“Stephanie,” he said in that deep voice of his, and wisps of pleasure coiled tight. “What are you doing here?”

Chapter 5

His question squelched the budding tendrils of pleasure as if he had reached inside me and caught them in a fist. I drew back, inhaling sharply as my stomach clenched. “Excuse me?”

“Oh no,” whispered Roxy, turning to the side. Someone waved a twenty dollar bill like a white flag of surrender and it caught her attention.

“You’re a dumbass,” Katie said to Nick, and then twirled toward me. “Give him hell. The payoff is so much better in the end. See you on Sunday. Tootles!”

As Katie pranced off, a faint pink crept across the center of Nick’s cheeks. He lowered his voice. “I thought we had an understanding.”

Perhaps, when I’d walked into Mona’s tonight, I’d fallen into some kind of alternate universe? Every conversation I was in felt like I was only hearing half of it. “An understanding of what?”

He tilted his head to the side. “You haven’t come back to the bar in two weeks.”

“Uh. Yeah. I’ve been busy.” My hair slid over my shoulder as I leaned forward, the edges brushing the top of the counter. “I don’t think I’m following where this conversation is heading.”

“You haven’t been back since the night we hooked up,” he explained, his moss green eyes cool. “So I figured we were on the same page.”

“Obviously we’re not.”

Nick glanced over his shoulder briefly, scanning the bar. His shoulders tensed when his eyes met mine again. When he spoke, his voice was low enough that I could barely hear him. “That night was just that night. One time. There’s no reason for you to come back here, especially you.”

Whoa. There was so much wrong in that statement I didn’t even know where to start. Anger rushed to the surface, crowding my senses, and for that I was grateful, because beneath the fiery emotion was a keen sense of . . . of disappointment. I didn’t know Nick that well, but from the brief time we’d spent together, I thought we had been on the same page. Not his page, obviously. His page had asshole written all over it, over and over again.

“Let me get this straight,” I said, my voice surprisingly level. “You thought that I would not come back to the bar, because we’d hooked up?”

He didn’t reply for a long moment. “That’s how it’s always been. One night. You said so yourself.”

That’s how it’s always been? Wow. I almost laughed, except nothing about this was funny. “And just to make sure we’re completely on the same page, you think I came back here solely to see you?”

One side of his lips curled up. “Well, why else would you come here? Someone like you is much better suited for the bars and clubs in the city.”

My lips slowly parted. “Someone like me?”

“You know you’re gorgeous. You know—”

“Stop right there,” I ordered, placing both my hands on the bar countertop. “We are not and obviously never have been on the same page, Nick. You don’t know me. I don’t know you. And frankly, how I look has absolutely nothing to do with what bars I go to.”

Nick blinked as surprise crowded his features again. “Hey, I’m—”

“You’re unbelievable.” I pushed to my feet, grabbing my purse off the counter. “The last time I checked, this bar wasn’t your oyster and you sure as hell aren’t the pearl in it. You may get to tell other people—other women—what they can and cannot do, but that will never, ever, work with me.”

He drew back, brows furrowing, but I wasn’t done. “I’ve never regretted anything that I’ve done. Until now.”

Admitting the truth stung more than it should have. I turned away before I knocked him upside the head with my purse. I made it two steps before I heard him call my name.

“Stephanie. Steph.” There was a pause and then, “Shit.”

Gasps rose, and I looked over my shoulder, just in time to see Nick vault over the bar like a damn gymnast. He’d cleared the bar by several inches. My jaw hit the floor as he landed in a perfect crouch and rose fluidly. Was he some kind of superhuman? That move was rather . . . impressive.

Roxy stood next to Jax behind the bar. Both had stopped in the middle of handling drinks. Liquid sloshed over the glass Roxy had been pouring. Jax looked torn between laughing and yelling at Nick.

Tension seized my muscles as Nick stalked right up to where I stood. He wrapped his hand around mine, the hold gentle. A good head or so taller than me, he towered over me, and all that made me want to do was punch him in the solar plexus. “We need to talk,” he said.

“I think that’s the very last thing we need to do,” I snapped.

His eyes softened. “I’m going to have to disagree. Let’s talk.” A strand of dark hair fell across his forehead. “Please.”

A huge part of me still wanted to whack him with my purse, or better yet, introduce my knee to a sensitive part of him, but most, if not all, of the bar was staring at us. We—actually, Nick—was already causing a major scene. Eyes were fastened on us. Heat crept up my neck.

“Are you going to make me get down on my knees and beg?” he asked, those lips curving up at the corners again. “Because I will. Right here.”

“You wouldn’t.”

His eyes glimmered in the low light. “I would.”

My jaw ached from how tightly I was grinding my teeth. “Fine. We can talk.”

“Perfect.” Nick winked, and turned around, leading me.

“We don’t need to hold hands.”

“But we do.” He looked over his shoulder at me, his eyes widened with innocence. “I’m afraid you’ll change your mind and run off on me, then I’ll be all kinds of sad.”

I shot him a dirty look as he guided me out. Everyone was watching. One quick glance told me Roxy had recovered enough to stop watering the bar. We headed toward the hallway.

“Nick.” Jax appeared at the side of the bar closest to us. “Don’t make me have to clean down the office later.”

My jaw snapped open. Fire was seconds away from bursting out of my mouth. “Yeah, that won’t be necessary.”

“I like her. A lot.” Jax grinned as he turned back to the bar.

“Of course you do,” Nick muttered.

I flipped him off with my free hand, but he didn’t see it as he pulled me down a narrow hall. He opened a door to our right, and after I walked in, I immediately yanked my hand free as he kicked the door closed behind us.

Tossing my purse on a black leather couch, I spun around to face him. Now that we were somewhere private, every F-bomb known to man was about to make an appearance. I stepped toward him, my hands balling into fists as I opened my mouth.

Nick crossed the distance between us in a blink of an eye. He was so fast that I stood there like an idiot as he got right up in my personal space, placing his hands just below my jaw. His hands were large and warm, and he spread his fingers out, his thumbs smoothing over the skin on either side of my lips.

His eyes met mine and they were heated like they had been the night at my apartment. “I’m going to be brutally honest right now.”

“Like you haven’t been already?” I shot back, reaching for his wrists. I wrapped my fingers around them.

Nick smiled, flashing even white teeth. “See. It’s that.”

“What?”

“The attitude,” he explained, drawing me closer. “When you throw it at me, all I can think about is getting deep inside you again.”

My mouth dropped open once more. Honestly, I was just going to walk around all night with my jaw flapping open.

“I normally don’t go back for seconds. Things always get . . . complicated when you do, but with you . . .” His voice dropped and his breath was warm against my lips. My body was a dumbass because an illicit shiver of pleasure coiled tight low in my stomach. “Yeah, I’d be willing to make an exception to my rules.”

At first I wasn’t sure I had heard him right. He couldn’t honestly be suggesting what I thought he was, but his hands did a slow slide down my neck to my shoulders. The space between us vanished. His hips pressed against my lower stomach, and oh yeah, he was being serious.