12

PICK

Sarah Jo, me, and a Saturday night. If I want to be more than her midnight hook up, I need to make a move. And this way I get a two-for-one. I show her a good time, treat her like a queen, and let the whole world—my world—see that we’re together and not just making my RV rock. This is the civilized version of jizzing on her tits and inviting everyone to look at what I’ve done. When I pull my bike into the parking lot of Drink Up, I’m congratulating myself on my genius. Since I picked Sarah Jo up at her place and we rode here together, I’ve had her arms wrapped around me, hugging me. Holding me close. For fucking miles.

Tell me that’s not genius.

She pops off my bike, balancing herself with a hand on my shoulder as she shucks the helmet I bought for her. I like the way she leans on me, the way she’s letting me take care of her. Not like she can’t do for herself, but it’s that caveman of mine. He wants to beat his chest, bring down a mastodon, and BBQ its ass for her.

She grins at me. “It’s not the titty bar. You think you’ll survive?”

Fuck, I love the way she laughs, the giggle-snort that starts somewhere near her belly and just flies out her mouth. And I love that we’re starting to have couple jokes, a history. Pretty soon I’ll fucking be calling her bunny and I’ll be a boo.

“I’m taking a rain check,” I say, saluting her.

She laughs and tugs on my hand. “Come on, or your friends will drink the place dry.”

It’s a distinct possibility. Drink Up is beery, dark, and absolutely rocking. The décor is mostly neon beer sign and dust, with a side of old, bad paneling and vinyl seating. Some of my boys are already doing the conga on the small dance floor, shaking their asses to the country music belting out of the antiquated jukebox. I hacked that shit once, made it play Handel’s Messiah at top volume. Colt and I waltzed. It was an epic night, but I sense tonight will be even better.

“Beer?” I grin at my soon-to-be-girl. This hotshot has a plan.

She beams back at me. “And if I say no?”

“Got water. Might have pop.” I drop a kiss on her nose and amble toward the bar. Drink Up is famous (or notorious) for its lack of variety. Your choices are beer—or beer. Regular or light. On a good day, it comes in a bottle.

“Beer,” she says mock-solemnly. “Would be lovely.”

Sarah Jo tags along behind me, her fingers tucked into the back of my belt. Her fingertips brush the sensitive spot at the top of my ass, and I think she knows exactly what she’s doing to me. She keeps it up, I’m gonna ink her name right there.

Lola’s already present, holding court in a corner booth. She alternates between shouting with laughter and working her phone. Think she must have misplaced Hunter because he’s just about the only hotshot not here. By the time I have our beers, Olivia’s dragged Lola out onto the dance floor. Lola’s skirt is so short that I’m ready to take bets on a wardrobe malfunction.

Sarah Jo’s a little more covered up, which shouldn’t surprise anyone. In deference to the whole Saturday-night and ride-on-my-bike thing, she’s wriggled into a pair of jeans that hug her ass and her legs before flaring out around her ankles into some kind of embroidered thing that almost cover her cowboy boots. The top probably has some kind of name, but let’s just call it gorgeous. It ties around her neck and then skims her tits before flaring out like a tent or a pretty white cloud or some poetic shit. When she moves, she flashes me hints of her stomach and waist, so I’m definitely a fan. I sit myself down in a corner booth and pull her onto my lap. This way I can hold her close and make room for other people. I’m a total fucking Boy Scout.

Out on the floor, Lola launches into a wild, arm-swinging, hip-rocking dance. Her ponytail threatens a couple of nearby hotshots with whiplash, but she looks happy. Her short denim skirt bounces up and down, the ruffles on her red-and-white polka dot blouse taking flight. It’s fucking mesmerizing.

“You need a shirt like that.” The din in Drink Up has achieved deafening levels, so I whisper the words into her ear because communication’s important in a relationship. As punctuation on that sentence, I nip her ear. Gently because my caveman’s still out in the parking lot. Don’t worry. He’ll catch up.

A grin lights up Sarah Jo’s face. “You like it?”

“Yours is better.”

