Natalie gave an unlady-like snort. “So he’s gay.”
“Definitely not gay,” she said, remembering the physical sizzle crackling along her nerves each time they got close. She thought about the way he didn’t step back to give her room to walk out from behind the bar, instead holding his space and making her back up or brush against him, not to mention those sidelong glances that seemed to see everything about her, including the way she lit up when he talked.
But a look wasn’t a proposition.
“You weren’t going to date until the bar was open and running smoothly. We’re two months in. No more excuses. Besides, it’s fun to be the one closing the deal.”
This was true. She liked the hunt as much as she liked being the prey.
Impulse drove her onto the small landing; Chad looked up at the movement. She beckoned him up the stairs. When he appeared in the doorway Eve introduced him to Natalie. He shook her hand while looking at her face, no mean feat given the D-cup breasts straining at Nat’s ribbed tank top. Whether he knew it or not, this was the second round of the interview. If he couldn’t handle casual banter with her and Natalie, she’d send him on his way before the first customer walked in the door.
“As Natalie’s so capably demonstrating, my staff wears logo shirts,” Eve said.
“I didn’t notice,” he deadpanned.
Natalie gave him a little finger wave. “What’s your size, handsome?”
He shot her a narrow-eyed look, then spoke to Eve. “Large.”
Eve turned to the battered credenza lining the short wall of her office. She selected a formfitting white T-shirt ringed with bands of black around the neck and arms, size medium, and tossed it at him across her desk. “Tighter’s better, or so I hear,” she said with a bright smile.
He checked the tag, gave her a look, then without a word he unbuttoned two more buttons on his shirt, pulled the tail free from his jeans and over his head with one swift movement, then dropped it. The action wiped the grin off Natalie’s face, and Eve felt her mouth go dry.
Chad Henderson was cut, ripped, whatever the current slang was for not an ounce of fat visible from his collarbone to the low-slung waist of his jeans. Muscles, ligaments, tendons, and bone were sleekly delineated but without bodybuilder bulk. His was an endurance runner’s body, a distance swimmer’s body, leashed strength and power hidden under a bland button-down shirt.
Shoulders, knuckles, abdominals, shuttered eyes. Men were no more a sum of their physical parts than women, but in that moment Chad’s sheer physical presence ignited deep in her belly.
A hint of color stained his cheekbones as he pushed his arms into the sleeves of the T-shirt and drew it over his head. The super-washed white cotton strained over his torso as the Eye Candy logo came to rest on his left pec and his hands went to his hips.
“Oh, the customers are so going to love him,” Natalie breathed.
“I’m standing right here,” he said, a hint of steel wrapped up in the velvet voice.
“I’m sorry,” Nat said, her tone implying she was anything but. “The customers are so going to love you.”
He opened his mouth, then looked like he’d thought the better of going toe to toe with Natalie and turned to Eve. “As long as my boss approves,” he said silkily.
“Most definitely,” she said, not bothering to hide her appreciation. “Doors open in ten.”
“That’s my cue,” Natalie said as she ducked behind Chad to dump her tote in the corner then thundered down the stairs.
Chad picked up his discarded shirt. “Where should I leave this?”
“In here,” she said with a wink. “You can get it after close.”
He draped it over the back of a chair and crossed his arms over the soft cotton straining across his chest. “I’m not into games,” he said.
“What just happened is pretty mild compared to what you’ll hear from a woman with three mojitos in her. Nat’s just playing with you,” Eve said.
“I’m fine with what’s coming from customers. And Nat may be playing, but you’re not.”
Her breath halted in her throat at the same time her pulse accelerated, leaving her light-headed. Suddenly he seemed bigger, broader, legs braced, arms across his chest, with that same challenge on his face.
“I work by your rules, but we play by mine. Don’t start something you’re not gonna finish.”
The problem with giving in to an impulse was the way the slippery slope dropped out from under you. “I always finish what I start,” she said.
His expression didn’t change. “What exactly do I have to do to get this job?”
The insinuation made her laugh out loud. “Good work,” she said. “Tell me you’re not interested and I’m all business after that.”
He said nothing. Downstairs, a piercing whistle shattered the charged moment. A muscle jumped in his jaw when he realized it was Natalie summoning her bartender to his station.