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Why won’t he leave?
Ronnie Carmichael groaned to herself for the tenth time in the last hour. She liked this pair of underwear too much to throw it out at the end of the night, and just looking at the man at the end of her bar made her too damn wet for comfort.
She shouldn’t be wearing a lacy pair of black boy shorts, the kind that hugged her ass just right and made her feel like slinking down the street in her Jimmy Choos—seventy bucks on sale at Nordstrom!—making men stare. She’d just turned forty, but she’d be damned if she couldn’t be just as sexy as she had been a decade earlier.
Alas, her silver and black fuck-me stilettos were sitting lonely on the floor of her closet. They were not shoes to be tending bar in. But the lingerie…she thought she could get away with it.
Mr. Goddamn Gorgeous proved her wrong. Sexy underwear was just fine when she was mixing up endless pitchers of her trademark sangria. But serving fine whiskey to a prime piece of sex god in an Armani tuxedo? Oh, that made her pussy slick and those poor bloomers didn’t stand a chance.
Ronnie shifted uncomfortably and tried not to stare. It was a slow Tuesday night at the tapas place she worked at in mid-town Manhattan. The bar had seen only scattered traffic all night. However, the man in the tux, he’d been there a good two hours, completely absorbed in his glass of Talisker—when he wasn’t looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She didn’t know who he was or why he was hanging around at a pedestrian restaurant like Aceituna, with a reasonable Zagat rating and no plates over thirty bucks. He looked like the type who only went to places with two Michelin stars, minimum.
Dead sexy, the man could be anywhere between forty and sixty, with dark red hair streaked with the slightest touch of silver at the temples. Though he was by no means fat, he was large, the kind of man to make Ronnie feel petite and feminine. He was probably well over six foot if he stood up, and those green-gold eyes held enough banked heat in them to make her blood burn hotter.
A touch of gruff, a touch of suave sophisticate, the man was like some unholy combination of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery in the best of the Bond films. He looked like he should be drinking a martini or a glass of champagne with a girl half his age, huge boobs threatening to spill out of her evening gown at any moment, clinging to his arm.
No, that wasn’t right. He was classier than that. He looked like he should be gracing high society functions, an impeccably dressed socialite on his arm. His raw animal magnetism held caged, waiting to spring once he got home to his mistress.
She bit her lip and squeezed her thighs together, the ache of sexual frustration growing too much to bear. She could buy an evening dress—second hand of course or at a good sale at Loehmans—and she certainly had enough cleavage to spill out of it. On the other hand, maybe she could be the mistress waiting at home in a sexy teddy with a nice pair of padded handcuffs.
He looked like he would be an animal in bed. And it had been five years—five long years—since she’d felt anything except a vibrator in her pussy. Stu had been a completely useless husband. Now, if only he’d get out of her life and go away like a good ex instead of calling her incessantly to complain about his plastic, vacant, dyed-blonde girlfriend from Florida. God, her life was pathetic.
Sending out another pitcher of sangria for the loud table at the back, she resolved on doing something about Mr. Gorgeous before she went crazy. Like sending the chef a regular iced tea instead of a Long Island Ice Tea. That would bring the whole damn restaurant to a screeching halt. Ballsy, the manager, depended upon her to keep Chef happy and keep the Long Islands and the Screwdrivers flowing at a steady pace. Not too slow that he got pissed off, and not so fast that he got just plain pissed. Ballsy wasn’t here tonight though, and that pretty much left her and Jerry the maitre d’ in charge. She was free to do whatever, or whomever, she wanted.
Heaving a sigh, she briefly considered downing a drink for courage, but she never had more than two drinks a day. It was too damn easy to drink a hell of a lot as a barkeep, so she had one at the beginning of her shift, and one at the end. She didn’t want to waste it now if she needed it later to drown her embarrassment.
“Hello there. Anything else I can get you?” She smiled at him, pushing her hair back over the shell of her ear and hoping she wasn’t blushing like a fool.
“No, thank you,” he held up the glass he’d been nursing for forty-five minutes. He’d only had two glasses while he’d been sitting here, but Talisker was a drink to savor, not down like a shot. She had watched him inhale the aroma like an expert, and shake a few drops of cold water into his glass to bring out the exquisite flavor of the fine single malt. Now, she bit her lip, trying to figure out how to break the proverbial ice.
Ronnie was a damn good bartender. Her boss trusted her and she didn’t screw him over. She could talk to anyone and she was honest—sometimes brutally so. A deft hand with mixing and a few words of comfort and consolation, and she had her regulars coming back for a good martini and a plate of fine Spanish olives. Or that famous sangria and a slice of torta española. Now, when she needed that gift for gab, words deserted her.
“What is your name?” he asked suddenly, those green eyes finally staring into hers. Her stomach fluttered in response to his sexy accent, something indefinable and barely there, but oh-so-alluring. His voice spoke of foreign lands, elite education, with an edge of sadness that made her want to give him a hug and then throw him to the ground and take his mind off of whatever was bothering him.
After too long a pause, she answered. “Veronica Carmichael.”
Fuck, what was she thinking, giving her full name out to a customer?
“Ronnie, for short.”
He gave her a half grin, smile lines crinkling his face in a very attractive way. “Hello Veronica, Ronnie for short.” He gazed into her eyes, as though looking for recognition. She knew that if she’d met this man before, she’d damn well remember it.
