Chapter One

Jude’s unfocused gaze zeroed in on the woman in the corner of the bar in an attempt to ignore his friend’s girlfriend currently trying to engage him.

She stared at her margarita, the fancy frozen drink in the fluffy glass, so out of place in this salt of the earth bar—just as out of place as she was. Everyone else in this bar were regulars of some sort, and she was far from the regular clientele. She was more suited to one of the more upscale places in town, designed for tourists, not the locals.

Because she clearly wasn’t from around here. She was untouched by the harsh weather of the mountainside, looking like she came from a place where the sun shone from a big sky, not someplace the sun was blotted out by the side of a mountain most of the time. She looked fresh faced and innocent, in her green wrap dress that fit her figure, the scarf draped tightly around her neck like it provided warmth. That was more evidence she wasn’t from around here. It was warm, compared to how it would feel in a month or two.

“Truth or dare, Jude?” Simone’s eyes sparkled as she looked across the table at Jude. He didn’t even try to hide the groan. Jude had known Simone his entire life, and now, looking at her in her designer fucking shoes and shit, he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why she was here. Simone was the type of girl who was never single, and her man always gave her something. Yeah, she led them around by the dick and was so good at it, they gave her the world. The guys she dated typically had money, a fuck ton of it, and he couldn’t figure out why she was with his buddy Joey, unless she wanted to suddenly take a walk on the wild side, pole-bunny style.

Jude looked to his buddy Joey for help. “Seriously? Tell her, man. I don’t do games.”

Joey’s face turned a disgusting mask of goo-goo when he looked at Simone and Jude knew it was pointless. Dude was pussy-whipped to the nth degree with this chick.

“Pick someone else,” Jude gestured to the table of people she could pick on. Besides him and Joey, Logan and Zane were there too, and they were single too. Why couldn’t she pick on them?

“I want to play with you, Jude,” she whined. Jude looked to Zane for help, but he was studiously ignoring them, focused on drinking and watching the bar. Logan wasn’t helping either. He ignored them all, a thunderous look on his face.

In fact, Simone was the only woman crashing guy’s night, and it sort of pissed Jude off. They used these times to decompress after a scene and her being here wasn’t helping with that. Especially if she wanted to play games.

“Truth,” Jude muttered, watching her sit up eagerly, her eyes turning mischievous in a heartbeat.

“Why won’t you go out with Everly again? You know she really wants to.” Simone wanted him to spill secrets he wasn’t willing to share with her. She was besties with his ex, and he wasn’t about to tell her he’d wanted to get deeper with Everly, to see if she was “the one” until Everly had made him a fucking project.

Jude pushed his chair back. “No way. This is stupid.” Two months, and Everly had tried to get him to meet her parents, start wearing khaki pants, and quit his job at the firehouse. That wasn’t even taking into account the god-awful neon yellow ‘snow-boarding’ suit she’d bought him. He shuddered.

“I’m not getting into that with you, Simone. You should really know better.”

Before she could go on, Katie, a gorgeous woman with bright red curls and a super tight dress walked by and ran her fingers over Logan’s shoulders. Logan jumped in his seat, spilling his drink in his lap, which had him cussing up a storm. Thankful for the shift in focus from him, Jude laughed as Katie grabbed a handful of napkins and started trying to clean up the liquor spilled all over his lap.

“It’s fine,” Logan practically growled at her.

“I’m really sorry, Logan,” Katie purred, still patting his crotch gently. Logan stilled her hands, and Jude could see his clenched jaw and temple ticking.

“Let. It. Go.”

Jude had been watching the two-step between these two for over a year, and wondered why Logan didn’t give in to the fiery red-head and fuck her like she clearly wanted him to. But Logan wasn’t one to go for the Pole Bunnies, as they liked to call the women who were after the firefighters, just because they were firefighters.

Although Jude had known Katie a long time, and she wasn’t one to go after all the firemen. She just seemed to want Logan. She was a nice girl, raising her little brother in their parents’ absence. And there was something between the two of them, whether Logan would admit it or not.

