“Yes,” I concede. “Yes, I could have. I didn’t think of that.”
A smile pulls on one corner of his mouth. “Too annoyed at me to think straight?”
I tip my head to one side, unable to completely stop a grin from forming. “Something like that.”
“I’ll get your shirt back to you,” he says, his gaze drifting over the skin-tight dress I’ve borrowed from a fourteen-year-old.
I bristle slightly. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s at the dry cleaners as we speak.”
“Well, thanks.”
His gaze burns into me so deeply I have to look away, then my eyes catch on the empties scattered about the premises.
“Excuse me,” I say, making my way out from behind the bar to collect them up.
I gather up as many as I can between my fingers, the way I’ve seen much cooler barmaids do in the movies, stopping for one more at the far end of the bar.
I smile timidly at the older, portly man who looks like he hasn’t washed in a few moons, and reach for his glass. I have one finger to spare.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he slurs.
I smile again but it’s forced. “Hi. Can I get you anything?”
“How ‘bout your number?”
I swallow and curve my pinkie over the rim of his empty.
“I’m sorry, no.”
“Aw, c’mon,” he whines. “Don’t play hard to get now.”
A hand slithers around my waist and pulls me into the space between his parted thighs.
I startle at the intimate contact. “Let go of me.”
He pulls me a little tighter into an obvious erection and my stomach lurches.
“Hey now, you been parading that hot ass around all night?—”
I’m about to call for Bobby when suddenly, the glasses have slipped from my fingers, smashed into pieces on the floor, and the man isflyingacross the room.
My head snaps to the side to see the stranger now standing beside me, his body braced, jaw solid and fists curled.
Rewinding back through the shock, I vaguely recall seeing him vault off his bar stool, grab the guy by the collar and hammer a brutal punch into his jaw.
The guy landed on a table on the far side of the room, slid onto a wooden chair and is now crumpled on the floor like wet cardboard.
The bar is dead silent.
I pan my gaze from the man on the floor to the one by my side, my mouth open in shock.
“What thehell? Why did you do that?”
He flexes his hand slowly, then pushes it into his pocket. “He touched you.”
“Yeah. So? I had it handled.”
