I bristled at this, especially the way he said it—like the last thing he considered me to be anymore was nice. “You don’t know me.” No one did.

“Yeah. The spoiled little college girl didn’t like what she was hearing so she ran away.”

Okay, maybe that was partly true. But I wasn’t spoiled.

Ultimately, he was calling me a coward. Weak. A small voice whispered through my mind like a chill wind: Isn’t that what you do? What you’ve done all your life? Ever since Mom dumped you? Run. Hide. Bury yourself away from the world. Obsess over a boy who doesn’t know you exist. At least not in the way you want to exist for him. Pretend you belong to a family that isn’t yours.

My eyes started to burn from the cruel barrage of thoughts. I sucked a breath into my squeezing-tight lungs and held my ground, refusing to run away again just because the conversation wasn’t going my way. “I came here to apologize.”

He stared at me for a long moment, ignoring the girl who stepped up in front of him, money clutched in her hand. She stared at him expectantly, but he continued to look at me. She finally moved on to another bartender.

I twisted my fingers together until they were numb and bloodless. “I’d heard rumors about your brother. I had a description of him . . . and just assumed it was you that first night. Maybe I wanted it to be you. After you helped me with my car that night, I wanted it to be you,” I admitted with a single nod.

He continued to stare at me, doing nothing to ease my embarrassment.

I kept talking. “It was dumb. I’m sorry. I came here looking for . . .” I couldn’t say it. It was just too mortifying.

He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting. It was an intimidating pose. No one approached him at the bar looking like that. They took one look at him, looking at me, and swerved for another bartender. Maybe I should have turned away, too.

Except I had come here to do this.

“I—” Stopping, I gathered my breath, my courage, and plunged ahead: “There’s this guy I’ve liked forever, and I’m not exactly experienced, but I thought it would help if I could gain some experience from someone who knows what he’s doing. You know. If I could be better at . . . at stuff. The intimate stuff. All the girl-guy action.” I released my fingers and motioned between me and him.

There. I’d said it. And it sounded every bit as bad as I thought it would.

I met his gaze head on, hoping the fact that I was shaking inside didn’t show on the outside.

He revealed nothing. It was as though my words made no impact on him whatsoever. He was like some kind of stoic, hard-faced soldier staring down the enemy. Only that enemy was me.

Finally, he spoke. “So you’re saying you’re looking for a f**k buddy?”

I felt as much as saw a guy beside me swing his attention toward me. “Sweet.” He leaned in, his shoulder brushing mine.

“W-what?” I stammered. “No!”

Reece swung his hard stare on the other guy. “Get. Lost. Now.”

The guy held up both hands defensively and backed away.

I inhaled again, fighting for composure. I’d said enough. I apologized. I did what I came here for. I could leave now. “I just wanted to say I was sorry.”

Turning, I moved back through the bar, making a line for the table where Emerson and Georgia waited. I hoped they didn’t want to stay. I just wanted to go home. The embarrassment was still there, but like a Band-Aid ripped off, the sting was already fading. Hopefully by tomorrow I wouldn’t feel it at all. All of this would be a dim memory. My time hanging out at Mulvaney’s had come to an end. For some reason, that idea gave me another sting.

The girls spotted me and waved me over, their eyes bright with questions. They paid very little notice to the guys working so hard for their attention as I explained how the conversation with Reece had gone. Suddenly Emerson’s gaze drifted just beyond my shoulder. Her eyes grew huge in her face.

I swiveled around at the exact moment Reece reached me. I opened my mouth and started to say something over the pulsing din of the bar. I’m not even sure what I meant to say because his hand wrapping around mine shoved every thought out of my head. Speech was impossible.

Chapter 12

His strong fingers surrounded mine while his gaze scanned my face, scrutinizing me, searching me in a way that made me squirm.

The room throbbed noisily in my ears. A glass broke near the bar and he didn’t even look that way. Without a word, he turned, pulling me after him. I marveled at how bodies seemed to part for him. He didn’t even use his elbows. He simply cut through the crowd.

“Where are we going?” I shouted at his back, recovering my voice.

He didn’t even glance behind him. And yet I knew he heard me. His fingers tightened ever so slightly around my hand.

A horrible thought seized me. As we passed the long length of bar and stepped onto the ramp that led into the smaller back room where food was served, I gave voice to it. “Are you throwing me out?”

As mortifying as that would be, he could do that. He worked here, after all. Would he? Had it come to that?

We approached the counter where a girl in the classic Mulvaney’s T-shirt scrawled orders onto a notepad and then stuck the slips of paper behind her onto a spinner for the cooks.

The line for food was much shorter than the line for drinks, but a few people waited there already, eager for a burger to go with their beer. We bypassed them. Reece lifted the countertop and pulled me after him. The girl taking food orders looked up.

“Mike’s in charge,” he told her.

Her gaze flicked from him to me and her mouth sagged open in a small O of surprise.

We walked through the kitchen, past the two fry cooks with nets over their heads. Reece stopped in front of a pantry door. He pulled out a set of keys, unlocked it, and pulled the door wide open.

Peering inside, I didn’t see the shelves of supplies I expected. A set of stairs stretched up ahead of us. He pulled me in behind him and locked the door.

