was small butreal. Adorable.
Annoying.
I looked away, but Tyler caught my eye immediately.
“Evil?” he mouthed, eyes wide, like maybe he understood this was the guy I’d been describing, but Micah didn’t look as devilish as I’d led him to believe.
I sighed, torn between being pissed off and darkly amused. Of course my shitty day would be capped off this way. It only really needed Micah approaching me at The Hive for the first time ever, when we usually gave each other the widest berth possible.
“Sorry to interrupt yourconversation,” Micah said with a tight little smile and a knowing glance from me to Tyler and back again. He managed to make the word sound dirty, though Tyler and I had literally done nothing but talk.
Christ, he was infuriating.
“You haven’t interrupted anything,” I said sweetly, jumping down from my barstool. “Yet. Tyler and I were on our way out. Right, Tyler?”
Tyler’s eyes widened impossibly further, until he looked like one of the creepy, doe-eyed figurines my mother used to collect, but he played along gamely enough. “Oh, yeah. Yup. We’re… leaving?”
“Not so fast,” Micah said, splaying one large hand on my chest, and I swear I felt the pressure of each individual fingertip through the thin material of my shirt. “I have a proposition for you.”
“Hey! I propositioned him first,” Tyler protested, but when Micah threw him a disdainful look, Tyler shut up.
“Not that kind of proposition.” Micah dropped his hand and gave me an arched-brow, superior look thatbeggedme to hit him. “Constantine’sreallynot my type.”
This was so patently obvious, it shouldnothave burned the way it did.
“Yes, Micah finds things like laughter and pleasure repellent, much the way vampires abhor sunlight,” I confided to Tyler without looking away from Micah. “As soon as he starts to enjoy anything, his little brain shuts down and he becomes a monster.”
“Like Angel’s curse,” Tyler whispered.
I turned my head. “What?”
Micah snorted. “Your friend is referencingBuffy the Vampire Slayer,” he explained in a bored voice. “More or less inaccurately. And no, I’mcursedin other ways. Whole prophecies about me. Right, Mr. Ross?”
