He released his hold on her, digging his hand into his hair as he muttered curses to himself. “I’m too old for you.”
She dragged her gaze across his chest and the tempting swell of his biceps. “Definitely not.”
“I’m forty-four,” he bit out, a bitter laugh tinging his words.
“Like I said, I don’t see a problem here.”
He considered her, his tongue running over his teeth as he traced the lines of her face, lingering on her mouth, the jut of her collarbone, the shadow between her breasts. His eyes went dark, liquid. She might not be wanted by the photographers and local designers who used to clamor for her to work with them, but tonight, here, this man wanted her. That would be enough.
“Tell you what, Derek.” She lingered on the consonants of his name, the scrape of the r and the snap of k, as she turned his hand over, palm up on the bar top, tracing the lines that crisscrossed his skin with her long fingernails. “This line right here? It says you should dance with me.”
He chuckled, deep and dark, like a secret. “You’re a palm reader now? I thought you were a bartender.”
“Honey, I’meverything.”
His eyes locked on hers, dazzling liquid blue in the dim bar lighting, and the corner of his mouth twitched. “I bet you are.” He cleared his throat and tilted his chin towards where she still held his hand. “Palm reading’s not real.”
“I’ll make you a deal. You let me read your palm and if I’mwrong, I’ll close out your tab and we’ll say goodnight. But if I’m right—”
“You won’t be right because palm reading isn’t real,” he insisted despite the slow curl of his lips. She wanted to feel that smile on her clavicle, on the inside of her thighs.
“If I’mright,” she repeated, “you’ll dance with me.”
He took his time considering her proposal, long enough that Jo thought she might have miscalculated. Maybe she was going home alone to her half-empty apartment after all. At last, his eyes sparkled, part challenge and part invitation, and he dipped his chin in assent. Electricity skipped across her skin.
Jo bit her lip and forced her attention to his hand, the thick fingers and wide palm making her own hands appear small, fragile by comparison. She dragged a fingernail along the curve at the base of his thumb.
“This line says you’re single, but you’re not alone.” She flicked her eyes up to his. “People rely on you, and you like that. Being someone they can count on. I bet you were the guy everyone called to help them move their crappy couch in college.”
“I didn’t go to college.”
“But I’m not wrong about the couch.”
His eyes narrowed as he watched her but some of the tension left his shoulders. She moved to the crease at the top of his palm.
“You like the simple things in life—clean sheets when you climb into bed, a cold beer after work, a home cooked meal. You’d rather stay in than travel, curl up with someone you love,like your dog...?” His lip twitched and he shook his head. “Not a dog, then. But I'm right about the rest of it.”
“You are,” he conceded.
She dropped her fingers to his wrist, tracing the lines at the base of his hand. “This line says you should dance with me.” He shifted on his stool, leaning closer to see what she was seeing. “You’re so busy holding everyone else together, you’ve forgotten how to let loose. Maybe you’ve forgotten how to have fun, like dancing with a pretty girl you just met.” She slid her palm along his, the slow glide of skin over skin, and laced their fingers together. “Or we could skip the dancing. Come home with me, and we’ll see where the night takes us.”
Derek scraped his free hand over his jaw. His voice was rough and low. “I’m only in town for one night.”
Jo reached across the bar with her free hand and straightened the collar of his shirt, her finger trailing over his chest as it fell away. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat, and she had the strongest urge to press her lips to the spot. “Then why are we still talking?”
Chapter 2
He hadn’t meant to spend the night.
Was it weird that he’d spent the night?
It had been so long since Derek was last in this situation that he was no longer sure. When he wasn’t on the road with one of his bands, his nights were more about finding lost stuffed animals and chasing away monsters under the bed than spending hours between the thighs of the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
A woman who was an intriguing mix of confidence and uncertainty all wrapped up with a sassy bow.
A woman who was still sound asleep beside him, sheets tangled around her legs, her bare back on display for him, soft snores escaping her parted lips.
He mapped the line of her body beneath the sheet, the dip of her waist, the dusky pink tips of her breasts, the hollow ofher throat. Christ, he could still taste her. His cock thickened at the memory of her hands in his hair, holding his mouth against her sweet pussy as she rode his tongue, her gasp when he thrust inside her the first time, the sting of her nails on his back as he drove them both to orgasm.