The plan sounded solid enough until he’d done a little reconnaissance and found her to be the only daughter of the Rebel Rapids police chief. The same chief who was pouring every resource he had into blocking outside investigations of the recent murders.
Mitch turned to find Deluna and Helms hypnotized by the bartender stacking drinks. Something hot and vile raced through his veins.
He hadn’t been jealous in a long time, hadn’t the need to be, but the feeling reared up inside him the second he noted Deluna’s gaze traveling the curve of her legs up to her ass and halting at the cleavage spilling out from her top.
Mine, echoed in his head.
Helms barked a laugh and slapped his partner on the back. “If you have to restrain her, Deluna, you’re doing it wrong.”
In a fervent attempt to sway their attention, Mitch answered, “If you want to restrain a lady, there are far more imaginative ways than cuffs.”
The brunette pivoted, giving Mitch a view of her face. She wasn’t the kind of overly made-up and self-indulgent woman he usually gravitated toward. This one had trouble written all over her, from the seductive way her gaze swept the room to the confident glide of her tongue over her lips. Trouble he couldn’t afford to have clouding his judgment when he should be looking for a killer.
The waitress picked up a tray of beer bottles and passed their table with a confident rock of her hips. She winked at Helms before heading to a group of locals playing pool in the back corner. The taller player, shrouded under a white Stetson cowboy hat, smacked her backside and gripped her bicep.
Mitch’s jaw tightened. His protective instincts sparked to life like pistons revving an engine and twice as hot. The kid had been practically dry-humping her with his gaze for the last three nights and counting.
Before Mitch could leave his seat, she’d pressed Stetson into a chair with the palm of her hand and her knee aimed firmly at his crotch.
Without dropping a single beer, she spun on the heels of her pink cowboy boots and disappeared behind a door near the back.
The whole scene made him hard. He slid back in the chair to ease the sudden ache.
Strong. Confident.
A total conquest for a dominance freak like him.
His mind snapped back into detective mode. He hadn’t been thinking about the case, but about how far down his darkened road of sexual desires she’d let him lead her. She took his mind off the case just by walking across a room. He’d never solve a murder with her running through his head at all hours.
“Damn, Detective. When you set your sights on something, you aim high.” Deluna punched him in the shoulder again.
The gesture made Mitch want to knock Deluna’s drunken ass right off his seat, but he refrained. The kid would learn not to stick his dick where it didn’t belong soon enough. “Who is she?” He’d play stupid for the sake of the case and male bonding.
“Lacy Andrews,” Helms answered with a note of warning in his tone.
Mitch twisted in his seat to face Deluna. “Chief Andrews’ daughter?”
“Not just his daughter, Kilpatrick. His only daughter.” He followed with a husky laugh. “Even if he’s not pissed as hell you’re asking questions about his murder investigations, she’s got an older brother on the force who’ll tear into your ass and feed your flesh to the Tennessee wild hogs. Over protective is the understatement of the century.”
“I guess we found Kilpatrick’s weakness.” Helms slammed his mug on the table. Beer sloshed over the sides. “A passion for the unattainable.”
The heated look in Helms’s eyes made Mitch’s curiosity peek. He lifted a brow in question. “Unattainable? Because she’s the chief’s daughter?”
Helms leaned back and kicked one booted foot to the table. The man was sloshed, but the resentment on his face was obvious. There was history. “The one officer she ever let in fucked with her head. She doesn’t date cops.” He lifted his beer bottle between his fingers and swung it to his lips. “Hell, she doesn’t date, period.”
Mitch ignored them both. There was no way in hell a sweet thing like that working in a country bar didn’t date. She just hadn’t met the right guy yet, not that he had the time to be that guy. He had to do something to get her out of his head long enough to solve the Wray case, and the only way he’d ever gotten any girl out of his mind was to take her.
He grabbed his beer by the neck and followed the path she’d carved to the door near the back of the bar. The door creaked when he slid it open, but no one looked up from the pool tables. The room was small, a few hundred square feet at best. Two stained-glass light fixtures hung over two parallel pool tables, both surrounded by men nursing beers and intently watching two games.
Along one wall sat a smaller bar lined with stools occupied by women in higher-end attire. A blonde in a sequined top and tight black skirt tended the drinks.
He searched the room for Hellcat, finding her bent over a vacant pool table, reaching for a discarded bottle on the far end. Her body lengthened across the green felt.
He imagined her stretched over his bed, her breasts pressed into the sheets, her back arched, ready for him.
