Brazen. Carly Phillips

new at this kind of game. Which made him wonder what other secrets she kept. She’d already admitted to being a temporary runaway. And given the inexperience he sensed and the innocence she projected, he had to wonder why the urgency to come on to him at all? Every unanswered question made her all the more fascinating.

      He met her gaze. Her violet eyes were still glazed with a combination of passion and disbelief. Mac understood. He’d never have believed they’d make such an explosive combination, either. He hadn’t thought this bundle of contradictions had it in her. He’d sensed her hesitancy and figured she’d bail out. Instead, she’d come to him. To Mac, the bartender.

      If his instincts were on, this hot, blazing desire that flared between them was just as new to her as it was to…No. No. He shook his head. Desire wasn’t new to him. He’d wanted before. He’d just never come so close so fast.

      He had the unnerving sense that one night with Samantha wouldn’t be enough to douse this high-charged inferno that blazed out of control. Worse, he wasn’t sure he wanted it to be. But until he understood what she was running from and why, he couldn’t take advantage…no matter how badly he wanted to.

      With deliberate slowness, he picked her up and lowered her to the ground, making sure their bodies touched the entire time. Making sure she felt the hard ridge of his arousal. Her sharp inhale told him she had.

      She’d pulled her still-damp hair into a braid that touched her shoulder. He toyed with the end. “It’s wet.”

      “I didn’t want to take time to dry it.”

      He played with her hair, running the strands down her cheek and along her neck, then following the path with his tongue. He looked up and met her wide-eyed gaze. “Where are you planning on staying?” he asked.

      She cleared her throat. “Wherever I’m welcome.”

      She was welcome here. The thought shocked him, but he realized he meant it. Keeping her around would give him time to get to know this woman, something he wanted, nearly as much as he desired her.

      He bent his head. “The bed upstairs is a double,” he whispered in her ear.

      Mac told himself it made sense. She needed a place to stay. He needed to keep her around. As difficult as it would be, he could keep a respectable physical distance between them. She might think she wanted more, but her eyes mirrored her soul, and she was still unsure. Not of the sexual chemistry, because they’d steamed up this stockroom in no time at all, of something deeper. Emotionally, she wasn’t ready for more.

      When the stakes were high, and the prize worth winning, Mac had an abundance of patience. “Well?” he asked her.

      “I…” He bit on her earlobe and her shudder went straight through him. “I check in next Thursday morning,” she managed to say. “My conference begins at eight on Friday.”

      Loud banging on the door interrupted them before things got out of control. “I may be old, but my memory’s fine. It doesn’t take that long,” Zee yelled. “You got thirsty people out here.”

      Her face flushed scarlet, and Mac cupped her cheeks in his palms. “He’s wrong.”

      “He is?” Her voice was filled with breathless anticipation.

      Mac nodded. “It’ll take the whole week. I’ll make sure of it,” he said in a voice he barely recognized.

      Then he turned and walked out, leaving her to pull herself together while he hoped nobody else noticed how long he’d been gone. Or that he’d forgotten the beer. Or that he wanted Samantha so badly he could hardly walk. This woman, her honesty and vulnerability, made him believe in a future for the first time in years. Combine that with a sexual chemistry fierce enough to set his soul on fire, and Mac knew exactly why he’d invited her to stay for the duration.

      Never before had a bartending favor held so much promise. As Mac got back to work, he wondered if anyone would notice if he skipped last call.

      CHAPTER THREE

      SAM WIPED DOWN the table and pocketed the tip left beneath the glass. As quickly as she’d taken over Theresa’s job, she’d fallen into a steady rhythm. She wasn’t half bad at cocktail waitressing. The overall pace here was slower than back home, which made for an easier transition. She enjoyed the customers, and they seemed to like talking with her. An easterner provided them with a source of amusement for the evening, and their slight accents intrigued her.

      “Hey, honey. Another one in the corner.”

      Sam rolled her eyes. She had no idea where Zee got his endless supply of energy. Hers was dwindling fast. She ducked behind the bar in search of Mac’s secret supply of Zee’s liquor.

      “You holding up okay?”

      Her heart tripped in reaction to the husky voice. Good thing her feet didn’t do the same or she’d lose her night’s take paying for the damage. She turned toward Mac. “I’m fine.”

      “You had a rough walk over here.” His gaze lingered on her canvas sneakers. His caring amazed her. The man needed a cocktail waitress or he’d have had to close down earlier, yet he’d sent Theresa home, and now here he was concerned about a few cuts and bruises on her feet—the feet of a woman he’d just met.

      He had a soft spot beneath the rougher exterior. Sam liked that about him. Too much, considering.

      “Tell the boys this is last call,” he said.

      She nearly kissed him in relief, but with a bar full of people, and their last session still fresh in her mind, she pushed the idea aside. As she went to serve her last drinks and clean up the increasingly empty tables, her nerves prickled with the awareness of being watched. The sensation only heightened as the night wore on, until just thinking about Mac sent her senses into heated overload.

      Finally, she shut the door behind the last paying customer of the night. Without turning, she heard the sound of the stools being swung on top of the bar. Mac preparing to clean the floors, she assumed. She couldn’t face him. Not with her emotions so fragile after the way she’d attacked him in the storage room earlier.

      “And especially not after agreeing to spend the week in his bed,” she muttered aloud.

      The bar had been so busy, that except for his intense gaze and the times she needed to request orders, she’d managed to avoid anything personal between them for the rest of the night. Of course if she stayed here, she’d have to look him in the eye sooner or later.

      Who was she kidding? If she stayed here, she’d be looking at a lot more than dark eyes framed by incredibly long lashes. She’d be looking at Mac. All of him.

      Well, she’d wanted hot. She’d wanted to experience excitement and passion. He’d given her firsthand proof he could provide all three. The memory invited a rhythmic pounding and accompanying dampness between her legs. She refused to walk away now, even though guilt threatened her plans. Her conscience had picked an awful time to kick in.

      She might not love Tom, and he might have bribed her into this engagement, but Samantha took commitment seriously. Throwing herself at one man while engaged to another bothered her more than she cared to admit. But not enough to change her mind. And she sensed that decision had more to do with Mac than the need for a one-week fling. She wanted this time with this man.

      Tom would never know, and except for his ego, she wondered if he’d even care. Each of them would provide a function in the other’s life. She would be a trophy to hang on his arm, he would give her the cash to bail out her father. She was the only one not personally gaining from the deal.

      “Except for the fact that it led me to you,” she murmured. Her gaze darted toward Mac’s broad back. Muscles in his upper arms and neck flexed as he worked. Strong and self-confident as he was, she doubted he’d appreciate knowing that technically she belonged to another man.

      She ran her thumb over her temporarily bare ring finger. She didn’t like thinking