My heartbeat quickened. Blood rushed to my ears at the proximity of him. At our sudden aloneness. Instantly the sounds of the bar were muffled, like someone had just lowered the volume on a remote control.

A light glowed from the top of the stairs, saving us from total darkness. Not that we lingered long at the bottom of the stairs. He pulled me after him, his warm fingers still folded over mine.

Our steps thudded on the wood stairs, reverberating in the narrow space. The steps abruptly cleared to a wide open room. Wood floors, brick walls. Some interesting framed photographs were scattered here and there. On the walls. Leaning against a bookcase. The area was large, equipped with a bed, office space, and living area. A kitchen occupied the far right corner. A dark couch sat in front of a big screen. Otherwise not too much decor. Typical guy pad, I assumed. Not that I had been inside many. He released my hand and sank down onto a chair. I watched dumbly as he unlaced his boots.

“You live here?” I managed to get out.

“Yeah.” Just that. A single monosyllable. The first boot hit the floor. He didn’t look up at me as he worked on his second boot.

“Just you?” Duh. Did I think all the bartenders slept up here?

He shot me a quick look. “I own the place.”

“Mulvaney’s? You own it?”

“It’s been in my family for fifty years. I’m Reece Mulvaney. My dad ran it until two years ago. Now I do.”

“Oh.” I don’t know why that changed anything, but suddenly it did.

Suddenly I felt more uncomfortable. He’d grown up in this place. He’d seen it all. Everything. All manner of silly, horny college students traipsing through the doors. I thought of my earlier confession to him. That I’d come here looking for experience. God. He must think I was the silliest of them all.

I buried my hands in my tight pockets, watching, waiting for him to say something else. To explain what it was he was thinking. What we were doing here.

What I was doing here.

He stood back up in one fluid motion. He moved like some kind of jungle cat. Effortless and graceful. His eyes settled on me intently, glowing in that strange way, like lit from within.

He approached—not fast, but with easy strides.

He stopped before me, leaving only an inch between us. I couldn’t breathe. The air left me, but I couldn’t draw it back in. I fixed my gaze on his chest, suddenly too overcome with nerves to look up at his face, and that posed a whole new problem for me. Because I could only think how broad, how hard his chest looked. I could only gawk at the golden skin peeking out of his collar.

Then his hands were on my face, his palms cupping my cheeks, his fingers burrowing into my hair. My scalp tightened and tingled. He forced my face up. I saw a flash of his pale blue eyes before his head descended, and everything else was lost except this. Him. His lips on mine. Blistering hot.

There was just his mouth, his hands gripping my face, my head. His tongue stroked my bottom lip. I gasped and he took advantage, sweeping inside, and I was full of the taste of him. I leaned forward, melting into him. His hard length against me made me feel giddy, boneless. Sensation overwhelmed me. There was no mistaking his power, his strength. It radiated from him in waves, and as heady as all of that—all of him—was, it also frightened me a little. Like one of those rides at the amusement park that dropped you from the sky and then jerked you back up a second before smacking to earth. I felt far from safe right now.

I broke for air, panicked and gasping. “Wait, please.” My voice trembled as I looked toward the stairs, assessing my escape options. My eyes did a quick scan, confirming what I already knew. I was totally at his mercy up here.

How insane was this scenario? I let him lead me upstairs to this room. I didn’t do that. That wasn’t who I was.

“What?” His voice was steady, his hands still cupping my face, each of his long fingers a searing imprint.

I fought the dark cravings that urged me to throw myself back at him and continue kissing. I gulped a breath, commanding myself to think this through and ignore the little voice in my head (that sounded a lot like Emerson) urging me to jump his bones.

Avoiding his gaze, I inspected his loft like I might find a solution in the large space. My attention strayed to the bed. And stayed there. The activity in the bar was a low, steady drone beneath us. Like the rumbling from the belly of a beast. For all that it reminded me that there were people below us, we might as well have been on a deserted island. We were well and truly alone. It was just me and him. Us.

He must have read some of my anxiety. His hands flexed on my face. I snapped my gaze back up as his head dipped. He kissed me, capturing my bottom lip with his teeth. My belly did another dive. His teeth released my lip and he licked the tender flesh.

I whimpered.

His lips moved against my mouth, talking. “Don’t worry. I don’t do virgins.”

And then he was kissing me again, his tongue sweeping inside my mouth, his hands diving through my hair and holding my head, angling me for the hot pressure of his lips, giving me no chance for speech. As if I could form coherent words.

Only two thoughts pounded through me. Oh, shit, is it so obvious that I’m a virgin? And: Why is he bothering with me at all if there’s no chance of sex in this for him?

All that quickly became irrelevant, however. His mouth consumed me, obliterating everything else. The kiss went on and on. His tongue explored me, tasting until I grew more confident. I touched his tongue with the tip of mine. He made a low growling sound of approval and wrapped an arm around my waist. In one move, he lifted me off my feet just enough so that he could walk me across the loft. The tips of my boots skimmed the floor. I gave a little squeak. My hands clung to him, arms wrapping tightly around shoulders that tensed and corded.

When he stopped, his arms loosened around me. I slid down the length of him, my feet returning to the floor. My head, however, remained lost somewhere in the clouds. Or, more precisely, lost somewhere between the taste of his mouth and the sensation of his body against mine.