“Fucking eleven-plus,” Kyle says from beside me.

My head swivels his way as I pop my kickstand back with the heel of my boot. “Eleven plus?”

“Goldie there,” he says as he nods his head down the highway where I can barely see her vehicle as it drives away in the distance. “Eleven plus on the scale.”

Higher, I think to myself, because fuck… a woman like her was created to define the word beautiful. But what I really liked about our brief interchange is the confidence in which she bears that beauty. Not in a cocky or self-absorbed way, but more in an assured, intelligent way. Like she works what was given to her in calculated measure, and I’ve always respected a woman that has the independence to want to look out for her own best interests. Don’t get me wrong. There’s nothing wrong with taking care of a woman… protecting her. But I like the confidence of one that knows she can do it herself, and that without a doubt, is the type of woman Goldie represents.

Golden from fucking head to toe… except for those dark blue eyes that held secrets within them. Secrets I wouldn’t mind torturing out of her with my mouth between her legs.

“I’d sell my left nut to know what you’re thinking right now,” Kyle says, and I blink my eyes to dispel the fantasies I had started conjuring before I ended up with an embarrassing hard-on.

I grin at Kyle. “Just thinking she’s more than an eleven.”

“Which makes your strike out all the more painful,” he observes, and that is completely true. “So I say let’s go grab a beer. Andrea doesn’t get off work for another hour, and she texted me the name and address of a bar she said she’d meet us at. I don’t think it’s too much farther up the road.”

“Sounds good to me,” I say just before firing up my bike.

We pull back onto the highway and motor on, and just three miles north, Kyle slows his bike to make a right-hand turn into a gravel parking lot. A long building with gray, salt wood siding backs up to the ocean dunes with a sign across the front door that says “The Last Call.”

Clever.

We park to the left side of the building, which gives me a glimpse of a huge outdoor deck coming off the back that is packed with people slugging back beers in their bathing suits. I’m thinking I’m a little overdressed in my jeans, t-shirt, and shit kickers out here on the beach, and I know I’ll need to make a store run for some appropriate clothes this week. I didn’t pack but a few changes of clothes in my saddlebags, figuring I could do my laundry at Bri’s apartment, but nothing I brought was with the idea in mind I’d be spending a week at the beach.

As I start to unstrap my helmet again, Kyle reaches out and gives me a slight punch to my shoulder. When I look at him, his head nods at something just over his right shoulder. My eyes slide past him and focus on the teal-blue Jeep parked on the other side of the lot.

My eyebrows raise and my gaze slowly moves back to Kyle. His grin is almost evil, and I answer with a sly smile of my own.

“Well, what do you know,” I muse. “Looks like Goldie didn’t get very far down the road.”

Kyle steps off his bike and hooks his helmet to the handlebar. “Maybe you can get her drunk and take advantage of her.”

I snort and level a hard stare at him. “Not my style. Besides, she has a boyfriend.”

“At least we’ll have something nice to stare at while we wait for Andrea.”

“Truth,” I agree as I swing my leg over my bike and run my hand through my hair.

We walk into the bar, and I give my eyes a moment to adjust to the interior darkness. There is a long bar to the right with a few patrons nursing drinks. A pretty, dark-skinned girl with long, silky black hair smiles at us from behind the bar. “Welcome to The Last Call.”

I nod at her and a brief glance around yields no Goldie. I hear a racket of voices from the left, seeing a hallway that disappears to what I’m thinking is another room. I follow it down, Kyle just a few paces behind.

As we emerge into a larger area filled with another bar, pool tables, dartboards, and a ton of partying people, my eyes do another quick scan. When they reach the bar, they immediately focus in on that long, golden hair that seemed to have sparkled in the sunshine but now just seems to glow in the ambient lighting behind her.

Her back is to me as she pours a beer from a draft tap.

Huh… I wouldn’t have pegged Goldie as a bartender. Even though she was casually yet sexily dressed, I figured her more of an office-type worker for some reason.

Kyle brushes past me and walks up to the middle of the bar, taking a seat at a stool right in front of the beer taps. Goldie’s eyes lift up in welcome to the new customer and when they focus on Kyle, she holds his gaze for only a nanosecond before her eyes immediately scan around the room. When they lock onto me, her gaze fills with recognition and fuck me… pleasure to see me standing there.

A sly grin comes to her face, and her gaze focuses back onto the beer she’s pouring. “You guys following me?” she asks, and I’m not sure if she’s talking to Kyle or me.

“Nah,” Kyle assures her. “Just meeting someone here in a bit.”

I walk up and take a seat to Kyle’s left, resting my forearms on the bar. Those blue eyes lift back up to mine as she pulls the glass away from the tap. “Give me a second and I’ll be back to get your orders.”

“Can’t wait,” I murmur and fucking dig the sexy incline of her lips I see just before she turns away. As she walks down to the far end of the bar, Kyle actually stands up on his stool a tad, leans over the bar, and eyeballs her retreating ass for a moment.

When he sits back down, he looks at me and shakes his head in amazement. “Damn dude… fucking fifteen I’m thinking.”

A million, I think to myself.

It only takes a minute for her to deliver her beer to an old man at the end of the bar, give him a soft smile, and take a few dollar bills from the small pile of money resting in front of him. She puts one dollar in the tip jar, the rest in the cash register, and walks back up to Kyle and me.

“What are you two drinking?” she asks with a smile. “And it’s on me because of all your kind help.”

We both order bottled Budweiser, as we aren’t into fancy microbrews or drafts. I watch her with sharp eyes as she efficiently gets our beers, takes some money out of her tip jar, and puts it in the register before delivering our orders to us.

“Enjoy,” she says as she sets a bottle in front of each of us.

I take the beer and hold it up to her in salute. “Thanks, Goldie.”

She winks at me and sets her forearms on the bar, leaning slightly in toward us. It makes the edge of her tank top dip a little, and I can’t help my eyes when they drop for a moment to admire the swell of her breasts and dark shadow of cleavage.

My gaze slides back up to hers, and her eyes are sparkling with mischief. She knows exactly what she’s doing… working her assets and all that.

Sticking her hand across the bar at me, she says, “It’s not Goldie. It’s Casey Markham. I take it you two are new to the island?”

I’ve already held that delicate hand in mine, but I’m not going to pass up another opportunity. I reach my digits across and take ahold of her again. “I’m Tenn and this is Kyle,” I say, jerking my head to the right.

She gives me a soft squeeze, angles her head, and gives a smile to Kyle. When she looks back at me, she pulls her hand back and asks, “Ten? That’s an unusual name. Your parents mathematicians or something?”

I chuckle and shake my head. “No. It’s spelled T-E-N-N.”

“As in the abbreviation for the state?” she asks as her ear dips toward her shoulder in curiosity.

“No, as in the poet.”

“There’s a poet by the name of Tenn?”

“Not that I know of,” I tell her conspiratorially. “But I’m not a real big fan of poetry, so I’m not really sure.”