Badd Motherf*cker(13)

I sat down, knowing I’d blown up a little prematurely, but I was not about to apologize for it. “So what are my options then?”

He stuck a finger up at the ceiling. “Three bedrooms up there, and I’m only using one. They’ve all got sturdy locks and their own bathrooms. If you need to crash and sleep your hangover off, you’re welcome to one.”

“Alone?”

He nodded. “Like I said, I’m not that big of an asshole. But you only get one free night.”

“Then you start charging?”

“Then I start hitting on you.” He grinned widely. “You’re welcome to stay free as long as you want.”

“But I’ll have to deal with your slimy advances?”

He toyed with a fry, and his deep chocolate brown eyes fixed on mine, and good fucking grief, those eyes were deep, vivid, full of life and promise and heat. “Angel, there won’t be nothin’ slimy about it. Trust me on that.” And damn me, but I believed him. Which was a problem. “’Course, those bedrooms are gonna get awful crowded awful soon.”

I scrunched my nose in confusion. “What’s that mean?”

He sighed, and tapped a stack of papers on the bar. “Means my dead little bar is about to be drowning in Badd brothers.”

“I’m still not following.”

He indicated the hand-carved wooden sign over the mirror on the rear wall: Badd’s Bar and Grill. “I’m Sebastian Badd. This is my bar, and I’ve got seven brothers all about to converge on this place.” He said this with a wince like he wasn’t entirely overjoyed at the prospect.

I choked. There were seven more like him? “Your brothers…do they all look like you?” I couldn’t help asking. I really couldn’t.

He shot me the smirk again. “I’m the oldest, and the sexiest. The rest are ugly fucking trolls and orcs and ogres of the worst sort. You’ll hate ’em. Especially Zane, the next oldest. He’s real ugly.”

“You don’t like your brothers?”

“Nah, I love ’em.” He lifted a shoulder. “It’s just complicated. They’re my brothers, and I love ’em, but let’s just say they’re not going to be happy to be here. We’re all big dudes and this is a small space, so it’s gonna get…interesting.”

The odd thing about this whole conversation was the unspoken assumption that I’d be around to meet them.

I finished the last of my fries and washed them down with the last of my beer, and then stood up—somewhat unsteadily, it must be admitted. I fumbled for my purse, and then remembered I’d given the pilot half of my cash. Which left me with six hundred dollars…and credit cards that were all maxed out paying for the wedding and the honeymoon and my dress. Dad had helped, and Michael had put money in for the honeymoon too, and had paid for the catering, but I’d fronted the bulk of the bills. I had some savings, but it wouldn’t last me forever.

Since I had limited cash, I dug out the only credit card I had that still had a little room left on it, and extended it to him. “Here, put it all on this.”

He just eyed me, amused. “Not takin’ your money, angel. It’s on the house.”

“I don’t want your charity, and I’m not sleeping with you.”

He stood up and moved to stand over me. God, he was tall. And those eyes of his bored into me, intense, fierce, primal. “It’s not charity, and I’m not trying to get under that sexy fuckin’ dress of yours.”

“Kind of feels like you’re trying,” I said.

He sidled closer, so close I could feel his body heat, smell his masculine scent, so close I had to stare up at him, and my heart thundered in my chest at his proximity. “Honey, if I was tryin’, you’d know, because you’d be naked and screaming my name. I’d have you on that bar, those creamy thighs of yours spread open and my tongue on your clit.”

Well. Shit.

I squirmed, ached, and then remembered my anger.

“Fuck you, you goddamn orc.” I turned away, shoving my credit card back into my purse and stomped out of the bar and into the rain.

I stumbled, my heel catching on something, sending me to the ground on my hands and knees. Mud splashed up, soaking my dress, my face, my hands. So much for a dramatic exit. I looked up and saw the rest of Ketchikan, mostly dark, with something huge and dark and bulky in the distance. Everything looked so far away, and I had no idea where any of the hotels were. I’d only found the bar because it was the only place with lights on close to where the pilot had dropped me off.

And now I was wetter than I’d ever been, drunk again, covered in mud, and fighting tears.