Badd Motherf*cker(11)

“Don’t got any wine, princess, sorry.”

She raised her head and gave me a glare so fierce and furious I felt it scorch the hairs on the back of my neck. “Fuck you, you goddamn orc.” She thunked her head back down. “Scotch on the rocks. And leave the bottle.”

Well. This could prove to be interesting.





3





Dru





I was in no mood for bullshit. Even if it was coming from the most intensely masculine man I’d ever laid eyes on. Intensely masculine, fucking gorgeous, in a tall, dark, rock-star gorgeous, badass, burly, tattooed sort of way. Six-four if he was an inch, arms that stretched the sleeves of a thermal Henley—what was it about those shirts that was so fucking sexy, anyway?—with tattoos covering his forearms and obviously extending up past his elbows. He had massive shoulders and a broad chest that tapered to a wedge, and I’d bet all the money I had left that his sexy V-cut lead down to a huge cock.

I blushed at the thought, because why was I thinking about his cock? I wasn’t, not really.

I was too pissed off, too heartbroken, too lost, too hung over, and too hungry to think about a penis. Even if that penis was very likely a lovely, perfect organ the size of my forearm.

Stop—no more cock thoughts.

His hair was, put plainly, brown. But if I was going to be fair about his hair color, it was the kind of brown you’d see on a grizzly bear. Same texture, same color. He had it brushed backward in a casual, messy way that said he didn’t really care because he knew he was damn sexy and didn’t have to try. God, his hair. Plus the scruff on his jaw, a day or two of growth on a jawline Henry Cavill should be jealous of. And have I mentioned his arms? And his forearms? Fuck. They were absolutely perfect. The ink was professional artwork, not just biker or prison crap, it was actual artwork. I saw a raven in flight, some kind of twisted, dark angel, skulls done in the Mexican Day of the Dead style, Native American totems, plus more I couldn’t make out.

But then he had to go and assume I wanted wine.

Fucking wine.

But when I called him an orc, he just laughed, a deep, ursine rumble of amusement rather than take offense, and lifted a half-empty bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label off the bar where it had been sitting next to a rocks glass, as if he’d already been helping himself to his own wares. Although, considering the dearth of customers, I didn’t really blame him.

He snagged a clean rocks glass from a stack by the service bar, tossed it into the air and caught it upright on the flat of his palm, poured what had to have been a triple, or even a quadruple. The man didn’t fuck around with his pours, clearly. We might get along just fine if he keeps pouring the Johnny Black so liberally. When I had mine he poured a healthy measure into his own glass, and then held it out to me.

“To being so hung over tomorrow neither of us will remember why we’re drinking tonight,” he said, and god, even his voice reminded me of a bear, deep, feral, rumbling, with a hint of snarl.

I clinked my glass against his and took a long blissful drink before answering. “That’s the best goddamn toast I’ve ever heard,” I mumbled.

We drank in an oddly not-uncomfortable silence for a while, watching ESPN highlights, during which I finished my scotch, and the bartender poured more, another full glass.

I was in a foul mood, and the scotch helped a little, but only a little. A turbulent three and a half hour flight, followed by a rough landing, which had been on the sea itself rather than an airfield. In my drunken rush to get away from Seattle, I hadn’t even noticed that the airplane I’d gotten into was a seaplane.

The length of the flight meant I’d gone from hammered to hung over, and then the pilot had taken my money and left me on the docks with my purse and wedding dress and not a damn thing else except a splitting headache and a broken heart. Well, the pilot actually wasn’t that much of a dick: he’d given back six hundred of my cash, saying I looked so messed up he figured I needed it more than he did. But he still left me on the docks with nowhere to go, no one to talk to, in a rainstorm, alone…

Plus, I hadn’t eaten since I couldn’t remember when. Lunch? I’d left Seattle sometime around nine or ten, which meant it had to be nearing two in the morning now, if not past.

As if on cue, my stomach let out a vociferous snarl.

The gorgeous bartender’s stupidly perfect Cupid’s bow lips quirked. “Hungry?”

I shrugged and tipped back the rocks glass. “A bit, yeah.” I was fucking starved, actually, but I’d be damned if I’d admit it to him.

“I could use a bite myself,” he said, slugging back the rest of his scotch as if it was nothing, “so I’ll rustle something up. Won’t be fancy, but it’ll fill ya.”