Skin Deep. Tori Carrington

out and patted his cheek. If her hand lingered a little longer than it should have, it was because she enjoyed feeling his stubble sting her skin she told herself. “You will. You’ll see.”

      From behind his back he produced a lightweight jacket she recognized as his. She knew he kept it in the back of his SUV for winter early-morning golf outings. He tried to drape it across her shoulders and she successfully stepped away from him.

      “What are you doing? It’s hot as blazes out here.”

      “But the air-conditioning is on in there.”

      “Good,” she said, “maybe it will cool me down.”

      “No, you don’t understand,” he said, his gaze dropping to her neckline. “The air conditioner is on in there.”

      She stared at him blankly. “You’re not making any sense, Michael. Now, will you stop being such a stick-in-the-mud and come on?”

      She heard him mutter a line of curse words and felt her smile widen. She found she liked frustrating him. He was usually the one in control, the one giving her advice, the one always solid and commanding. That she had managed to gain a little bit of control in their friendship made her feel…well, powerful somehow. More adult. And more than just a little sexy.

      At this time of day the club was jumping, filled to the rim with the “after work” crowd that had decided to stay, and the night crowd that was just getting started. Kyra did a once-over, immediately knowing that the person she was looking for wasn’t there.

      She mentally stumbled, but refused to let that detail stop her. She headed for the long, art-deco bar instead of one of the tables and slid on to one of the stools.

      “Hiya cutie.” John Boy, the ’tender, greeted her with a grin and a bowl of peanuts. “What’ll it be?”

      “The usual, J.B.,” she said, smiling.

      Michael appeared at her side, scowling at the guy who was drinking in his visual fill of her on her other side. “Would you stop,” she admonished with a jab of her elbow. “How’s a girl supposed to make new friends with you scaring everyone off?”

      The ’tender put an unfamiliar drink in a shot glass in front of her. “You want a beer chaser?”

      Kyra raised her brows. “What’s this?”

      “Jim Beam.”

      J.B. Jim Beam. Kyra felt like giggling. She’d been coming to the club for four years and not only didn’t John recognize her, he’d missed his own nickname. Her usual drink was a Virgin Mary, with the emphasis on virgin. She’d never ordered beer much less hard liquor before.

      “You’re looking a little happy with yourself,” Michael muttered under his breath, accepting a brew from John.

      “He doesn’t recognize me,” she whispered, leaning closer to him. She caught a whiff of his cologne. A new scent that subtly coated his skin and made her mouth water with the desire to see if it tasted as good as it smelled.

      He turned his scowl on her. “Of course he doesn’t recognize you. I bet you don’t even recognize you.”

      She crossed her legs, conceding the point. “This is even more fun than I thought it would be.”

      “That’s hard to believe.” Michael downed half his beer then dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, looking a little rumpled and agitated, and completely unlike the Michael Romero she knew. “You were enough of a jerk magnet before. Now…”

      Kyra picked up the shot glass, trying to figure out how one went about sipping a drink of this nature.

      “You’re supposed to down it all at once,” Michael said, a challenging spark in his dark eyes.

      “But wouldn’t that get me drunk?”

      “That’s the point.”

      She twisted her lips and stared at the drink again.

      Her reluctance stemmed from a long-standing dislike of anything having to do with alcohol—any alcohol. She’d grown up with a father who’d drank not to get drunk but to sustain a constant drunkenness. She knew what this presumably innocent-looking poison could do to a person. How it could destroy lives. Distort judgment. Render virtual monsters. It was one of the reasons she’d stayed so far away from anything alcoholic. Except for that one time…The night of her sixteenth birthday. She swallowed hard. She and Alannah had been split up, Alannah to a foster home while she’d been placed with a distant aunt.

      She’d hurried home to her aunt’s trailer from her part-time job after school, hoping against hope that her aunt had remembered her birthday just this once. She’d found the cake she’d bought and put in the refrigerator the night before on the table, half-demolished, a fork sticking out of the center of the candles. There’d been a half bottle of vodka next to it, the tipped-over contents soaking what remained. And the money she’d saved, wrapped in foil and stored in the freezer, had been gone. She’d come across her aunt passed out over the side of the bathtub, apparently in the midst of taking a shower.

      She’d cleaned her aunt up and put her to bed, thrown away the cake, searched for the vodka bottle her aunt kept stashed in her underwear drawer and walked out to the tree swing. There she had alternately swung and drank until she’d puked her guts out.

      She’d never touched another drop again.

      Unlike her aunt, who to this day still hoped her niece would finance a trip to the liquor store every time Kyra visited the shadowy trailer outside Memphis.

      Kyra’s gaze trailed to Michael and his intense expression. She hadn’t told him that particular story, but he knew many of the details of her background. Her heart swelled at the empathy in his dark eyes while another part of her perked up in challenge.

      With more nonchalance than she felt, she said, “Here goes nothing,” and downed the fiery amber liquid.

      “Here goes everything,” Michael said, and motioned to John. “Bring her a beer.”

      Kyra held her breath, waiting for the burning sensation to pass. Her eyes teared, but she refused to give in to the urge to cough. God, but that was one of the nastiest things she’d ever tasted. Why did people choose to drink such awful stuff?

      She gave in and coughed until she was afraid her stomach would end up on the bar in front of her.

      Attractive thought.

      “Come here often?” she heard a male voice say at her elbow.

      A giggle that shocked even Kyra bubbled up from her throat at the terrible come-on line. “All the time.”

      She glanced at the man in question. She’d seen him in the club a number of times, but had never talked to him. Word had it that he worked at the insurance agency up the way.

      “Buzz off, buddy,” Michael said.

      Kyra elbowed him and turned her attention to the other man. “I’m Kyra White,” she said, extending her hand.

      The man warily eyed Michael, then took her hand. “Charlie Schwartz’s the name, insurance is my game.”

      “Nice to meet you, Charlie.”

      His gaze budged slowly from Michael back to her and he leaned forward. “Who’s that?”

      She jabbed a thumb in Michael’s direction. “Who, him? You mean aside from being a major pain the butt?” She smiled at both men, earning a scowl from Michael and a grin from Charlie. “He’s my best friend.”

      Charlie sidled up a little closer to her. “Sounds like a position I might be interested in.”

      “Give me a break,” Michael said.

      Kyra reached for the beer the ’tender had put in front of her. “What? Do you think you’re the only man capable of being my friend?”

      “I’m