"All good, I promise."
"What did you hear?"
"You've got a lot of fans," she said with a smile. "Of the female variety."
"I don't know about that."
I tried to keep to myself and ignore a lot of the attention younger women throw my way. But I could have gone on for days about how doing the right thing hadn't always panned out the way I'd hoped. Didn't keep my mom around. Or Sarah.
I decided against opening up, though. I barely knew this girl, and the last thing I wanted was to bare my soul to a sexy stranger passing through. A subject change was needed.
"So . . . how exactly did you end up here?"
"Long story," she said with a sigh.
"I've got no place to be."
"Well . . ."
I could see her hesitation in revealing her reasons, which only made me want to know more.
"I'm on my way to LA," she finally said. "I'm moving in with a friend."
"Boyfriend? Girlfriend?"
"A girl that's a friend. Valentina."
"Okay." I could hear the relief in my own voice. "New York girl moves to LA. That's a big move. You running from something?"
"The law," she said plainly, causing me to nearly choke on the water I'd just drank.
"Seriously?"
Her lips twitched. "I shot a man in Reno."
When I realized she was yanking my chain, I was relieved and more than a little turned on by the girl's wit. New Yorkers were pegged as being street smart, but this one didn't miss a beat, so I played along.
"Just to watch him die?"
"You know my story?" She chuckled, and I laughed along with her.
"I'm familiar. Johnny Cash is a favorite around here. I'm surprised you know who he is."
She grinned. "Even New York isn't immune to a little country charm."
That's what I was hoping. She wanted country charm, and I had it in spades. Hell, truckloads. I'd turn it up and get exactly what I wanted from her.
"I just need a fresh start," she said, confessing as much as I thought I was going to get out of her that night.
Whatever she was leaving behind in New York wasn't something she was ready to talk about, which was fine by me. When I'd walked over here, I was aiming for simple and easy. Too much talk of the past might lead someplace I didn't think either of us were looking to end up.
"Fresh starts are good. I've needed a couple in my life." The urge to clear up the bad blood between us was weighing on me. Seemed like as good a time as any. "Maybe we get one? I might not have made the best first impression."
"Me either," she admitted. "I was a jerk too. I promise I'm not a complete asshole."
"Same here. All is forgiven."
The truth was, seeing her sitting there with her kissable lips and a look of vulnerability that I hadn't seen from her yet, I would have pardoned her for actually shooting a man in Reno.
"To fresh starts," she said, raising her glass of water.
"To fresh starts." I nodded and clinked my glass against hers, grinning back at her. "So, about what you mentioned yesterday, a marketing degree from Yale."
"What about it?"
"Any chance I could convince you to use it to help me out?"
The cutest little line formed between her brows as she processed what I was saying.
"See, I've got this fantastic whiskey that needs selling, and I'm about as useless as tits on a nun when it comes to social media and all that shit."
She giggled. "Are you asking me to help you market your whiskey, Luke?"
"Yes."
"What's in it for me?"
"What do you want?" I teased, letting our stare linger for a few seconds. I would have given my left arm for her to say something along the lines of I want you to fuck my brains out. Especially when she ran the tip of her tongue over her lips as she thought.
"What do you have to offer?" she said, shifting a little in her seat.
As much as she was getting to me, I could see that she was feeling it too. The sexual tension. The heat. The chemistry. It was undeniable.
"I can think of a few things." I rested my forearms on the table and leaned closer. The sweet smell of her expensive perfume was intoxicating.
"Well . . ." She leaned forward, mirroring my position, and it took a lot of willpower not to toss the table between us across the room. "I can think of one thing," she said softly, drawing me in even more. "I'd really like that car part you said your buddy could ship from Austin."
"You got it," I mustered up, drowning out the lust that was about to rip me in two. Never in my life had a woman riled me up the way this one did. My dick was so hard, I could have used it to pound nails, and all we'd done was sit here and talk tonight.