The openness that had been in Felicia’s face just a moment before disappears and the shutters come down on her eyes. “Fair warning.” She huffs the words out, throwing them down more like a challenge than a caution. She grabs the tray, sauntering over towards the men playing pool and Melissa watches her go, wondering what the hell that was all about.
Melissa observes as Felicia hands out the drinks to the men around the pool table, paying particular attention to the supremely cute guy Melissa had seen when she walked in. They’re engaged in conversation and it gives Melissa the chance to get a good look at him. He leans lazily on his pool cue and he really seems to know how to work the whole tall, dark, and handsome thing.
They’re familiar with each other, standing close and looking intimate. He reaches out and takes hold of her chin, looking straight into her eyes as he says something and she nods tiredly as if he’s telling her something that she already knows. Melissa feels a pang of jealousy as she watches them and it catches her completely off-guard, making her wonder where it’s come from. Sure, he’s cute but she hasn’t even spoken to him. She doesn’t have any grounds to be jealous of whatever his relationship is with Felicia.
All of a sudden, as if the couple has sensed Melissa staring, they both look up at her, in unison and Melissa holds her breath as her eyes lock with his. Even from this distance she can see his eyes are so dark they’re almost black and the thought that she could fall into eyes like that skitters across her mind before she pulls herself together and forces herself to break the stare. She can feel her heartbeat speed up and it’s so loud in her own ears she can’t believe no one else can hear it.
Matt is giving her a look, as if he has just watched the scene play out and he knows exactly what’s going on in her mind. The thought of that makes her blush.
“I’ll take another one, thanks.” She raises her empty beer bottle towards him, wondering how she’d drunk it so quickly without even realizing. Matt nods and shrugs at her as if to say ‘whatever.’
“This one’s on me.” The voice comes from behind Melissa, a middle-aged guy in a crumpled suit who looks like he’s hiding from his wife. After the encounter with her boss today, it was easy to recognize the type.
“That’s all right. I’m good.” Melissa holds up her hand in thanks to the man, not wanting to offend him but also not wanting to give him the wrong idea by accepting a drink. He clearly wasn’t part of the Caged Kings. Lord only knows how he’d found his way into Durangos.
But he doesn’t seem to be willing to take no for an answer. He slips off of his stool and sidles over to her. He’s not tall, but she’s forced to look up at him from her seated position. He leans close enough for her to smell the booze on his breath. But it’s not only coming from his breath, it oozes off of his skin, like he’s just topping up whatever he’s been consuming for the past few days.
“Come on, beautiful. Let me buy you a drink.” He leers at her, looking at her long legs that the hot pants do nothing to hide.
Anxious not to cause a scene, Melissa decides that sometimes the path of least resistance is the best bet. “Thanks, that’s nice of you.” She smiles at him winningly and leans back, away from him a little, hoping the hint is enough for him to give her some space. But, if anything, he gets even closer to her.
Matt deposits the bottle in front of her and looks like he wants to say something, but he’s called over to the far end of the bar by another punter.
“So, what’s your name, beautiful?” Drunk Suit Guy leans towards her as she tries to maneuver herself farther away from him.
“Melissa.” She blurts out her real name before she can think of a fake one and curses herself for not having decided on one before she’d come to the bar.
“Melissa, that’s a beautiful name.” He leers at her and Melissa tries to shuffle backwards on her stool. “How much?”
For a second, Melissa wonders if she’s misheard him. “How much for what?” She looks at him completely confused and watches as frustration flickers across his face.
“Well, what do you do?” He smiles greedily at her again and alarm bells start ringing in her head.
“Sorry, but I think you’re a little drunk. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She shifts uncomfortably in her seat, looking in the opposite direction and hoping that he’ll just take the hint and leave her alone.
He grabs her hand and her head snaps back towards his. “What’s the matter? My money isn’t good enough for you? I didn’t think girls like you were that picky.”
Melissa looks at his hand clutching her wrist and it suddenly dawns on her what this is all about. He thinks she’s a hooker. She fits the pieces together – the bartender asking if she was a little young for this, Felicia’s warning about the men in the bar – it all makes sense now. She looks down at herself in her leather get-up and realizes that a hooker is probably exactly what she looks like.
“Let go of my hand.” Her voice is low but strong despite the nerves in her stomach. “I’m not whatever it is that you think I am. I’m just having a nice quiet drink. So why don’t you let go of me and go back to your seat? You don’t want to do something you’ll just have to lie to your wife about.” She looks pointedly at his gold wedding band.
Melissa watches as his expression changes from irritation to pure anger. The alcohol in his system has kicked in and it’s heightening all his emotions. Melissa has seen more than one bar fight break out amongst inebriated frat boys at college to know the score.