“What about you? What’s your name? What brings you to Aceituna on a day like this?” The weather in New York was decent, one of those crisp but not freezing days in fall when the air almost smelled clean, even in midtown. It was a night to walk around in your best coat and see the town, not to sit in a bar and stare at the homely bartender.
Well, maybe not homely, but not a ten either.
He looked at her intently, and she put a hand up to push an errand strand of hair behind her ear again. Why, on the day she meets the world’s classiest, sexiest guy, did she have to have blue streaks in her hair? Ronnie loved to dye her hair, so much she only knew her natural color was a mousy brown from the times she chanced to look in the full-length mirror on the back of her bathroom door. It was a nice medium brown at the moment, with highlights in blonde and blue. Hey, if her boss didn’t care about her two tattoos and her occasionally strange hair color choices, why should she care what a customer thought? Even a customer who fulfilled quite a few fantasies that she’d racked up over the long, cold years of abso-fucking-lutely no sex.
“Rudolph. Rudy for short. Rudy Vidmar.” He held up his glass and gave her a salute before taking a sip. “It is good to meet you, Veronica Carmichael.”
Damn, his voice sent shivers up her spine. She imagined being in a dark room, or wearing a blindfold, and having that voice tell her in graphic detail exactly what he was going to do to her. Still, if his name was Rudy, then she was a Rockette. Somehow, the fact that she knew he wasn’t giving her his real name didn’t make him a bit less attractive. In fact, it added to his Bondian appeal. She’d never be able to sit through a 007 marathon again without this man’s face and body popping into her memory with a taste of regret.
Suddenly, she didn’t want any regrets. Life was short. She was closing up the bar in fifteen minutes. The loud table in the back was finally breaking up and moving out, and the busboys were starting to put chairs on the tables. Her son Danny was fast asleep at her mother’s house. No one was expecting her home.
She leaned forward over the bar, making sure her considerable cleavage was clearly visible. “So, Rudy, where you from? Not around here. I can smell a native New Yorker a mile away.”
Overjoyed at seeing his eyes flicker down to her assets and his tongue wet his dry lips, she barely heard his answer. “Europe.”
She rolled her eyes. “Europe’s a big place, my dear. You don’t sound French. Or Polish, or Spanish, or Italian—well, maybe Italian, but not like the Italians I grew up with. I’m going to go with…Austrian?”
He smiled fully. Oh, now she was in trouble. That smile had her ready to drop to her knees and service him behind the damn bar, just to see his face during pleasure. Her mouth practically watered, imagining the earthy taste of a thick hard cock between her lips, her tongue sliding around the head and lapping up drops of pre-cum. She wondered how the Talisker would change the taste of his cum. Sure as hell it would be a lot better than the flavor of the cheap beer that Stu drank.
“Close, Mrs. Carmichael.”
“Ms. Carmichael. I’m not married.” And even if she was still married to Stu, she wouldn’t give a damn. He sure hadn’t.
Again with the half-smile. Fuck, she was wet. She played with a strand of hair again and licked her lips, waiting for his response.
“Have you ever heard of Marvinia? I’m the…I’m a representative for business interests in Marvinia.” He looked at her oddly again, as though he was expecting her to discard what he said, but she had no reason to believe him or disbelieve him. In truth, she didn’t much care. She just wanted to keep him talking, make him stay at the bar until the waiters disappeared.
“If I remember my geography, and I admit to the problems most Americans have with the subject, it’s a little country somewhere between Austria and Italy, right? So I wasn’t too far off the mark.”
“A bit closer to Slovenia than Austria, but you are closer than most would be.” He finished his whiskey and looked at her over the rim of the glass.
“Care for one last drink? We’re due to close…” Actually, she should have closed already, but she didn’t care. She’d sent Chef his last drink and she’d finished wiping down the counters.
He nodded slowly.
“Another Talisker?”
He cocked his head at her, his firm jaw jutting out just a tad as he considered his options. The faintest evidence of five o’clock shadow dusted his face, and she wanted him to kiss her hard and burn her face with that stubble. Hell, she wanted that stubble to scrape against her inner thighs, so she would feel the evidence of hot sex with every step.
“Something American. What would you recommend? Maybe I can learn to understand this infernal country a little better with some of its own concoctions in my blood.”
It was her turn to give a knowing smile. Ronnie reached under the counter for her very own bottle, one that nobody touched except for her. Pulling out two glasses and her bottle of Makers Mark whisky, she expertly poured two glasses.
“You can’t get much more American than bourbon whisky from Kentucky. It’s not as refined as the stuff you’re used to, but it’s smooth as silk after a long hard day.”
Curious, he picked up his glass and took a sip. She was rewarded with another one of his smiles, revealing a dimple in his left cheek.
“So…” She licked her lips again, desperate to think of something to talk about. “What went wrong for you today? A man like you doesn’t come into a place like this and sit alone at the bar for hours unless something happened to appeal to the contemplative side.”
Dammit, too fucking direct Veronica! You don’t want him to bolt now, do you?
He swirled his glass, watching the golden liquid with an intensity she found entirely too sexy.
She snorted. She couldn’t help it. He narrowed his eyes at her and she bit her lip trying to keep her laughter in. “I’m certain that didn’t go well.”
Now he looked vaguely offended. “And why should it not?”
Oh, he was so fucking proper.
She wanted to hear him say dirty, dirty things to her in that same proper tone. Then she wanted to suck out the propriety and leave him a screaming, swearing animal ready to ravage.
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