“What do you want,Dean,” I tell her. “That’s my name, since you haven’t asked.”
“Okay...” Her expression softens just a bit, like she’s suddenly worried that she’s offended me somehow. Sheshouldbe worried because, for whatever reason, I can’t seem to get enough of her. The snottier she is, the harder I get. “What do you want,Dean?”
Holding up her abandoned bottle of wine, I show it to her. “You forgot this.”
“I didn’t forget it,” she tells me, her full mouth twisting to the side for a moment. “I just decided that I’d had enough for the night.”
“Well now...” Leaning my shoulder against the doorframe, I look down to tip the bottle over the rim of the glass in my hand to pour out the last of it. “We both know that’s a lie.”
That lush mouth of hers falls open for a moment, giving me another glimpse of her pretty pink tongue before it snaps shut on a huff. “Excuse me?”
Definitelynot used to being talked to like she’s just another woman.
“We were in the middle of a pretty interesting conversation before we were interrupted,” I remind her before offering her the glass in my hand. “I’d like to finish it, Amelia.”
“I think the only reason you found our conversation so stimulating is because it was about you,” she tells me, her tone cooling considerably, the ice in it telling me she has no idea how close I am to tossing the wine and tackling her onto the bed. “And my name isn’t Amelia.”
I feel the corner of my mouth tilt upward. “And I think you just don’t want to answer the question.”
When I say it, her gaze narrows slightly, and her chin stiffens just enough to tell me that I’m annoying her. “Maybe Iwouldif you asked me an actual question.”
Jesus, I’m suddenly so hard my ears are ringing.
“Okay…” Praying to God she doesn’t look down and get a load of the massive hard-on she’s giving me, I give her myhot bartendergrin. “Are you going to invite me in, Millie?”
That arm strung between us, still tethered to the door, tenses for a moment, and I’m sure she’s going to slam it in my face. Instead, she answers my question with another question. “Don’t you have a job to do?”
“Federal labor laws say I’m entitled to two, fifteen-minute breaks and a thirty-minute lunch in an eight-hour work shift. I’ve been behind that bar for almost six.” If she slams the door in my face, I’m going to have to find an unoccupied bedroom so I can spend mythirty-minute lunch breakjerking off. That’s how hard I am. How much I want this woman. “That means I have approximately an hour of downtime, and I’d like to spend it finishing our conversation.”
She arches one of those brows at me and I damn near come all over myself. “Our conversation aboutyou?”
The only talking I want to do istalkingher into fucking my face after I strip her naked. Instead of telling her that and messing up any chance I have of getting inside, I shrug. “We can talk about whatever you want, Maximillian.” If talking is all I get out of her, then I’ll gladly take it. “Invite me in.”
“Maximillian? Wow—that’s even worse than Maleficent,” she says, her words wrapped around a laugh. Not the kind of laugh I’m used to hearing out of women like her. A real laugh. The kind that hits me right between the shoulder blades. Shoves me from behind and has me tumbling, headlong, into something that scares the absolute shit out of me but before I can figure out what the hell thatsomethingis, she drops her arm away from the door. “Do you promise to be a gentleman?”
I have no idea what being a gentleman entails. My mother basically raised my little brother and me on her own while ourdad worked as a crabber. He was on a boat eight months out of the year and when hewashome, teaching his sons the importance ofgentlemanly behaviorwasn’t exactly on his list of priorities. So yeah, I have no fucking idea how to be a gentleman—but right now, if Millie asked me to perform brain surgery, I’d say a prayer and ask for a scalpel. “Best behavior,” I tell her with a solemn nod. “I promise.”
For a very long moment, all she does is stand here and look at me. Finally she offers me a faint smile. “Okay, Dean,” she tells me while reaching out to take the glass of wine out of my hand. “Would you like to come in?”
FIVE
What are you doing, Millie?
Seriously—what the hell are you doing?
I don’t know.
All I know is that thirty seconds ago, I had every intention of slamming the door in Dean’s face and now I’m moving out of the way and inviting him in. Holding my breath while he brushes past me, his bicep grazing my shoulder as he moves into the room.
His very hard, very muscular, tattooed bicep.
Sitting at the bar, talking to him earlier, I don’t think I realized just how much bigger than me he actually is. Turning to watch after him, I contemplate leaving the door open. It would be the smart thing to do. Safest. Most practical.I don’tknow this man or what his real intentions are. All I know is the name he gave me, which sounds completely fake, and the fact that he’s willing to take his shirt off and flirt with my sister’s bridesmaids for money.
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
“You can leave the door open if you want,” he says without looking at me while he wanders around the room. “It won’t offend me.”
Standing here, hand re-anchored to the knob, I hear the shrieks and splashes coming from the pool area. One of them will come looking for him eventually and make some snide comment about how he’s wasting his time. How I’m not worth the effort. How I don’t know how to be spontaneous. Live in the moment.
