She let him get half the sausage and eggs in his stomach before she said, “Here’s what I want to know. Why are you still bartending? You have a degree from the U.”
In reply he pushed the plate containing the hash browns across the table to her. At the shake of her head, he said, “Go ahead. You’ve been eyeing them since she brought out the plates. Something wrong with bartending?”
She took half the untouched fried potatoes and shook a glop of ketchup onto the side of the plate. “I’m the last person to tell someone to give up a dream for the day-to-day, but you don’t seem like tending bar is your dream. What was your major?”
“Sociology,” he said without looking up. “Not much of a job market for sociology majors. Never got out of bartending.”
Fair enough. “What do you do when you’re not working?”
“Sleep. Fix up my house. It needs a new AC.”
She gave him paragraphs of answers and got monosyllabic responses to her questions, but before she could ask more questions the waitress cleared the plates and left the check. Eve dug in her bag for her wallet.
“I got it, boss.” He tossed a couple of bills on the table. “Let’s go.”
Chad was even more closed off on the way back to Eye Candy, as if mulling over the exchange that had swung between friendly banter and intensely personal questions. He made a wide circle in the parking lot and backed into the alley with the speed and confidence of a racecar driver, braking to a halt in the narrow lane leading behind the bar. She got out and made her way around to his side of the Jeep, just a few feet from the stairway leading to her apartment door.
“I’ll wait until you’re inside,” he said.
She was tired of waiting. He was mystery and intensity and muscular temptation personified. She wanted skin-to-skin contact and she wanted it now. “Here’s what I want to know,” she said softly. “Want to come up?”
“Not tonight, Eve.”
She tucked her hair behind her ears, then laid a hand on his thigh. “You know, guys usually can’t wait to get me flat on my back, yet you keep trying to make this mean something. I’m just looking for something simple. No strings. No promises. You’re off the hook for a commitment.”
“You deserve better than that, boss,” he said.
He radiated desire, the potent masculine kind full of heat and promise, yet so tightly leashed he was almost vibrating. If anyone needed to succumb to an impulse, it was Chad Henderson. “That’s sweet. Very sweet, but your timing sucks. I’ve got a lot on my mind, and I could use a fast … dammit, I left my purse in your car.”
As she spoke, she stepped on the running board and leaned across his body, reaching for her bag resting on the floorboards by the passenger seat. The strap hooked on the stick shift, halting her irritated retreat. She braced one hand on the crease between his hip and thigh to yank free the strap and glared at him as she pulled back, intending to snap out something annoyed and cranky just short of “You’re fired” because the last thing she needed was a sexual harassment lawsuit, but then his hand was under her hair, hot and firm against her nape, and his mouth was on hers, silencing everything. Thought, speech, memory. Everything in her went utterly quiet at the warm, drugging power of his mouth, and before she knew it she was in his lap, twisting on his lap to straddle his hips.
“Easy…” he muttered, holding his hands out to the sides until she settled herself.
Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she watched his pupils dilate, the iris almost disappearing. She opened her thighs wide and settled against him.
They were both breathing heavily when he growled, “This is a really bad idea.”
“It’s this, go upstairs, or we’re done,” she said. “You choose. Now.”
Unease flashed in his eyes so quickly she thought she imagined it, but with a low curse he reached past her to switch off the engine and the headlights, plunging them into total darkness, a state that made the drift of his hands over her body that much more potent. His surrender was as abrupt and wholehearted as his resistance, nothing tentative in his kiss, or his touch. When his right hand slid up under the soft fabric of her T-shirt to cup her breast, she tore her mouth from his with a gasp that eased slowly from her mouth when his thumb rubbed slowly back and forth over the nipple.
His left hand still cupped her nape as he took her earlobe gently in his teeth and tugged. He pinched her nipple, rolling it between his fingers while she gasped into the hard muscle between his neck and his shoulder.