I took a delicate sip of my drink.“He came a hell of a lotmorethan that.”
Her cheeks turned a little pink.“Does he have any friends?I’ll take a little danger if it can tear your big sister out of her sphincter and knock you right into a rebound fling with all the zing.Especially after you tried so damn hard to keep things with the bow-chicka-bow-wow man virginal.”
We’d been huddled with our heads together, so there was no warning.
“Virginal?Not me, I hope?”Ringo grinned like he’d invented a cure for that.While he certainly wasn’t the first panty-melting badass to crack a killer smile, he owned it.
Every inch of it.
I flushed red.
Kat, the traitor, jumped into the breach.“Obviously.Why aren’t you two going at it like rabbits?Or are you and Ellie’s just pretending to fight the good fight?”
Ringo stared at me.Something dark was in his thoughts because I’d seen that piercing hyperfocus at least once, likely twice before.The first time was too quick, so it didn’t register.He was lining up a killer in his gun sights.The second time was when he carried me out of a gun battle.That time I woke in his arms, jostled seven ways to Sunday, and he glanced down.
I didn’t knowthatman, and it scared me.So, I did what I always do.Lied.“I’m saving myself again.”
“Bullshit.”Kat was quick to call me out.
Ringo, on the other hand, wasn’t as versed in my twisted quagmires of illogical blurtations.“Saving yourself?”
He was right to speak with such caution.This was my version of a mined zone which was one of the first bastions of protection I’d erected around my heart.
“For marriage.Like she did with Johnny Pornstach.”
Too late, I realized what Kat had inadvertently confessed.
Ringo’s left eyebrow went up.He valiantly rallied.“That’s a lie.”
“This is the Blarney Zone, and lies hold as much truth, and maybe more weight when they happen here.What is your best swagger?Lay it on us.”Kat swung her arm around as she faked an Irish accent.Her antics distracted Ringo from the gaffe she made.
I laughed and played it off like this was exactly what she said, not a deeply personal secret I’d confessed to her one drunken night before I left for Las Vegas.
Ringo played along.“Oh, that’s an easy one, lass.I am the gentlest man in all of Chicago at this moment.I’ll kiss you so sweetly, your Christmas candy will pale in comparison.”His accent was much more convincing.
She laughed hard.“I’ll wager we can find at least one man gentler than you.”
“Never.The truth is, I’m just plain impotent.Isn’t that right, Ellie?”
Asshole.He knew how this game was played.I hadn’t counted on that.
But I had the key to his undoing.I shot a hand out and brushed it across his groin, intending to make a joke about his flaccidity, or the lack of any evidence of a maleness at all, and met the hard ridge of his cock instead.
He trapped my hand against it, practically daring me to measure his length extending the full span of my hand from wrist to finger-tip with another inch to spare.“Now, now, you wouldn’t want to make me break my gentlemanly vows, would you?”
I squeezed.“A gentleman, you say?I’d not make anything occur that wasn’t possibly there in the first place.”
His laughter was good-natured, but the light growl that rumbled against my ear held an edge as he whispered, “It’s getting late.We need to leave soon.”Then, his lips brushed against my cheek.
A zing of awareness shot through me.His teasing ignited a fire in my soul that flared outward, consuming with a sharp longing for more.Memories of his lips, of his skin, and of those too-few nights flashed through my body leaving a buzzing trail of arousal I struggled to contain.
On the outside, I laughed.I fired off one-liners and solid ripostes that kept both Kat and Ringo on their toes and off my ass.But inside?I was a horny bundle of need that wanted one thing.
Funny how you always seem to want what you shouldn’t.
The shadows weredeep as I walked Kat to her car parked in the alley behind the bar.Ringo lurked on the perimeter like a phantom.Even with my back to him, I was hyper-aware of exactly where he was.There was a compass tuned to him, not true north, and my heart wanted to follow it.
The taillights of her car faded into the distance.I was rooted to the spot, knowing if I took a step, it would be straight toward him.Would that be awful?
