Then again with Harper’s looks, she could have talked any of the guys out of their seats. I’d seen that blonde hair and those blue eyes work their magic more than once.
“It is what it is,” I said with a shrug, popping a spearmint Tic Tac.
“He hasn’t said anything else? Talked to you? Anything?”
I spun my empty shot glass and caught it. “Nope. Just asked me to help him and I haven’t seen him since. I still haven’t made up my mind about what to do.”
“I can’t believe he’s actually here. Ryker didn’t say anything, I swear.”
I gave her a reassuring smile. “You’ve been my best friend for over twenty years, Harper. I know you would have told me.”
Her shoulders drooped. “I feel like shit that I didn’t notice. Ry isn’t home often, and I was honestly just trying to enjoy having the asshat around.” She leaned over the bar, “Mike! We need two more!” she shouted, lifting her shot glass for him to see.
“Probably more than that,” I muttered as he nodded.
“Looking good, Harper,” one of the local guys shouted directly behind us, where he had a front-row seat to the show her ass was putting on.
I hooked my fingers in Harper’s belt and yanked her back down to her seat. She immediately pivoted, her finger already wagging. “Knock your shit off, Alex. I’m your kid’s preschool teacher for fuck’s sake.”
“Hey, I was just paying you a compliment. Not that you don’t look great too, Emerson,” Alex said with a deceptively sweet smile.
“Uh huh,” Harper replied with more than a little venom.
“Thank you, Alex,” I replied at the same time, tugging the edges of my asymmetrical sweater over my red tank top.
“So Vargas is home, huh?” He wiggled his eyebrows.
Life in a small town. “He’s just visiting.”
“That’s right, trying to restart your daddy’s team, isn’t he? Like that’s going to happen.”
My fingers tightened on the glass, but I couldn’t tell if it was the cavalier mention of the team, or his stupid assumption that Bash couldn’t do it. Maybe it’s something that needs to be done.
“Greg, get your boy under control,” Harper ordered as he appeared from down the bar.
“Yeah, and then I’ll fix global warming,” he answered. “But for what it’s worth, I think Bash has the right idea.” He gave me a wink before joining his friends at their table.
I plopped my head in my hands, more than ready for another shot. “Why can’t I just be attracted to him?” I asked Harper quietly. She leaned in, more than aware that ears were everywhere in a tiny town. “He’d be good for me, right? He’s funny, kind, stable. Good looking, even!”
“Greg’s a good guy,” she admitted. “You could always try a date or two, just to see what develops…”
“But?” I asked, knowing there was more.
“But if you guys don’t have that I-need-to-fuck-you-against-the-wall kind of chemistry, it’s going to be hard for you.” She quieted when Mike delivered two more lemon drop shots. He departed with a head-nod.
“Why? A lot of people are happy without raging hormones getting involved. Maybe it’s the whole slow-and-steady-wins-the-race philosophy.”
She rolled her eyes. “Look at Greg again,” she challenged.
I turned in my seat and saw Carrie Cook perched at Greg’s shoulder, her thumb absently stroking the seam of his shirt. “Okay?” I asked Harper.
“Are you pissed? Really think about it.”
I took full stock of my feelings, noting the way the slightly older girl flirted with him and the sound of his laugh. “Nope,” I answered. “I’m curious, kind of wondering where they’ll take that, but I’m not angry at all. I really like Carrie. She’s ridiculously nice.”
“Yeah, that’s not going to work for you,” she scoffed, spinning her seat again to face our drinks.
I spun too, catching myself on the bar. “Hey, it could. I’ve dated guys that I’m not insanely lustful over before.”
This time, she flat-out laughed. “Right. And none of them worked out. Why? Because you’ve had that lust-filled want, that scratching, clawing, biting need to rip someone’s clothes off, and not just because they’re fine as hell, but because you’ve loved that man. You’re not going to be happy with anything less than that connection.” She saluted me with her shot.
Just the thought of Bash nearly pressed up against me on the pool table the other day sent a shot of heat down my limbs. The way his lips had parted, his gaze had dropped to mine. We. Happened.