That goes for everything about Sarah Jo. Fucking lucky Hunter didn’t figure that out for himself and try to take my girl. Sarah Jo wriggles around on my lap like she’s trying to get comfortable. Probably should lend her a hand since it’s my dick that’s spearing her in the ass in an excellent imitation of an iron bar. On the other hand, since it’s her fault that I’m currently in this condition…

She wriggles some more and I bite back a groan.

“Is that for me?”

“Always.”

I mean it too.

All these feelings are new. They distract me. And that is why I don’t realize that Sarah Jo’s up to something until her hand squeezes my dick through my jeans.

“I don’t like to share,” she says as if we’re talking about a beer or an order of fries.

“There’s plenty of me to go around.” She squeezes, her hand working dirty, dirty magic on me, and I growl. “But no sharing.”

“All mine.” A smile curves her mouth. She twists her head so she can see my face, and I can’t stop touching her, too. I’m running my hands up her thighs, over her waist, just barely staying out of triple-X filthy territory. Sarah Jo’s spent the summer hiding in plain sight, so I don’t think she wants to get arrested for public indecency now.

She cups the back of my head with one hand, shutting me up with her mouth. And I’m not complaining. I kiss her back, my hands going wild, pulling her closer, tugging at every dirty, fabulous, amazing inch of my Sarah Jo. Fucking gonna come in a corner booth at a dive bar, and I love it. I love…

Nope. Not going there.

A whoop from the dance floor breaks up our kiss. Sarah Jo jumps like she’s forgotten we’re not alone in bed. She instinctively turns her attention back to the dance floor, and I watch with her.

Buttoned up, starchy, rule-following Olivia shocks the heck out of me. Pretty sure she also gives the bar a collective heart attack as she launches into a slow, dirty grind, working her ass in her neat pencil skirt. When she drags her fingers down the front of her blouse, tongues start hanging out. She’s gorgeous and happy and ten bucks says one of my teammates makes a move on her tonight.

Sarah Jo bounces off my lap with enough vigor that I grunt. I’ve got plans for my balls and my dick later tonight, but she’s oblivious to using them as a launching pad. I’ll let her kiss everything better when we’re alone.

She’s practically vibrating. “Dance with me.”

I’m built like a bear, not Baryshnikov. I glance around the bar, taking in the guys crowding the space. Most of them are a little rough around the edges, a jeans-wearing, T-shirt-sporting crew. A lot of them are built because you don’t dig line for eight hours a day and not gain muscle. A few are wearing shirts with actual buttons and something besides steel-toed boots. Fucking Colt looks like Mr. GQ in something that even I know cost the sun, moon, and a half-dozen pricey constellations. The man is not a cheap date.

None of us, however, are wearing tutus. Or dancing shoes.

“I don’t dance.” I hang onto my beer like it’s gonna anchor me to our booth. “Come back over here and let me kiss you some more.”

I watch as she makes this twisty-face with her mouth, thinking about my offer. The jukebox segues into something slow and extra achy-breaky-heartish and the dance floor rapidly empties out except for Lola and Olivia semi-groping and grinding. Colt commandeers the waitress; Adrian produces a little blonde from somewhere and they start making tidy, awkward circles in place on the dance floor.

“Dance,” Sarah Jo decides. She waggles her fingers at me.

I look down. I’m still not wearing a tutu.

I can’t remember the last time I danced for anything other than a joke. My waltz with Colt, a drunken conga line with my boys—these things were just for fun and some laughs. It’s not that I don’t fucking love music or that I mind getting up in front of a crowd; it’s that my body never got the rhythm memo. I can’t dance for shit.

“I don’t dance,” I repeat.

Sarah Jo tugs the empty beer out of my hand and sets it on the table. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Both,” I grumble.

She waves her hand in the air. “You don’t have to be good at it. Just look at Lola.”

Lola has tits to distract the rest of the bar, plus I don’t really care what she thinks. Sarah Jo is different. I’d rather not make a public display of my inadequacies.

But she’s sneaking wistful looks at the dance floor and the song has to be half fucking over, right? If she wants to do this, I’ll just have to man up and hope it doesn’t go too badly.

