Reborn (8 page)

Max worked alongside her, the two of them taking orders and generally interacting as if they’d done so for years, Lille occasionally calling out to ask where something was located.

“Pineapple?” she shouted at Max when he turned to the fridge behind them to pull out two Amstels.

“Luis,” he shouted back, and Lille nodded. The barback, Luis, needed to get more from the back room.

His ass was great as well, Lille thought to herself, as she watched Max bend in his jeans to scoop ice into the four glasses he held in his hand, but then she couldn’t pay any more attention to him, because a crowd of tall, broad-shouldered college students hottied their way to the bar and caught her attention.

One of them pulled out two hundred-dollar bills and waved them at her.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“We’ll have twelve Jäger bombs and your number,” he shouted.

Lille saw Max out of the corner of her eye, but she kept her focus on the kid who clearly thought he was the shiznitz. She took the hundreds, didn’t even look at them, before laughing and pulling a tray to start the bombs. Max had already lined up the shot glasses.

Carl arrived, waving at Lille and Max as she was pouring the thick green liquid across all twelve shots. Max shouted at him.

“Carl, get your ass back here.”

Carl nodded, rolling his eyes in Lille’s direction and gently pulling a woman’s arm away. She’d run into him and had been sliding her hand down his chest.

Lille wasn’t surprised by the attention she was getting—she enjoyed it, but she wasn’t stupid enough to think it meant anything. The college kid wasn’t the first person to ask for her number. Several older men, all of them fit and weathered in a way that spoke of money, golf, and fishing on the open seas, had indicated that they would love to share her company. She’d taken their cards instead. Charlie had declared at the top of his lungs that he was in love and that a goddess had broken his heart; a beautiful dark-haired woman in a low-cut red top had suggested that Lille join her in a threesome; and a dude wearing a cream-colored suit, with curly hair and braces, had stood in the corner of the room and stared at her most of the night.

She absorbed, deflected, or outright refused propositions with an expertise gained from long experience. Mary was also working the audience, entering the orders on the touch screen near the waitress station. Every time she returned to the bar, she delivered more requests for Lille’s number. Max was handling that side of the bar, so he saw the cards and pieces of paper torn from the flyers on the walls pile up near the waitress station. He threw a handful away under Mary’s amused gaze.

He hated to admit it, but Lille was an excellent bartender. She was efficient, capable in a way that was almost scary. She worked with a focused intensity that once again reminded him of John and the way he behaved around crowds of people—hyperaware and quick to react. It wasn’t that she didn’t interact with the customers, or she kept a stone face or anything. She talked and laughed and danced along with the music as she poured, her long legs lovingly encased in those black leggings, her blond hair in a messy ponytail along the back of her neck; he wanted to push it away and kiss her neck, maybe bite it a little. But for all her charm, she seemed watchful, and distant, as if she saw something else beneath the surface of the crowd and the lights and the music.

An hour
after last call, the only people
left in the bar were the band members, who were drinking and smoking on the patio with a couple of their diehards, while Mary and Lille helped Luis gather glasses and clean the bar area. Max had taken Bambi out and now she was investigating the floor of the tavern. The Chieftains were singing “The Long Black Veil” on the jukebox and the room reeked of spilled beer and vaguely, in one corner, of puke.

Mary picked up the remains of several Irish car bombs with a grimace.

“Ugh. These are gross,” she muttered.

Lille concurred; that’s why she’d ignored them in favor of gathering up martini glasses and shots from a corner table. She kept herself in shape, but her legs and shoulders ached from the constant motion.

She felt good, though, working next to Max, watching the muscles in his arms flex, hearing him laugh, catching the faint whiff of cigarette smoke and Bulgari cologne. She hadn’t spoken more than five words to the man all evening, but she’d felt him watching her. She’d also seen all the female glances sent his way. He was gorgeous, with his rough stubble and corded muscles and surly sneer. She slid him a glance and caught his bold appraisal of her ass as she bent to wipe down a table. He wanted her, but he didn’t pretend to like her or worship her. She looked forward to convincing him otherwise, to losing herself in the control of such a confident man.

She carried the glasses back into the kitchen and began dumping their contents into a big trash can and loading them into the empty spaces of the dishwasher trays. Mary had just finished loading the pint glasses and was washing her hands in the sink.

“Here.” Mary handed Lille a stack of papers, slightly damp from having beer spilled on them.

“What’s this?” Lille lifted a card from the top of the stack.

“Your admirers.” Mary grinned. “No one reacted this way to me the first time I visited the bar.”

“You’re more subtle,” Lille argued automatically, sifting quickly through the various scraps of paper and cards. She didn’t intend to keep any of them, but she made a mental note of the names. She would remember them.

Tonight there were mostly phone numbers, though a few comments had been added that were downright lewd. One bothered her, though. It was a business card, simple with black lettering, but there was no name, just an address in Las Vegas and a handwritten phone number.

She felt every muscle in her body tense and she unconsciously ground her teeth.

“Lille, you okay?”

Lille jerked her head toward Mary and stared blankly at her for a moment before taking a deep breath.

“I’m fine. Just thought I recognized one of the names.”

Lille dumped the stack of digits in the big trash, palming the card with the Vegas address. As soon as Mary turned her back to walk to the bar, Lille shoved the card in her bra.

The two women worked in concert to clear the main room while Max and Carl cleaned behind the bar. Lille could hear the two of them arguing as they replaced glasses in the hanging racks.

“You really should quit, you know. Uncle probably would’ve lived another ten years.”

“Fuck off, Carl.”