“He ruined me,” I said with an ironic smile, lifting my shot.
“He gave you higher standards; that’s all. Now, let’s…oh, shit.” She sighed.
I followed her line of sight in the mirror above the bar. “Oh shit,” I repeated in a whisper.
We both turned in our seats, our shots held midair. Carrie wasn’t touching Greg anymore. Oh no, she had her perfectly painted pink nails toying with a button on a light blue shirt stretched across a body I knew all too well. The sleeves were rolled, revealing the band of tattoos on his right arm that I knew stretched up his shoulder and across his back. Bash.
He looked up as if I’d called his name, and our eyes locked across the twenty feet or so that separated us. I-need-to-fuck-you-against-the-wall chemistry, indeed. God help me, I did. I wanted to test the strength of his bigger muscles. I needed to feel his mouth on mine. I craved that sweet loss of control that only Bash had ever given me. In fact, there was a neat little outcropping on the wall right there that he could brace my ass on while sliding these jeans off. My body had forgotten the last six years and time-warped back to when I was eighteen, immediately recognizing that its master was in the room.
Master? What the hell. No way. I promptly ordered my panties to remain safely at hip-level and tried to shut off my sex-drive. Of course, it had chosen this exact week to reappear.
His eyes heated the longer he stared at me, and I wet my lips out of pure instinct. He moved toward me, but Carried tugged on his shirt and gave him a cute grin. Bitch.
“Have you mentally fucked him, yet? Because holy eye-sex going on over there.” Harper noted, the shot waiting patiently in her hand.
“Oh, probably twice,” I admitted with a grimace.
We tapped our glasses together in commiseration, and I met Bash’s gaze when I threw back the lemon-drop, then licked the sugar from the rim. His fingers flexed against the bottle in his hand. At least you still get to him. I spun on my stool and slammed the glass down.
“Stop looking at me like that, Emmy.” Bash growled in my left ear, his voice unmistakable and low. “I’m trying my best to give you space, but if I see that little pink tongue one more time, I’m sucking it into my mouth.” I hated the chill that slid down my spine almost as much as I loved the streak of fire that followed it.
“You worry about your own tongue,” I quipped back, my voice a hell of a lot stronger than I felt.
“How’s going, Harpy?” He teased Harper like we were back in high school. Like he hadn’t skipped out to go fight wildfires and left me naked in his bed. Like I hadn’t had to sneak out before his mom found me…like I was just another girl on his rotating calendar.
“Pretty good until you got here, Bash-hole,” she answered in kind.
There was not enough alcohol in the world for this flashback. “Mike?” I asked, lifting my shot glass.
“How many have you had?” Bash asked, sliding in next to me and leaning against the bar. The bottle he put down in front of me was still full.
“That was my second.”
“And your last,” he said, throwing Mike a throat-cut hand signal.
“You’ve missed out on a few things.” I glared up at him. “I grew up while you were gone, and that comes with the ability to drink as much as I damn well please. You’re not my master.” Fuck my brain. Fuckity fuck.
His eyebrows lifted. “Master, huh? We can play that game.”
“The
hell we can,” I snapped, sliding off my barstool. My breath sucked in reflexively when he tugged my waistband, pulling my back to his very big, very warm front. “Bash,” I warned.
His stubble-roughened cheeks grazed my ear. “First, believe me, I’m well aware that you are a grown woman. Second, I need you sober, because I need to talk to you.”
I battled my eyelids not to slide shut, not to give in and relax into the security of his body. Did he have to smell so damn good? All cedar and forest? “And third?” There was always a third with him.
His lips skimmed the shell of my ear, and my lips parted on their own. “I can’t kiss you if you don’t stop. You make bad choices after three shots.”
Stay put! I ordered my panties, which were begging to be relieved of their position. “Well, you’re always a bad choice, so I’m not sure what another shot would have to do with it. Second, if you think I’m putting out any kind of ‘kiss me’ signal, you’re mistaken,” I said quietly, not that we could be heard above the random grunge-rock that spewed from the jukebox.