“It’s a game. Come on. If you don’t do the truth, you have to take the dare.” Simone crossed her arms in front of her chest in a self-satisfied manner, drawing Jude’s attention back to her. Fucking Everly. He wished he’d never started anything romantic with her, and the blame would be forever firmly placed on Simone for being her partner in manipulative crime.

“Then give me the fucking dare. I’m not getting into Everly with you to go back and tell her everything I said.” He took a sip of his whiskey and let the fiery liquid wash away the burn in his gut every time he thought of his ex. He hated that his feelings toward Everly had gone this way. Everly was a good person, deep down. Just not good girlfriend material. Not for him, anyway.

“Okay,” she pursed her lips in thought looking around. Seeing something she liked, Simone smiled a devilish grin. “I dare you to kiss any woman in this bar.”

Jude looked around, seeing what had made her smile. Fucking Everly was standing at the bar, watching him.

Right. Like he was going to kiss her on a fucking dare. Joey was muffling a laugh behind his hand, and not for the first time, he questioned his friend’s judgement for ever hooking up with Simone.

Turning back to Simone, he growled. “I’m not twelve years old. This is stupid.” Logan had extracted himself from Katie and excused himself to go to the restroom with a huge wet patch on his groin. So he looked to Zane for support.

“There are other women here, dude. You don’t have to kiss Everly,” Zane was leaning back in his seat, one foot crossed over his knee at the ankle, the perfect pose of relaxed masculinity. If he did this dare, he’d come up with something to make the dude wholly uncomfortable. Just because they encouraged this stupid childish game.

“Come on, man,” Joey chuckled. “Just do it.”

Jude’s eyes roamed the dimly lit bar once more, as he got ready to just go home. If this was what the company was going to act like, he could just drink whiskey at home.

But his eyes fell back to the stunning blonde, sitting at a table in the corner, sipping her margarita. She wore a green sweater dress and black boots, and had her hair pulled back in a side braid, begging to be wrapped around his hand, soft tendrils framing her face. But what struck Jude was her mouth. It was wide and full and totally kissable.

As he watched her, the woman’s eyes flitted around the bar and landed on him, widening slightly. Grinning, Jude tossed the rest of his drink back and slid out of his chair.

“I’m on it.”

He heard Zane mutter something about getting it but Jude didn’t hear. Suddenly, he was a man on a mission. Everly was watching, and Simone would hopefully get out of their business if he could show them another woman would do just as well.

Jude moved closer, and she fidgeted in her seat, as if she knew she was prey in his sites. Her dress accentuated every curve on her exquisite body, and the closer he got, Jude saw freckles smattered across her nose. She definitely came from big sky country. Montana maybe. Or Texas. It lent the sophisticated woman an air of innocence, and his cock hardened as he stopped in front of her.

Maybe she would do even better than just a kiss.

“Hi,” he began. “I have a favor to ask.”

She raised her eyebrows and smiled vaguely, exposing a tiny gap in her teeth which only made her more attractive with the tiny imperfection.

“I’m here with my friends, and one of their girlfriends is trying to mess with me. I was about to leave when she dared me to kiss a woman here. And then I saw you.” Her brows knit in confusion, but he saw the pulse in her neck pick up speed. When she absently licked her lips, he sat next to her. “Let me kiss you to get them off my back, then I’ll buy you a drink and walk away.”

She took a deep breath, but didn’t say anything. Her eyes searched his face, landing on his lips, then going back to his eyes, probably gauging his honesty.

“I promise I’m not playing with you. Look over there.”

Jude turned his head to follow her eyes as she looked over his shoulder at his friends. Joey raised his drink with a goofy smile on his face and Simone narrowed her eyes on a huff. Zane just watched over the rim of his drink, a twinkle in his eyes. Logan was still nowhere to be found. Jude sighed.

“See?” He turned back to her to find her watching him intently. “So, what do you say? May I kiss you? You don’t have to see me again, promise.” It occurred to him maybe that was a deal breaker for her, but he wasn’t really willing to make promises he didn’t plan on keeping just for a stupid game.

