Ugh. And there were those thoughts of Jericho surfacing again.
As I approached the bar, a tall man sitting on the stool pivoted around with a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He had brooding, wanton eyes, and despite my irritation with him, they still made me flush all over. Jericho wasn’t built like Reno, or even Denver. He was over six feet tall with slender muscles, but not skinny. I didn’t have x-ray vision, but back in the day, he used to have a six-pack that made the girls salivate. Jericho knew damn well how to wield the sex appeal that God blessed him with. He’d pulled back his hair into a loose ponytail, several strands falling around his face. His black jeans and concert shirt fit him snugly, and I got a better look at the tattoo on his left arm. It was a guitar half-filled with ink, like a yin-yang design with sexy curves.
He watched me with jade eyes rimmed in black—a creamier shade than mine. They stood out because he was wearing smudged eyeliner, and I found myself noticing little things about his appearance. Like the rings on his fingers, and the long chain that hung from his back pocket and attached to one of his belt loops.
Ignoring him was an exercise in futility. So rather than pretend what we both knew I couldn’t ignore, I casually approached him and leaned on my left elbow.
“How was your walk home?” he asked, his lips twitching.
I munched on a salty pretzel from a bowl on the bar. “I’ve always enjoyed an early morning stroll. The fresh air does amazing things for my skin. I should do it more often.”
Tension crackled between us—the urge to slip into our old banter battled it out with the animosity I felt.
I dusted the salt from my fingers, and a few rowdy men shouted from a nearby table. I glanced their way when Jericho suddenly hopped off his stool and roughly pinched my chin. He was a good seven inches taller than I was, so he bent down to examine me closer. He brushed back my hair and tilted my head.
“What is wrong with you?” I finally said, knocking away his arm. As I leapt off the stool, he corralled me against the bar and pulled my hair back, gripping it with a tight fist. I couldn’t move and was three seconds away from calling for help, although I had doubts Denver would gallantly leap over the bar to break this one up.
Jericho brushed his fingers across my jaw. “Who put that mark on your neck?”
Warmth touched my cheeks. I had no idea what he was talking about. “Huh?”
“Your neck, Isabelle. There are fingerprint bruises in the places that someone would grab you if they were pinning you to a wall.”
I wriggled free. “And how would you know something like that, Jericho?”
Wrong. Jericho would never lay a hand on a woman, but I was piping mad.
His jaw set. “I may not like you, Isabelle.” He captured my wrist and tugged me a little closer with each statement. “I may be mad as hell for what you did to me all those years ago—making me think something bad had happened to you. I may want to have Jake fire your ass and toss you on the streets. I also may want to stop coming in here so I won’t have to run into you at every turn. But nobody puts his hands on you.”
And there it was. An indirect declaration that Jericho still cared about me, if even a smidge. It could have been sheer principle that I was a woman who had been manhandled—although I hadn’t noticed any bruising when I’d left the house. But the intensity that burned in his eyes left me with a question mark about his feelings for me.
“My life isn’t your business anymore,” I said ruefully.
He let go and turned away, drinking his beer as if I’d never been there.
A knot formed in my stomach as I stared at his back. I wanted to know why he was so upset with me when he was the one who’d destroyed our friendship.
“Izzy, hon, your table is about to have a conniption if you don’t take their order.” Rosie pointed at a group of men who had reached their limit.
“I cut them off. They’ve had too much to drink and I’m not going to be responsible for them driving home drunk and killing someone.”
“Then bring them an order of hamburgers, but if you don’t shake your ass over there, they’re going to cause trouble.”
Jericho slid a half-interested glance over his shoulder.
I pressed my lips together and approached my table. “Now, how about I bring out some cheeseburgers?”
A hand slapped my ass. “How about I have a taste of this juicy burger?”
“Don’t put your hand on me again,” I said in a tight voice.
“Whoa. Those redheads like to give orders,” a guy in a leather jacket said with a deep chuckle. “A fiery temper in the sack warms the cockles of my heart every time.”
“She can warm my cockles,” the man to my left said, cupping his leathery hand around the back of my thigh. “I love a girl who looks sweet in the face. I bet you’d look real sweet down on your knees.”