I WATCH HER MOVE ABOUT the room not for the first time. My regular spot at the bar affording me the perfect view of the entire place.
The perfect view of her.
My eyes haven’t left her since I walked in.
Like a predator stalking its prey, my eyes zeroed in on her as soon as I walked through the door.
It doesn’t matter that I saw her mere hours ago at lunch, after tracking her and my sister down at the mall. I have a feeling I could see her every minute of every day, yet still want to hunt her down the second she’s out of my sight.
I’ll never get my fill. I know it.
So now I sit here and continue to watch her like I do most days and nights since she arrived into town—whenever I can get away from the shop when I know she’s working. Waiting as patiently as I can until I can find the time to finish the conversation we started earlier at lunch.
I watch the way she moves. How her lean yet stacked frame sways and rolls and glides along the beat-up wooden floors.
I watch the way she smiles kindly to each patron. Paying attention to every order, every word any of them says. And how her pale green eyes constantly take in her surroundings.
I watch the way the dim overhead lights cast what looks like a halo around her honey-brown hair. Making her look like the angel she is. And the way it causes her golden skin to glisten.
All that perfect, fucking flawlessly beautiful, unmarked skin.
I can’t help but fixate on it. Exposed from the short as fuck, light denim shorts and In Ruins tank top she’s sporting.
I take in every bare inch of her legs and arms and sliver of stomach that’s showing between her shorts and tank. Unmarked and so perfect and can’t help but imagine my mark on her.
In ink from my gun and in pink from my hand.
My jeans become even tighter if that’s possible. The constant hard-on I have when I’m around her growing by the second as my thoughts run wild with what I could do to her—in my chair and in my bed.
I imagine my inked and calloused hands running along the expanse of flawless, golden skin. Goosebumps rising in their wake. Marking her in ways she never imagined.
She walks by me then, taking me from my thoughts as she heads out back, and I can’t help but follow her.
My eyes zeroed in on her ass.
My dick still fucking raging.
My heart fucking pounding. Just for her.
She hasn’t given me the time of day since she waltzed her gorgeous ass into my life just a short week ago. She’s cordial and polite, her cheeks staining red whenever I’m around, but any advances I make, no matter how big or small, she shoots me down.
Much to Gus’s, Nash’s, and my sister’s enjoyment.
But I’ll wear her down. I have to.
Because I have to fucking have her.
And I don’t just mean for one night. I mean to keep.
Because ever since I walked through In Ruins and saw her standing there, my world shifted, my life altered, and I knew right then and there all the bullshit of my past was meant to bring me to that moment. To her.
Call me a pussy, I don’t give a shit, because it’s true.
That woman…she’s meant for me.
And I’m gonna make her mine.
I sense him come up behind me even before I feel him at my back.
I’ve felt him all night. His eyes tracking my every move across the bar, even as I made my way out back to grab a couple bottles we’re running low on. I could feel him tracking me.
It’s unnerving—unsettling—but not because he won’t stop staring.
It’s because of how his eyes on me makes me feel. How my skin feels alight and my heart beats harder. That familiar feeling I always get before I fall.
But with him, with Rhett, it’s multiplied by a million. Like a zillion butterflies take flight in my belly.
This wasn’t supposed to happen. I moved to get away from this…this trap I always fall in.
“Kennedy.” I hear before rough-padded fingers trail down my left arm. From shoulder to elbow.
The small touch igniting my soul.
“Angel.”
I shiver. He sees it. I can tell from his quick inhale even with my back to him.
Swallowing thickly, I slowly turn to him. Trying to mask any other reaction to him. Defending myself against the arsenal he threatens me with. Good looks and charm and artful tattoos covering every inch I can see.
Steeling my resolve to keep my distance as originally planned, I lift my chin and ask, “Did you need something?”
I don’t bother telling him he shouldn’t be back here. From what I heard from Saylor, Rhett used to work here in high school when Gus helped them out and then as an adult until he saved enough to start his tattoo shop. So even though he’s no longer employed here, he’s family to Gus.
He clears his throat after his eyes move down my body and up again.
“Wanted to finish that talk we were having earlier.”
“Now?” I ask, practically sputtering out the word.
“No time like the present.” His reply matter of fact.
“But I’m working,” I say lamely. Hoping to get out of this.
“I think you’re due for your break any minute.”
Dammit. How does he know my schedule already?
“Okay…” My tone slightly breathless and a whole lot reluctant. “Fine.” I blow out a deep breath. “What did you want to finish talking about?”