“Don’t you dare talk about my wife!” His hand tightens its grip on her wrist and she winces involuntarily. “What’s the matter? You think you’re too good for me? My money’s as green as the next guy’s, honey. So cut the crap and let’s get out of here.” He jerks her arm, pulling her off her stool and the alarm bells in her head get even louder. He’s a big guy but soft from too many years on the road eating junk food and drinking himself into an early grave.
She thinks about not drawing attention to herself, her intention had been to go under the radar. She thinks about what Clay has always told her in his class – not to react, not to think that she’s invincible, that the best defense was to run in the other direction. Clay almost never advocated violence, but he admitted that there were some exceptions, especially for a woman. She figures that this is one of those times. Decision made, her brain kicks into autopilot and she plants her feet solidly, silently cursing her too-big boots.
Drunk Suit Guy gives her arm another yank, trying to pull her towards the exit and she explodes into action. Her left leg kicks out, landing on the side of his knee, making it buckle and pushing him off balance. At the same time, she delivers a knife hand strike to the side of his neck, enough to stun him but not enough to cause any permanent damage. He lands on his ass with a thud, looking up at Melissa as if she’d tricked him.
He goes to stand and Melissa doesn’t even have time to plan her next move when she’s aware of a steadying hand on her shoulder. She turns her head and sees the hot guy from the pool table next to her, looking down at Drunk Suit Guy on the floor and shaking his head.
“Stay down.” His voice is a growl and it does strange things to her stomach.
Drunk Suit Guy seems to take him at his word, freezing mid-crouch.
He turns his attention to Melissa, giving her an appraising look with eyes that are even darker than she had thought. “You all right?”
Melissa nods slowly, not trusting her voice not to come out as a squeak. What was wrong with her? It wasn’t like she’d never seen a good-looking guy before and they’d never reduced her to a mute.
“That was a pretty impressive move.” He looks at her admiringly and Melissa feels her heart flutter in her chest.
But before she can answer, she catches movement in the corner of her eye as Drunk Suit Guy straightens up, probably figuring that now was the best time to make his move with them both distracted. Melissa tenses, but not quickly enough. He reaches out to grab her again, the anger in his eyes plain for anyone to see and she takes a step back just as Hot Pool-playing Guy inserts himself between the two of them. He lets a lightning punch fly, hitting the suit right in the nose.
Melissa watches with a small amount of satisfaction as blood starts spurting from his nose. “You broke my nose, you fuck!” He clutches at his nose, looking at them both, outraged as if they were the ones that had started the fight.
“I’ll break more than that if you don’t get out of here right now.” The deep voice from the specimen in front of her gives Melissa a little thrill and she watches as his broad shoulders stiffen, his hands clenching, ready for action.
“Who are you? Her pimp?” Suit Guy spits the words out and Melissa feels herself blush at the outright accusation.
“Who am I? I’m the guy who’s going to kick your ass if you don’t get out of here.” He doesn’t even give Suit Guy a chance to respond before he grabs him by the lapels of his sad suit and half hustles, half drags him towards the exit, virtually throwing him out of the doors.
Melissa looks around and the other men in the bar barely even seem to have registered what has just gone down. They must be pretty accustomed to seeing fights, she reasons to herself. The doors swing open again and Hot Guy walks through, looking grim and holding a wallet.
“How much he owe you, Matt?” He starts pulling out bills before the bartender answers.
“Twenty even, Hawk.” Matt doesn’t even miss a beat, taking the money and pocketing it before the other man disappears out of the door again, returning a few seconds later without the wallet.
He walks right up to Melissa and motions towards her beer that must have been knocked over at some point in the struggle. “Can I get you another?” Melissa still hasn’t quite recovered the power of speech and he seems to take her silence as assent, motioning towards Matt for two more beers.
She realizes that soon he’s going to start wondering if she was actually capable of speaking. “Thanks…for getting rid of that creep.”
Hawk shrugs as if to say it was no big deal. “You looked like you were doing pretty well before I showed up.” He levels her with that admiring look of his and she has to break eye contact before he renders her mute again. Damn, but the man was handsome. Handsome in the kind of movie star smoldering way you don’t really believe exists in real life.
She hides her smile of satisfaction that he’d noticed she wasn’t just some damsel in distress. “I do okay.” She shrugs like she gets into fights all the time when the truth is that she can only count on one hand the number of times she’s actually had to use any of her karate in the outside world.
He nods to Matt as the bartender places their drinks down in front of them before moving off to take another order. It’s clear he’s a friend; he doesn’t seem to have any issues with the scuffle that just went down in his place.
“Haven’t seen you around here before.” It’s a throwaway comment but Melissa gets the feeling from the way Hawk’s eyes never seem to rest on one thing for too long that he doesn’t miss much.
“Haven’t been ‘round here before.” She takes a swig of her beer, noticing he has dimples when he smiles.
“You always talk this much?” He raises a questioning eyebrow at her and she laughs out loud at his joke.
“Only after a bar brawl.”