Then he looks back at her and raises his hands in the air. “Woo-hoo! Baby, let’s gooo!”
The crowd roars in approval, raising their glasses. Dallas’s eyes find mine and lock on my gaze.
I step closer. “My turn.”
4
DALLAS
Duke steps between my spread thighs, the heat of his muscular body immediately warming me by proximity alone. My heart races inside my chest, memories flooding my mind.
His strong fingers digging into my hips, pinning me down over his erection.
The satisfied groan he released when he sucked my arousal off his fingertips.
I shake my head, trying to focus on the task at hand and ignoring the temperature rising between us.
I’m at work. He’s a customer.
“One hundred dollars,” I tell him, just to see how he’ll react to the increase.
He smirks, dipping his black Stetson in agreement. Literally everything he does makes my core pulse with desire, and I despise it. His cologne smells faintly like leather and mint, making my flashbacks to the night in his truck even more potent in mymind.
“Liquor choice?” I ask.
“Whiskey.”
Harper, my co-bartender, hands me the bottle of Jack Daniel’s.
“Four Roses,” he says.
She takes the Jack Daniel’s back and hands me the bottle of Four Roses with a new glass of cold water.
“Ready?” I ask.
His bright blue eyes are steady on mine as he nods. “Give me your best shot, darlin’.”
I try to ignore the way that nickname affects me, coming from his lips. This humming attraction between us is a recipe for disaster.
I haven’t been able to stop thinking about what happened between us the other night in his truck. The way I had to run home to my—thankfully—fully charged vibrator was embarrassing.
It’s been less than a week since my divorce was finalized. I’m figuring my life out—how to be a single mom, to work and support my twins and heal from the abuse I suffered after five miserable years with my ex-husband.
The real problem is that I don’t feel attracted to any other men … like, at all. It’s been years since I enjoyed sex with Matt. It became impossible when intimacy turned into a defense mechanism for me to keep myself and the boys safe, draining the enjoyment out of it.
And even after I started the job here, which has a revolving door of men of all different shapes and sizes hitting on me at all hours of the night, I simply feel indifferent. Like maybe something could blossom if I gotto know them, but I have no real desire to do that either.
My insides are dead. It feels like my heart is barely pulsing with enough blood to keep me alive.
Then Duke Redford strolls in, and it suddenly wants to thud at a double-time pace.
I know he’s not what I or the boys need right now. Dawson and Dutton deserve a stable home, not some random younger guy in their mom’s bed, no matter how attractive that man is.
I lift the bottle of whiskey to my lips and fill my mouth with it. It makes my eyes burn. He’s taller than Jesse, so I can’t get as far above him as I’d like to, forcing me to press my lips closer to his than I normally would for this kind of shot. I still can’t get the right angle.
I set the bottle down on the bar, reaching out to grab his chin and pull him closer to me. I spit the whiskey between his parted lips slowly, so I don’t spill too much down his clean-shaven jawline. It feels more like foreplay than anything I’ve ever done with another man. Heat spreads over the surface of my skin, making me flush from my neck all the way down to my boots.
His fingers ghost across my thigh near my knee. I pick up the glass of water to splash his face with it before I pull my hand back and slap him—hard. His head jerks to the side, and my heart jumps into my throat. The roar of the crowd is deafening in my ears, and when his eyes turn back to focus on mine, my throat dries up like sandpaper.