Man of few words, Max,
Lille thought, which was fine with her; talking was often overrated. The edges of the card in her bra poked her skin as she wiped tables, something she would have refused to do without gloves if she hadn’t been so distracted. She noted the chip in one of her nails with a faint frown of displeasure. A girl’s hands gave away her age faster than anything else.

When all
the cleanup was finished and Carl
had left with the band—they were going to an after-party in Miami—the only people who remained were Lille, Max, and Mary.

Mary was on the phone with John. “I’ll bring Bambi, come over there and get Atticus, maybe stay for a bit.”

Lille glanced at Max. He was watching her as he dried a pint glass with a hand towel. His jaw had darkened with stubble and his eyes were lambent with a subtle, hot desire.

Enjoying the distraction of him, Lille let lust take over the nagging worry over the card nestled in her bra.

“How’s the new kid doing?” Mary asked John, sounding concerned. Mary had told Lille about the too-skinny eighteen-year-old they’d hired to work part-time at the Box.

She’s always had a soft spot for wounded creatures,
Lille thought with a faint sneer, though she had a sneaking suspicion that Mary lumped Lille in with that same group.

“That’s good,” Mary said. “Well, he and Jordan should be fine by themselves with the security guard there, right? We can go upstairs.” She glanced up at Lille and gave her a wicked grin. “Because being around Max and Lille has made me horny.”

Lille rolled her eyes, but she was glad that Mary intended to take off—she could have Lille’s convertible—because after watching those muscles rippling behind the bar all night, Lille had an itch to fuck Max right here in the bar before she went back to his place.

“You off to get laid, lass?” Max asked Mary when she hung up. “She took to it like a proper slut,” he informed Lille. “Now she can’t get enough.”

“That’s right,” Mary agreed with a grin, and moved to hug Lille good-bye, kissing her on the cheek. Lille dug the convertible keys out of her bag and handed them to Mary, who snatched them gleefully and danced over to the bar. She leapt up gracefully and used her hands to vault herself over the bar, leaning in for a kiss from Max, who caught her elbows to hold her steady and buzzed her lips.

He let her down. “Come on, Bambi, girl,” she called, and the big dog hurried to her side, tail wagging. Bambi looked up at Max for confirmation before trotting to catch up with Mary as she walked out the door.

Max came out from behind the bar and followed them. Lille figured he was making sure Mary made it to her car and—hopefully—locking the door behind him.

She took a seat on one of the barstools and slowly removed the ponytail from her hair, shaking out the soft blond waves with her fingers. She could feel her body loosening as she thought about the hard muscles that she would have beneath her fingers.

Turning on the stool so she’d face him when he returned, she propped one of her heels on the top rung of the barstool and waited.

He came into the light of an overhead lamp and stopped, letting his eyes drift down her body. Pulling a towel from the waistband of his pants, he wiped his hands and threw it off to the side, but he didn’t move any closer.

Lille tilted her head a little and let her legs fall open, just a touch. “Are you coming over here?”

Max shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Lille liked that answer. He was fighting her so hard and he was so gorgeous, his chest moving up and down with unwilling excitement.

“You should come over here and let me kiss you.”

“I’ll be the one doing the kissing.”

“Is that right?” Lille purred, and lifted her left foot onto the stool, untying the bow at the top of her boot. “Wanna know what I’m wearing under these leggings?” she ventured, watching his eyes dip between her legs.

“I don’t give a fuck,” he confessed, his fingers twitching as if he was imagining touching her. He took a step closer and seemed to force himself to stop.

Lille licked her lips and dared him with her eyes.

“Come here, Max. You know you want to.”

He snarled and stalked forward abruptly, catching a hand in the lush softness of her hair. She let him pull her head back and take her mouth. He kissed her hard, angrily, pressing her lips against her teeth and shoving his tongue deep. She kissed him back, fighting savagely with her own tongue, but after a moment, she yanked hard on his hair.

He jerked away. “What the fuck?”

She was breathing hard, her lips swollen and red, and she was so damn beautiful, her disheveled hair floating around her heart-shaped face like the mermaid’s in the statue at the Box.

“You want me?” she asked, and damn it if he wanted to say anything otherwise. He wanted her too damn fucking much.

“You want me,” she stated this time, and her gaze was resolute. “We do this my way, darling, or we don’t do it.”

He wanted to tell her to fuck off, that no pretty piece of ass was worth this shite, but there was something about her, something that made his breath ragged. Lines from a poem kept drifting through his mind, one of his uncle’s favorites—he’d often used them in reference to Mandy: “All that’s best of dark and bright./Meet in her aspect and her eyes.”

The rational voice in Max’s head told him to get the hell away from her. She was a dangerous woman.

But then, when had he ever behaved rationally?

“Fuck it.”

CHAPTER
Seven

“What do ye want?” He resisted—just barely—the urge to wrap his fist around that soft blond hair, grip the waistband of her leggings in his hand and rip them down just far enough to fuck her. Her legs would be close together and she’d be all soft, white curves and wet, pink flesh.

“Lift me onto the bar,” she ordered, excited that he was playing, that he was going to let her control him.

Most of the lights had been turned off in the bar, so soft shadows cast her cheekbones into deeper relief, and her eyes were deep-sea dark.

He did as instructed, even though it seemed to make him angry, the muscles in his arms tensing with more than the effort to lift her. He lifted her higher than necessary, so that she dangled before he set her down slowly on the polished wood. Her soft bottom touched the surface and her legs spread of their own accord. It took everything in him not to shake as he removed his hands from under her arms, partly because she was so fuckin’ pretty, and partly because he wanted to strangle her . . . just a little, just enough to scare her for making him want her so much, but he’d promised her, so he dropped his arms and glared, waiting to hear what she wanted.