But as he watched her decide, he got a little lost in her big green eyes, the color of frosty sage leaves after a morning dew. “You have gorgeous eyes. I bet men tell you that all the time.”

She snapped out of her trance. “Thank you. Yes.” Her voice was low and husky, sending a shock of lust straight to his balls.

He rested his hand on her leg, the desire to touch those soft curves over-riding all common sense. “Yes, what? Guys say that a lot?”

Her smile widened, and Jude lost all the air in his lungs. God, she was breathtaking. “Yes, you can kiss me.”

Jude smiled, as he scooted his chair closer to her. He was about to kiss a random stranger in a bar on a dare, but as he gripped her braid and brought her face closer to his, he didn’t give a flying fuck. He wanted to taste those glistening lips. STAT.

He closed his eyes as he brushed his lips across hers, and then sensations took over everything. Warmth, softness, her subtle floral scent, her fingers trailing up his chest and winding around his neck, the tiny gasp she expelled. Something foreign and totally feral welled up inside him and roared approval.

More.

Jude’s teeth nipped at her top lip, willing them to grant him admittance. She hesitated, but he moved his hand around to grip the nape of her neck and tilted her head, his other hand sliding to her back to pull her into his arms, and she finally relaxed, opening her mouth on a soft sigh.

It was as if he’d been granted entrance to heaven. Jude deepened the kiss, the untamed beast inside him purring its triumph. He hauled her closer, feeling the press of her nipples against his chest. This kiss was quickly changing everything he’d ever known about kissing, as she branded him with a searing heat that sent a shock of pure unadulterated lust straight to his balls.

Her hot little tongue was rocking his world, sending Jude to places he’d never been as he completely lost track of his surroundings. Her fingers were twined in the hair at the base of his neck, tugging on it, sending sharp needles of sensation coursing through his veins.

He let out a noise from the back of his throat that sounded an awful lot like a possessive growl. He wanted this woman naked. Yesterday.

Breaking the kiss, he leaned his forehead on hers, desperate to regain a semblance of reality. As he looked into her eyes, he noticed she looked every bit as undone as he felt.

“What’s your name?” His voice was unrecognizable to himself, hoarse and gritty, and he swallowed the thick bundle of desire lodged in his throat.

“Annette,” she whispered, her eyes roaming his face, landing on his lips as if she didn’t believe what had just happened. She was just as affected as he was. Annette. An elegant name for an elegant woman. Her fingers clutched the stem of her margarita glass nervously. She was probably out of his league, a woman like Everly, who liked things a certain way, her men to be a certain status. That’s what her name said. But her skin spoke of sunshine, the freckles a carefree naiveté that sang to him of walks on the mountainside and nights by the fire.

“You want to get out of here?” He forced his hands to stay still, but they twitched, wanting badly to roam the landscape of her body.

“I’m supposed to be meeting someone,” she whispered so he barely heard her.

“Boyfriend?” He leaned back a bit. If she was taken, he’d kick himself for poaching another man’s territory. But if she was taken, why hadn’t she said something?

But she shook her head. “No, business acquaintance.”

“Can I get your number then? I’d like to see you again.” He’d be damned if he was leaving here without a way of contacting her. But she shook her head again and he deflated a little inside.

“Give me yours.” Her low voice spurred him on. Jude grabbed her cell phone, sitting on the table in front of her, and put in his number.

“You’ll call me?”

“You said you’d buy me a drink and leave.” Her hands twisted in front of her, showing her discomfort. He’d thought they were beyond that.

Hurt, without understanding why, he nodded. Hadn’t she felt the spark? Did her world not just change in the instant their lips had touched? As he watched her look pointedly at her lap, avoiding him, he realized she probably wouldn’t call. She was classy. A lady who probably didn’t do one-night stands.

Sure. This was a great idea. He got Simone off his back by kissing her, he’d buy her a drink, and go home. He didn’t want any more games tonight.

Jude affected a rough timbre to his voice to mask his frustration. “Fine.” Not completely understanding why he was so pissed, he prowled over to the bar, ordered her another margarita, and stalked out the door. He was done with tonight.