I fisted my hands in his shirt and pulled him closer. I returned his kiss with every little bit of experience I had, plus all the fuel my imagination could provide.
When he finally lifted his head, we were both breathing hard.
“Well?” he asked.
I was still standing. Technically.
“Nice try,” I said. “I think you lost that bet.”
“Do you?” His big hand encircled my throat, his thumb pressed against the pulse point. “Your heart’s going a hundred miles a minute. And your hands—” he looked down pointedly at my fists, still gripping his shirt — “are the only thing holding you up.”
I made myself let go. He didn’t step back and I didn’t fall down. “That doesn’t mean—”
“One kiss and you’re ready to beg.” His voice was dark with satisfaction.
“I am not.”
His hand traveled down my stomach, fingers teasing at the waistband of my jeans. “Should I check?”
I slammed my hand over his before he could find out just how right he was. We both knew what he’d find. Me, wet and wanting, ready to go off like a rocket. His mouth curved and he left his hand there, warm against me, not pushing, just — knowing.
“I win,” he said simply.
I looked up at him — this quiet, dangerous, watchful man who’d been haunting my Friday nights for six weeks — and made a decision.
“Maybe you do,” I said. “But I want to negotiate the terms.”
His eyes sharpened. “I’m listening.”
“One night. But not tonight.” I stepped back, giving myself room to think. “You show up and make the repairs – because I did win that bet, and you agreed. And then we see.”
He studied me for a long moment. “I’ll be here tomorrow morning.”
“What? That’s not what we agreed on. You’ll come back next Friday night.” I needed a little time to get over that kiss and face him like a normal person.
“No. Tomorrow morning.”
He walked to the door before I could continue arguing, stopping with his hand on the frame and looking back at me. “And Charlie? Don’t think I’ve forgotten what I’m owed.”
Then he was gone.
I stood alone in my bar with my heart still hammering and my lips still swollen, listening to the drip-drip-drip of the bucket, and wondered what in the hell I’d just agreed to.
CHAPTER TWO
Colt
I’d been sitting in the parking lot for twenty minutes. The engine had ticked itself quiet as I decided what I needed to do.
There was no denying it anymore.
I wanted her.
Not in any clean, easy way. Not in the kind of way that led anywhere good. I wanted her under me, taking everything I gave her, exactly the way I’d always done it—rough, controlled, no hesitation, no softness to get in the way. Sex had never been complicated for me. It was physical. Necessary. A way to burn something out of my system before it built into something worse. No staying. No getting attached. No pretending it meant more than it did.
That’s what this should’ve been.
But it hadn’t been that from the start.
