Phoenix Burning(11)
“I came here for a little bit of real, just like everyone else.”
“But you aren’t like everyone else.” He guessed suddenly.
The startled wariness that swept her pixie face told Alex that he’d hit it on the head.
“So what is it you’re looking for?”
Emory fought the urge to turn and flee the bar. What could he possibly mean by demanding such things from her? She’d come here to see if she could accept the feel of a man’s touch against her skin, to fight another battle in the war that constantly raged in her psyche. She craved the physical contact like a drug, yet couldn’t deal with the emotional backlash it triggered. She’d come for a little satisfaction and a chance to move on. She wanted to leave her past behind, find something to sustain her future, find a way to get past the expectations that had been dogging her every step since childhood. She’d failed, but that didn’t give Alex the right to torture her for it.
“Someone told me this was the place to come for a drink and a quick fuck,” Emory said with forced bravado, leaning back in her seat and doing her level best to appear unaffected.
“You’ve had a few drinks, but I’m getting the feeling things didn’t work out like you’d hoped with Wade,” Alex mused. “Why hang around when this really isn’t your scene?”
Pain lanced through Emory’s midsection. She scraped together what was left of her threadbare self-esteem. “Judge much?”
His gaze skittered around the bar. The clock had reached one o’clock, and the crowd was winding down. Several knots of men and women were laughing and trying to outdrink each other at some of the larger tables. The bar itself was almost empty.
Alex’s eyes left the immediate room for the shadowy recesses. Emory watched his gaze linger over the near corner less than half a dozen yards away. She was drawn there despite her desire to seem cool and unaffected.
Two women embraced, their full lips melded together in a passionate kiss. Emory was instantly riveted as the more buxom of the two drew her top over her head and discarded it to the floor. Her companion slid her hand upward and cupped one full breast. Emory watched the woman’s nipple bead into a diamond-hard point before her lover took it gently in her mouth and suckled. In a chair beside them, a man half reclined, a long neck bottle of beer in one hand and his erection in the other. His gaze was focused on the women before him as he slowly pumped his shaft.
Blood rushed from Emory’s extremities and culminated at a point between her legs. Her vision swam, and her heart raced until her own nipples were taut and painful against the fabric of her camisole, begging to be touched, to be pleasured by a skilled tongue. She waited for the black haze to bubble up inside of her, but the passion thrumming through her veins held it at bay.
“Sometimes watching can be as arousing as participating,” Alex murmured in a gravelly voice. “Though it isn’t nearly as satisfying as being watched.”
Something in the wryness of his tone pulled Emory’s eyes away from the scene playing out in the shadows to stare at the sexy bartender standing only a few feet away.
Alex leaned against the opposite counter. His pinstriped button-down shirt was open over the snug green cotton tee covering his muscular chest. Faded blue jeans dipped low across his belly, pulled lower by the thumbs he’d shoved through his belt loops. His button down fly bulged over a magnificent erection. It swelled larger beneath Emory’s frank appraisal until the fabric was straining to burst open.
His low chuckle raised the hairs on the back of her neck and released a gush of creamy fluid from her pussy. One tanned hand left his belt to rest on the bulge in his crotch. The black carbide ring adorning his middle finger gleamed in the overhead lights as he stroked himself, lightly teasing the area where the head of his cock was outlined against the worn fabric.
“Do you like to be watched?” She knew when the words passed her lips that she was insane for voicing them.
“That all depends on who’s enjoying the show.”
Emory’s mouth went dry when Alex pulled open the first button of his fly. The others followed with a muted popping noise. His shaft sprang free. The thatch of close-cropped hair at the base was golden, darker than the hair curling over his forehead.
She swallowed, trying and failing to gain back control of her nervous system. Her hands gripped the edge of the bar, the wood biting deeply into her palms as she watched Alex palm the hard length of his dick and pull it free of his jeans. It seemed to shiver and swell beneath the combined attention of his hand and her eyes, the dusky skin stretching until its length bobbed near his navel. Emory’s mouth watered and her spinning thoughts wondered idly what his sweet skin would taste like if she took all that hardness in her mouth.