“Come on.” I stand up, grabbing her hand and towing her after me. She doesn’t hesitate. She follows my lead, and I find myself pressed against her curvy body as we gyrate stiffly in place. I have no idea what she thought we’d do out here, but I wrap my arms around her loosely, tucking my hands on the top of her ass, and breathe her in. She smells so fucking good, like a strawberry Sarah Jo piña colada, and I’m buzzing on just her. Doesn’t help my dancing any, but I like it.

Sarah Jo slides her arms around me, her fingertips toying with the hem of my T-shirt and making little raids on the skin beneath. My only plan was to get her out here and make her happy. She rests her head against my chest, exhales, and then she just kind of melts into the music. She’s fucking gorgeous, swaying, and dipping, and lighting up the floor. Me? Not so much. I step awkwardly from foot to foot like some kind of bear-loon hybrid. Colt actually winces as he slowly two-steps around us.

Fuck that noise. Because Sarah Jo’s smiling at me, happiness and amusement lighting up her eyes, and I don’t think she minds that I’m shit in the dancing department. She moves her hips slowly to the music, her top bouncing and floating and generally driving me crazy because I know how easy it would be to get my hands underneath it again and pet her tits more.

This is when Hunter shows up and sets off a cataclysmic chain reaction. Lola spots him, her face lighting up.

Sarah Jo shifts nervously. “I think I need to stage an intervention.”

But it’s too late.

Lola’s pretty fucking unstoppable. Under other circumstances, she’d make an awesome hotshot. She heads straight for Hunter, breaking stride just once to grab a beer from the tray of a passing waitress. Maybe she’s thirsty? Fuck if I know what she’s doing. Lola chugs her stolen booty and tears off the tab. Her belch is loud enough that I hear it over all of the goddamned country music. And then she rubs the stupid purple rabbit’s foot hanging off her purse and makes for Hunter.

I’ve spent hundreds of hours with the man. I’ve had his back, and he’s had mine. You learn a few things about danger when it’s you, Mother Nature, and a shit-ton of flames. You learn to trust your instincts, when to advance, and when to back the hell up and retreat. Hunter needs to run. Instead, the idiot stands there and smiles as Lola charges toward him. He’s in the hot zone with the mother of all fires coming for him and he doesn’t seem to realize it.

She leans into him.

They kiss (Sarah Jo and I do it much better).

She drops to her knees.

Sarah Jo curses and starts steering us toward the happy couple. “She’s all in.”

I’ll admit it. My first thought? That Lola’s about to deliver a world-class blow job right here, right now. Her mouth’s on the level of Hunter’s dick, and while there are things I’m happy to watch on the big screen, there are also things I don’t want to see in real life.

“What is she doing?”

I sound like an idiot, but Lola can’t be doing this, can she?

“It’s so romantic.”

Does Sarah Jo sound… wistful?

“Hunter Black.” Lola holds up the beer can tab. “Will you marry me?”

“No,” I say before my brain catches up with my mouth.

Hunter looks stunned. He didn’t see this coming. Weeks of hanging around Lola, and she still manages to surprise him. He blinks at her, hands opening and closing by his side. She could be explaining quantum physics in Hindu for all he gets it. Drink Up holds its collective breath. Well, all except Colt, who yells out something congratulatory. Hunter looks like he just got brained by a falling snag.

Maybe the good folks in charge of the forestry department are fucking with us. Maybe we’re on one of those reality TV shows that sends in hidden cameras and then stages some drama. Because naturally this is the moment a gorgeous woman in a short, tight, black cocktail dress marches into the bar and right up to Hunter, and shit gets weird. Because that’s his ex.

The woman who couldn’t dump his ass fast enough.

The woman who sure looks like she’s entertaining some hotshot-sized regrets—and itching to rumble with Lola.

And rather than take Lola’s side, Hunter just makes it worse. Not only does he deny an engagement with Lola, but he tells her to stop being so dramatic. As if all this—her feelings, her proposal, her sharing air space with the ex—is her fault. As if it’s not what he wants. At all.

“Way to fuck things up,” I observe.

Lola must agree because a few painful, loud seconds later she gives Hunter the bird and runs out of the bar.