“Your pulse is elevated,” he said, his fingers lightly pressing my wrist. “Your breathing is heavy, and you’re shifting your weight, none of which happened until you noticed I was here. You need to be kissed, badly.”
I broke away before my traitorous body could give out any more signals. “Well, if that’s the case, I know someone a hell of a lot safer to take care of it.” I made it within about three feet of Greg before I found myself spun and lifted over Bash’s shoulder. “Sebastian!” I squeaked.
The small crowd clapped, and even Harper gave me a thumbs up as Bash carried me out of the bar, gesturing with her hand and mouthing, “against the wall!”
Oh. My. God. Maybe if I woke up now, I could avoid the part of the nightmare where I showed up naked to work. “Put me down!” I shouted.
A brand new Chevy pulled into the parking lot, Ryker behind the wheel.
“Now, damn it!” This was absolutely unacceptable.
“Uhh, Emerson, are you okay?” Ryker asked as he unfolded his tall frame from the pickup, flickering his attention to Bash.
“She’s fine,” Bash answered for me.
“I sure as hell am not!” I answered. “Are you going to stand there while this caveman carries me off?” Bash’s hand tightened across my ass in response.
Ryker tilted his head and sighed. “Fuck my life, you two. You’re not in the same town for a week and you’re already at each other. Bash, are you going to hurt her? Rape her? Lock her away in a cave?”
“Don’t be a pain in my ass, Ryker. Of course not.”
“Emerson, are you honestly scared of Bash?”
“What? No. He’s just an asshole! Put me down!” I kicked my foot and Bash grunted. Good.
“Okay, well you two kids have a nice night and work your shit out. Emmy, give him hell.” He waved us off and went into the bar where his sister waited.
“Looks like it’s just us, Emmy.”
“You have to be kidding me,” I groaned.
Chapter Four
Emerson
Bash lowered me carefully, so slowly that I felt every hard plane of his body against mine on the trip down.
The door of his black Range Rover swung open next to me. “Get in.”
My eyes narrowed. “Why?”
The muscle in his jaw ticked. “Because you’ve been drinking, so I’m taking you home. Now get in the fucking car.”
“You’ve been drinking too,” I countered.
“Nope. I barely cracked the bottle. Want to taste my breath to make sure?” His eyes sparked, the gold flecks in the hazel catching in the streetlight.
“You mean smell?” I folded my arms over my chest.
“No, I said what I meant,” he smirked. “Get in,” his voice dropped to a quieter demand.
“Don’t do that,” I whispered.
“What?” He braced one of his hands above my shoulder and leaned, his face a handful of inches from mine.
“Don’t act like you’re still the guy I grew up with. Like I should still know you on some deep level when we both know it’s not true. It messes with my head, and I don’t like it.” I hated it. And the worst part was that my heart couldn’t seem to tell the difference. It started burning with that achy, bright feeling I’d always had when he was around, like it couldn’t remember the years it spent licking wounds and knitting itself back together.
His eyes widened at my honesty, and he stepped back, moving his hand. “Please get in. Let me take you home.”
I climbed into the SUV, and Bash shut my door, coming around to the driver’s side and taking his seat. The motor thrummed to life, and we pulled out. If I closed my eyes, it could almost be high school again. Except the material things in his life, from the clothes he wore, the car he drove, even the street we traveled on—they had never been this nice. But I would trade them all for the honesty, the clarity of the emotions we’d had back then.
The car smelled brand new because it was. The leather was soft, supple, impeccable—kind of like Bash was now. I missed the beat-up Dodge he’d taken me to Prom in. “Doesn’t this thing get dirty when you’re called to a fire?” I asked, breaking the silence as he pulled up to the stoplight.
He glanced my way, no doubt surprised that I would even bring the fires up. “No, I take my work truck. This was my street-only present to myself after the last deal.”
“That’s right. You sold apps for firefighters or something.”
A small smile crept across his lips. “Checking up on me?”
“It seemed only fair,” I countered. “Harper filled me in.”
