“Good.” My attention drifts to her lips before I drag it back to her eyes. “Suppose I could’ve let you order for yourself…but I like sayin’ what touches that pretty mouth.”
“You’re a vile man.” She huffs, but I catch a blush creeping up her neck. Her attention skitters to the space behind me, then to her fingernails, then a knot in the table—everywhere but where I sit.
Mmm. There’s a pleasure in riling her with my wicked notions. Though best I ease off ’fore she gets too ornery.
I let the room settle in my head, figuring where the trouble would come from if it came. A couple men by the bar look our way, then don’t.
She smooths her skirt. The seconds stretch.
The barkeep brings the drinks. I take the whiskey, slide the lemonade toward her. She glances at the glass, then at me. Her lips press together, a tiny line, before she lifts the lemonade and takes a prim sip like it’s communion wine.
The first moan comes faint, muffled through the ceiling boards. Then another—higher, sharper. The laughter at the bar hushes for half a beat before the room rolls on like it ain’t there.
Alice freezes, color flaring up her throat, right to her cheeks. She sets the glass down too fast, the base clinking against wood.
I lean back easy, swirling my whiskey slow, watching her squirm. I knit my eyebrows, tight and puzzled. “Hear that?”
She stares at the table. “I…yes.”
Another moan, louder this time, with the rhythm of bedsprings groaning under it. Her fingers twist in her lap, ears red.
I bite back a grin, tilting my glass back and letting the brown liquor gather at one end. “What d’you reckon they’re doin’ up there?”
Scandal blazes across her face as she takes a harmless swat at my arm. “You know full well what they’re doing. What kind of place is this?”
I chuckle soft. “Place like this? Saloons’ll fill your belly, wet your throat, give you a game o’ cards or a fiddle tune if you’re lucky. Might be a hot bath in back. And upstairs…” I take a sip, let her hang on it. “Upstairs a man can pay for company.”
Her mouth falls open, pretty lashes flutter. “And you, you’ve no doubt gone upstairs often enough yourself. Paid your coin for that kind of company.”
I laugh low in my chest, shake my head slow. “Now there’s where you’re wrong, little miss.”
She bristles, chin lifting. “You expect me to believe you haven’t?”
“Believe what you want. But I ain’t never paid for company.” I drag the rim of my glass along my lip. “Never had a problem findin’ it free.”
“That’s no better. Careless. No doubt you’ve courted every illness from here to the Mississippi.”
I lean forward, elbows on the table, voice dropping for only her. “You worried for me, Alice?”
She flinches at the intimacy in her name. “I worry for myself. If you take such risks, you endanger everyone you touch.”
A grin tugs at my mouth. “I ain’t touched you yet.”
She shakes her head hard, words tumbling out fast. “I didn’t mean it like that!”
I let the silence stretch a beat, then take a slow sip of whiskey, watching her flounder.
She smooths her skirts. “And you presume much, Mr. Randolph.”
“Mmm,” I say finally, drawlin’ it. “Don’t pretend you ain’t thought on it.”
Her lips part, ready to protest, but nothing comes. She shuts them tight again, turns her face away. Another moan seeps down from the ceiling, and a man’s grunts call after it. Alice shudders, clinging to herself, gripping her elbows like an orphan in the cold.
I lean just enough for my words to brush her ear. “That husband of yours ever make you moan like that, sugar?”
Her gasp is sharp, scandal written plain on her face, but she says nothing. I grin into my glass. “Didn’t think so.”
My whiskey glass runs dry, and the barkeep’s quick to set another in front of me. By the time the food lands—a slab of beef and beans boiled flat—I’m halfway through the second.
