“How are you doing?” she asked, scanning his station.
“You tell me,” he replied, and if he got a little closer than necessary to hear what she was saying over the thumping dance music, well, he was just doing his job. Given the heat in the bar, he expected perfume, something musky and sexy. Instead the faintest scent of mint and rosemary drifted into the air between them when she tucked her hair behind her ears.
“I’m satisfied,” she said, not backing away. “The job’s yours if you want it.”
She was less than a breath away from him. A shift of his weight and a deep inhale, and they’d be breathing together like they were naked and horizontal. The heat sizzled and popped between them and it didn’t take training in body language to read the signals. Eve Webber wanted him.
Chad Henderson. She wanted Chad Henderson. Not him.
No matter who he was today, neither he nor Chad could have her. He was supposed to keep her safe, make sure she didn’t change her mind about working with the department, monitor any appearances Murphy made in Eye Candy.
He wanted her.
“I want the job,” he said, not bothering to hide what he really meant. She looked at him through the layered, sweeping fall of hair he wanted to brush back so he could see her eyes, her mouth. “Hang around after close. I’ll give you the paperwork to fill out and bring back with you tomorrow.”
He leaned in, as if he needed to speak with her, employee to employer, but didn’t want to shout over the music. “See you later, boss,” he rasped.
She turned to look at him, her lips millimeters from his, and for one head-spinning moment Matt thought she was going to kiss him right there in front of the throngs crowding up to the bar. Something about the crush of humanity brought her to her senses. She spun on her heel and disappeared into the crowd.
At the other end of the bar Sorenson held his gaze for a second, just long enough to let him know she’d seen the whole interaction. Matt turned back to the crush of women waiting expectantly in front of his station. Mistake number three. Except he hadn’t kissed her. Or let her kiss him. Or done anything except take the job he had to get in order to do his real job. But the look in her eyes cracked something inside him, exposing structural flaws in walls that used to be thick, seamless steel.
He was going to have to pretend to feel something in order to keep her safe, and at the same time he was going to have to keep it all under control.
CHAPTER THREE
Cesar bolted the door behind the last batch of laughing customers; seconds later the DJ pulled the plug on the sound system mid-song. Tom’s lurid description of his pick for best in show rang out in the silence, then dropped to an undertone directed at Mario. Ignoring Tom entirely, Eve collected the night’s take from the registers and climbed the stairs to her office. She locked the door, toed off her boots, and settled behind her desk to count cash, change, and credit card receipts, and fill out the deposit form. The faint sounds of chairs upended on tables and the joking and laughter filtered in.
A knock came at the door as she rubber-banded the bills into neat stacks. “It’s me, sweets,” Natalie called.
Eve zipped the bundled cash into a rubber-sided pouch, then unlocked the door. “Good night?” Nat asked, nodding at the deposit bag on Eve’s desk.
“We’re hanging in there,” Eve said. She’d meet payroll this month, plus pay all the bills, a huge achievement for a brand-new business. Eating anything other than noodles and boxed mac and cheese was optional.
Natalie tucked her iPod into an inside pocket and clipped the earbuds to the strap of her bag. “Pauli and Cesar are working out okay.”
Eve nodded. Both employees were placements from the Second Chance Center, her father’s East Side nonprofit that offered after-school and job-training programs. Pauli hustled dirty glasses through the dishwasher and stocked the bartenders’ stations with clean ones, and did his homework during lulls. Cesar knew most of the local troublemakers by sight and kept them out of the bar. “Cesar’s mother needs the help, with three kids still at home. Dad said he’s missed a couple of his GED classes, though. I need to check in with him on that.”
“What’s your verdict on Chad? He was slow off the mark, but he hung in there. You could do worse.”
Memories flashed through Eve’s mind, of her body so close to his she could feel the heat pouring off him, of hearing not the music or the clink of glasses or laughter but only the low rumble of his voice in her ear.
See you later, boss …
Ever the voice of temptation, Natalie added, “And he’s got yummy abs…”