“Ah, I figured she was keeping you informed. It’s not like Ryker and I are out of touch,” he said, turning down my street.
“Actually, she didn’t tell me until I asked this week. Once Ryker told me you joined a crew in California…well, we kind of have a no Bash-talk rule. Harper doesn’t bring you up, and I never ask.”
“Never?” he asked, pulling into my little driveway and putting the car in park.
“Never. It’s just safer for my sanity that way.” I looked up at my small townhouse. “You brought me home.”
“That was the idea, right?”
“Right. But this isn’t my mom’s house. This is my house, which I bought way after you left. Been checking up on me?” I joked.
“Always.”
My breath caught at the look in his eyes. It was possessive, consuming, raw in a way he hadn’t been when we were younger. Damn it, my body warmed for him. Good thing your brain is in charge of this operation.
His gaze dropped to my mouth, and my lips parted. I swept my tongue across my lower lips, watching with fascination as those eyes of his darkened. He reached across the console and cupped my face in his hand, his thumb caressing my cheekbone.
“Emerson.”
It was too much. Everything was too much when he was close. I’d built these gorgeous, strong, fireproof walls, and he was taking a sledgehammer to them—ripping down the defenses I’d spent the last six years constructing.
“Bash…” I shook my head to dislodge his hand, and started to fumble with the door, but the handle wasn’t where it usually was.
“I always knew where you were.”
I paused, entranced by the rasp in his voice.
“I knew when you got accepted to CU, and I knew that you chose Western State because it was closer. You commuted for your MBA because you couldn’t bear to move away while the city was still digging out of its financial hole. I knew when you bought this townhouse and when the water heater was faulty and quit working on you.”
“What? How?” Crap, my voice was breathless.
“I asked. Ryker told me. You may have blocked me out of your mind, moved on, never given me a second thought, but there was never a day that I didn’t think about you. Worry about you. Check the fucking weather to make sure you weren’t going to get yourself killed driving to class.”
There was no oxygen. Why w
as there no oxygen? My lungs wouldn’t pull it in, and even if they did, everything was Bash. The car smelled like Bash, the air tasted like him, my skin warmed where he’d touched…it was all Bash. “I need out.” My hands fought with the door, but nothing moved, there was no way out. “You have me trapped in here. Fuck!”
The door opened, and I damn-near fell into Bash. When had he come around to my side? He caught me around the waist easily and steadied me on my feet. “It’s here,” he said softly, showing me the handle further up the door. “You’re not trapped. I would never trap you.”
I nodded, trying to process what he’d just said, but I couldn’t. They were just words and nothing matched what he’d done to me. Nothing. “I need to go inside. I know you want to talk about the team, but I can’t. Not tonight. Not like this.”
“Like what?” he asked, moving closer.
“With a fucked up head! Damn it, Bash! You’ve been home for what, four days?”
“About that.”
I fought for control, for the tiny, logical portion of my brain to overpower the emotions that were begging to be let free from where I kept them bottled, captive, restrained. But he was here, in front of me after six years of waiting, worrying, borderline hating him, and I couldn’t get a damn grip. My heart vomited, my mouth spewing forth the words I’d kept leashed since I realized he’d left.
“You invade my space, carry me out of a bar, order me around, and act like you have some kind of Neanderthal’ish right to me when we both know you have none. Six years without a phone call, an email, a fucking Facebook status! You walked away. Remember? You didn’t just walk. You ran!”
He took the final step between us, bracing one hand on the frame of the car and tunneling his other through the hair at the nape of my neck. “One, I was a kid. You were a kid. Kids do stupid things. Two, yes, I ran. I’ve never lied to you, Emmy, and I’m not starting now.”
“And three?” I taunted.
The corner of his mouth lifted in a smirk so sexy that I nearly went limp. “Three,”—his features locked into something dangerously serious, his hand tightening in my hair. “I have every right to you.”
“Bullshit,” I spat, bringing my hands to his biceps in readiness to push him away. We were close enough that he filled every single one of my senses, overwhelming every bit of my brain and heating the blood in my veins.
Point of Origin (Legacy #1) Page 3