by Cat Schield
“I’m usually not so forward. I’m blaming it on jet lag.” She shook her head, picking up her beer and raising it to her lips.
And by all that was holy, he should’ve looked away. Shouldn’t have stared so openly, so…so eagerly at how that beautiful mouth pursed around the opening. Or how her delicate throat worked as she swallowed. His fingers tightened around the handle of his mug. Either that or do something that would get him booted out of the bar and possibly arrested. Like lean forward and wrap his hand around that elegant throat so he could feel every swallow against his palm. Feel the vibration of that husky contralto when she spoke.
He fixed his gaze on the rest of the ale in his glass. “Jet-lagged from where?”
He didn’t glimpse her surprise, but it crackled over him just the same. As did her soft delight when she said, “London. I was there on business, and you’d think after being away from home for a week the first thing I’d want to see is my own bed, but I can’t go—” She broke off, and Achilles glanced at her. But she didn’t continue the sentence, instead taking another sip, then setting the bottle on the bar, studying the dark brown glass with a small frown. But her expression cleared as she looked at him. “Anyway, I found myself craving a greasy burger and a beer from my favorite bar.”
As someone who’d learned early in life that detecting a lie could save him from being backhanded by whomever his mom happened to be dating, he could sense an untruth when he heard it.
“You sat down by me,” he said.
She nodded. “I did.”
“You started talking to me.”
The corner of her mouth twitched because the “uninvited” went unspoken but might as well as have been shouted to the ceiling. “True.”
“And you’re never going to see me again after tonight.”
“Also true.”
“So you don’t have to bother with bullshit. Either you tell me the truth or tell me you don’t want to get into it. But don’t lie.”
She stared at him, pretty lips parted. She wasn’t the only one surprised. He lived and worked alone for a reason: he didn’t really care for people. Liked talking to them even less. Developing computer software encompassed designing algorithms, producing code, testing applications and troubleshooting existing systems. Challenging, but it came down to numbers, to science.
Not emotions. Not baggage. Not history. Not on which side of the tracks a person resided.
People were messy as fuck and he wanted no part of them.
Which didn’t explain why he’d decided to engage Ms. Beacon Hill in conversation.
That dimple flashed again as her lips slowly curved into a smile that had his chest seizing and his dick hardening.
“You’re right. There’s something to be said for the gift of having only the ‘right now,’ isn’t there? It’s temporary, which somehow makes it more special, exciting.” She extended her hand toward him. “Mycah.”
After a brief hesitation, Achilles accepted that slim, smaller hand in his own. And exhaled a low, long breath when his completely encompassed hers. “Achilles.”
“Achilles,” she repeated, and he clenched his jaw when she emitted a little hum afterward, as if savoring his name on her tongue and finding it satisfying. “I like that name. Well, Achilles.” She picked up her beer bottle once more and tipped it toward him in a toast. “Here’s to strangers meeting for a night.”
He lifted his mug, tapping it to her beer. And he couldn’t prevent his rebellious gaze from traveling down the graceful column of her neck, past her slim shoulders to a pair of beautiful breasts that might not fill his hands but would damn sure make their presence known. Her open suit jacket offered him an unhindered view of high-waisted pants and a slightly rounded belly that he found sexy as hell. A woman who ordered the kind of meal she had, who didn’t starve herself…
He shifted his scrutiny to her face of contrasting angles and curves and narrowed his eyes, studying her anew. Her clothes, those shoes with their red bottoms that even a fashion idiot like him recognized, her flawless makeup and smooth, pampered, almond-brown skin—all of that shouted wealth.
But the decadence of her food order, the roundness of her stomach, the gorgeous lushness of curves that society dictated she diet away, even her laid-back choice in beer and bar… Those all pointed to a woman who indulged herself. A woman who knew restraint but also understood that abandon wasn’t always the opposite of losing control.
What would it be like to have this woman lose control all over him?
“To strangers and one night.”
As they sipped their respective drinks, and the Guinness flowed over his tongue and down his throat, he couldn’t shake the sense that his words had never been more prophetic.
Good thing he didn’t believe in that shit.
Copyright © 2021 by Naima Simone
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Special thanks and acknowledgment are given to
Cat Schield for her contribution to the
Texas Cattleman’s Club: Heir Apparent miniseries.
ISBN-13: 9780369708090
How to Catch a Bad Boy
Copyright © 2021 by Harlequin Books S.A.
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