He chuckles softly and runs a hand through his hair, pushing it back from his face. “Before I tell you, why don’t you tell me what you think?” Ibite my lip, hesitating. “Come on, sugar, you’ve had those wheels turning in your head all night long. Give me your best guess.”
“Honestly?” He nods, those damn dimples coming out to play again, and I sigh. “I think we’ve already established you’re rich,” I say, hesitating as he shrugs his shoulders and gives a small nod. “Right, and people recognize you, so you’re either famous or… notorious.”
Laughing, he says, “Why can’t it be both?”
This makes me laugh as well. “Okay, well, if it’s both… I’m guessing either model or mafia.” Corey almost slips from his stool as he laughs, slapping his leg with one hand and covering his heart with the other. Some patrons around the bar stare at his outburst, making me blush. “No?” I ask, feigning sweetness. “Not even close?”
Taking a deep breath, he recovers and takes a sip of beer before he responds, “Technically, you’re not wrong. I’ve modeled in the past, yes, and, well, while the mafia claim is a bit of a stretch, I have played a mobster before.”
Played? My face lights up as I open my mouth to guess again, but he holds up a hand.
“Ah ah,” Corey says. “My turn for a question.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “That’s not how the game works,” I grumble.
Corey leans close to me, placing his hands on my knees, and whispers, “You’re cute when you’re bratty.”
At this moment, I forget to breathe. He is so close, the stubble building along his chiseled jaw is begging to be touched and his scent invades my space. I take a deep breath in through my nose—sandalwood and cinnamon. Yes, I realize that is specific as hell, but it almost exactly matches my favorite candle in my apartment, the one I bought earlier thiswinter because it smelled warm and cozy and comforting. That’s what Corey smells like, and it’s perfect.
He retreats to the space on his stool and gives me a thorough look from head to toe, making my insides squirm under his gaze. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. My arms are still crossed, as though that can protect me from the strength of his gaze, but I know it’s a lost cause when my nipples get impossibly harder.
“How old are you?” he finally asks.
My arms drop as I let out a small laugh. Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t something as easy as this.
“What?” he asks, grinning.
“Nothing, I just expected something a bit more challenging,” I explain, taking another sip of my beer. “I just turned thirty a few months ago.”
“Interesting,” he says, as he runs his tongue along his plump bottom lip. I am so, so fucked.
“Back to my first question, which you still didn’t answer,” I chide.
“Ah, what was the question again?” he asks, smirking.
“You said you’ve modeled and you’ve ‘played a mobster,’” I say, gesturing air quotes. “So, I’m guessing you’re an actor?”
He nods but keeps his mouth shut. He’s really making me work for this.
“Anything I would have seen you in?” I ask, mostly because as sexy as he is, his face and body aren’t ringing any bells for me, and I feel like I would for sure remember if I’d seen him before.
He leans forward into my space again, this time placing a hand on the back of my chair. “Depends,” he says softly, his whisper even more gravelly than his normal tone. “What kinds of things do you like to watch?”
I know—I am fully aware—that one of my weaknesses is overthinking and imagining subtext that isn’t really there. It’s been my downfall with almost every single gorgeous, funny guy that I’ve met in my adult life and, regardless of how self-aware I claim to be, I keep doing it.
And yet here I am, in a local bar, with a wealthy, sexy man who is leaning in so close to me I can count his damn eyelashes—and my god, are they long and perfect, which is so unfair—imagining that he is flirting with me. Seducing me, even. Me! We aren’t even close to the same level, and yet my mind is foggy from his proximity and that enticing scent of his.
“Those wheels are still turning, hmmm?” he says, softly.
Sexy. Actor. Someone I haven’t seen in movies before. In Las Vegas on a random Tuesday night…
“Wait, are you a porn star?!”
Chapter 4
Corey
“Bingo,” I murmur, retreating to my chair and taking a long sip of my beer.
