He gaped at her for a long moment, then pulled himself together. “Thanks,” he said. “Let me think about it.”
She blinked, and he knew he’d fucked up. A guy in his situation should have been all over that, and connections were the best track to a good job. “I’m not suggesting you need to be something other than a bartender,” she said. “I just thought—”
He cut her off. “Not a problem, boss. I’ve got a couple of other options, that’s all. I didn’t want to say anything because it would mean quitting here.”
“Oh,” she said, her face clearing. “If you leave for a better job, not because I’ve had to fire you for public indecency, then I’m happy to see you go,” she said. “Maybe I wouldn’t even have to miss you too much.”
She flashed him a smile and turned to the bar to collect the night’s take. Under the bright lights, the pale skin of her shoulders gleamed, the taut muscles and line of her collarbone completely transfixing before she flashed him a smile and disappeared upstairs.
As soon as the door closed Natalie gave her two-fingered, piercing whistle. The DJ, eyes closed, swaying to a slow, relentless Euro-techno-groove, snapped to attention. Nat made a cut-it-off motion across her throat and the DJ pulled the plug. That strange, reverberating silence hung in the bar while everyone cleaned up. As the staff trailed out, Eve walked through the building, clicking off the lights and checking door locks. Tired to the point of incoherence, Matt braced a shoulder against the doorframe and watched her walk, mesmerized by the smooth shifts of her body in the leather. In that vibrating silence permeating the point of no return, his conscience battled duty.
His conscience won. “Eve. I can’t.”
She took a deep breath in through her nostrils as she looked around the bar. Mario and Tom were finishing cleanup. Natalie was upstairs getting her bag. Cesar sat by the open door, watching Eve.
“Then we have a problem, Chad,” she said, quiet and even to put his instincts on full alert. “I like you. I like talking to you. I like listening to music with you. But I’m under a lot of stress right now. I need sex, and if you’re not willing, then I’m going to make a couple of calls.”
She wasn’t threatening him, just being Eve. She knew what she wanted, and how to get it. “Don’t do it,” he said over the sick lurch of his stomach. He was her friend, and he knew it, even if she didn’t, but that friendship he found himself hoping would hold through the inevitable betrayal hung in the balance right now. “It’s not that bad, boss. Let’s get dinner and we’ll talk.”
“Sure. After you bring all that intensity you’re locking down inside to bed with me.” She looked him straight in the eyes, and he felt the emotions sear along his nerves to the tips of his fingers, down his thighs, tightening him. Her gaze flicked to the hand resting on the bar, and he followed her glance.
The hand was clenched into a fist. Worse, one of the scabs had cracked open. Blood trickled from his first knuckle into the hollow of his hand.
He consciously relaxed it. When he looked back at her, those ocean-deep, ocean-dark, ocean-dangerous eyes had softened with understanding.
“I think we both need this,” she said, very, very quietly. “You might eat what’s bothering you, but I think it’s eating you alive.”
He felt he’d taken a leg to the backs of his knees, sweeping his feet out from under him and knocking him flat on his back. The thought of her walking over to Tom and with a few smiles and a choice comment or two, suggesting he hang around after close while Matt walked out the door and got in his Jeep made him sick to his stomach. Not just because he’d go home alone and nearly out of his head with lust but because he knew, he knew he’d driven her to that point. The last thing they needed was another man in the mix, when he could be that man.
Rationalize much?
“Say yes,” she said, low, intent, thinking she understood exactly why he was hesitating, thinking he was a good guy, trying to do the right thing by her, not afraid to nudge him a little.
You can’t. You can’t say yes. You can’t say no either.
There was no clear right thing to do here. She’d already hate him. Might as well eat something else and keep Tom out of it. She’d need a friend afterward.
Yeah, you’re a saint.
“Yes.”
Her gaze searched his, then she said, “Lock the front door for me.”
For a brief moment the emptiness he felt when he woke settled into his mind. Chad crossed the dance floor, glanced out over the parking lot to make sure it was empty, then kicked up the stopper bracing the door open. Chad secured the bolt and repeated the movements on the second steel door. Chad watched Eve return from locking the storeroom door. Chad watched her cross the dance floor and hold out her hand.
But Matt Dorchester took Eve Webber’s hand and followed her up the spiral staircase into her office.