No. Begging for him.
“Do you play, Cowboy?” She glanced over her shoulder and trained her jade green eyes on his. “Or have they finally declared staring at ass a spectator sport?”
He couldn’t coax the smile off his face. “I bet that mouth gets you in plenty of trouble, Angel.”
She ran her middle finger along her glossed lower lip. “Yeah. I’ve never heard that one before.” She narrowed her eyes in a slow roll and passed him, leaving her full tray at the bar. “Connie,” she spoke to the blonde mixing drinks. “We have a regular Don Juan over here.”
Mitch drained the last of his beer, hiding his fascination behind the bottle rim. Damn did her confidence turn him on. Taking his mind off the murders. Leaving him stranded in images of her coated in sweat.
He didn’t want to focus on her, but he couldn’t stop. He claimed the only unoccupied stool and watched her arrange glasses behind the bar.
“In case no one told you,” she said, glancing up from the rack of wine glasses. “This is a private room. Invitation only.”
He sat back on the stool and surveyed the game of high-stakes pool at the corner table. “I don’t see anyone complaining.”
“Arrogant,” she muttered, but he didn’t miss the slip of a smile under her carefully crafted straight face. “Tell you what, Cowboy.” She glanced up, challenge flickered in her stare. “It’s a slow night, and I’m short on tips. I’ll play you for drinks.”
He cocked his head, trying to guess her endgame but coming up stumped. “I’ll bite. What do you have in mind? I win and you give me a drink. You win, I cover your tips and leave?”
“No.” She glanced around the room. “When I win, you’ll buy a round for the room, and tip me accordingly.” She winked. The slow, deliberate gesture sent him hurtling toward the edge of losing control.
Mitch glanced behind him and counted seven people at the tables with another seven sitting on stools. “Fifteen drinks?”
“Worried?” Her lips seemed to wrap around the word making it seductive.
Her tenacity surprised him, but the sheer confidence she exuded made him hard as hell with want. The way she rolled her bottom lip into her mouth and bit her cherry red flesh against the white of her teeth made her impossible to resist.
She pulled a new beer from under the bar, twisted off the cap and placed it in front of his stool.
“No.” He took a long, calculated swig from his fresh bottle and let his lips linger on the smooth glass until he caught the flush of her cheeks. “It’s not a fair bet.”
“What’s the fun in being fair?”
God, if she had any idea how her baiting turned him on she’d stop before he cleared the room and came across the three feet of bar between them to take her on the damn beer-soaked floor.
Her lips parted, followed by a shallow laugh t
hat sent phantom fingers of heat wrapping around his straining cock. He hadn’t even touched her yet and she’d given him a hellacious case of blue balls.
“Tell you what…?” He waited for a name.
“Laura.”
The coolness behind the blatant lie impressed the hell out of him. “Tell you what, Laura. You win, I buy the whole damn bar a round.”
Her eyes widened, but her lips stayed parked in a flat line. He didn’t give chase often, but she was making the game worth the trouble.
“And I’ll be sure to tip accordingly. But when I win, you’ll wake up in my bed tomorrow.”
Lacy backed up a step and she surveyed the back door. He could practically hear the gears shift in her head before she squared her shoulders and met him stare for stare.
He leaned in closer. “I’m not offering anything more than a night of hot sex. No strings. No broken promises. No hurt egos. Just you and me. One night. Then I’m gone.”
He turned to the game behind him. If she was as smart as her teasing little mouth made her sound, she’d take the pause for what it was, a courtesy exit. A way out before she agreed to a night of his brand of fun on his terms.
“Okay.” Her voice came low, throaty against his back. “Deal.”
He twisted to face her and restrained his surprise behind a stoic smile.
Lacy reached under the bar and plopped a deck of playing cards face down beside his beer. “Five card draw, deuces wild, just like my Grammy taught me to play. You deal.” When he answered with a sideways glance she added, “I said I’d play you for drinks. I never said that game would be pool.”
Also by Reagan Phillips
The Blue Line Brotherhood Series
Confess
Seduced
Uphold
Protect
Tattooed And Taken Series
Baby on Board
Her Brother’s Best Friend
Tattooed By Her Silver Fox
Her Bad Boy Bartender
Staking His Claim
Her Tattooed Single Father
Tattooed and Taken Box Set
Stand Alone
Lone Star Sizzle
Second Chance Cowboy
Tempest Eilte MC Series
Bear
Doc
Gunner
Gunner: Tempest Elite MC Book #3 Page 10