He cuts right to the chase. “Go out with me.”
He never asks, but he doesn’t demand either. Just puts it out there for me to take.
And just like every other time before now, I shake my head and tell him, “No.”
Then I ask what I’ve been dying to ask since the very first time those words passed his lips. “Why do you want to take me out so badly?”
Because why does he? No one else ever has. I’ve always been hidden away in the shadows. A dirty little secret. Even when I was a teenager, boys didn’t take me out. They didn’t date me. They pursued me, took what they wanted, then left me out to dry.
And I let them.
Every. Single. Time.
That didn’t change as I got older and the boys turned to men. I just let them take, take, take without a second thought. Because that’s all I was good for.
And I was hoping one day, one would finally stay.
He stands taller at my quiet question, if it’s even possible. Shoulders back, chest proud, eyes right on me. Pushing to convey everything he’s feeling. I can see it swirling in his dark irises. “Why wouldn’t I?” His tone full of a whole lot of confusion.
His deep-rumbled words are so simple. But carry so much. My heart starts galloping fiercely. Wanting, wanting, wanting.
But I swallow it down while he continues. “Never felt this before, Kennedy. This pull. This want. And you’re making me want, angel. Desperately.”
Rhett makes it sound real. Believable. That he could really want me. Me. Not my looks, but me.
Except I know better.
“Pretty words, Rhett.”
“They’re the truth,” he states clearly. Each syllable punching the air as he enunciates every word.
“Heard them all before.” But I hadn’t. Not like that, not with such conviction. But I can’t lay my heart out there. Not again.
If I thought I’d been broken before, I know he’d demolish me.
Even worse than him.
A low growl rumbles between us. “Don’t wanna think of anyone with you but me, angel. Fucking kills me.” His fists clench at his sides. Agitation clear on his oh so handsome face.
He’d die a thousand deaths then if he knew just how many others there have been.
And the man that started my downfall.
I swallow back the slow-rising shame that thought raises and tell him just that.
Might as well kill him now.
“Then you may want to throw yourself down now, because there’s a long line before you, Rhett. And they all had pretty words and promising lies. But they were just that, lies….”
I don’t give him a chance to respond to that or to finish that talk we started. Not wanting to allow him the chance to make me falter any more than he already has. With steel in my spine and my heart in my throat, I slide passed him—trying not to touch—and get back to work. Forgetting the bottles I had gone back for.
I hear a slight growl echo off the walls behind me, before heavy-booted footsteps follow my path to the bar.
He veers to his stool, downing the rest of his beer as Saylor places another in front of him, concern marring her pretty face, while I make my way from table to table to check on drinks and orders.
I smile and laugh when appropriate, keeping up small talk if needed, but my mind and heart aren’t in it.
They’re still in the back room with Rhett.
As the night wears on, I’m finishing wiping down a table in my section when I hear his deep voice.
“Not interested.” Rhett’s tone is just that, uninterested. Detached. Flat.
He sounds preoccupied, and when I turn around, I see he’s staring right at me. Despite the Amazonian woman standing next to him with her long black hair, flawless tan skin, and perfectly-proportioned body.
His eyes stay on me while she rubs up against him, her breasts pressed against his upper arm from his position at the bar. Her face inching closer and closer to the side of his.
My heart starts to ache with an unsettling feeling of longing and jealousy.
Something I have no right to feel since I have no claim. But you can’t tell my heart that.
Plus, Rhett’s come in during every shift I’ve worked since I started a week ago, making it known that’s he’s after what he wants. And what he wants is me.
Apparently this girl didn’t get the memo.
It doesn’t matter anyway though. Because like I said, I have no claim, and I’ve made it known that I’m not there right now. I don’t think I will be for a long while.
But going by the butterflies whirring and fluttering all wild and crazy due to his deep brown eyes raking me over, I’d say my heart didn’t get the memo either.
As the Amazonian starts to run her fingers through his hair, taking advantage of his distraction, I can’t take it a second longer and turn to get another table’s order.
As I do, I hear him growl, “Don’t fucking touch me.”
That ache settles a bit knowing he doesn’t welcome or want her advances. From what I’ve heard, the old Rhett would have lapped it up—the attention and her.
But this Rhett…this Rhett is the man that Saylor promises he really is. The one that Rhett himself has been trying to show me all along now.
The one that I’m finding harder and harder to resist despite the reminders I keep giving myself. There’s just something about him that sets him apart from the dozens of other men who’ve come and gone.
Something my heart longs for, my body craves, and my soul calls out to.