“Sorry, reflex.” I pulled my fist back and rested it on the bar while Nate’s hand continued to rest on my shoulder. The heat sizzled through my sleeveless shirt, and I was certain I would be left with a handprint on my skin.
Shifting on my stool, I watched in sadness as his hand slipped away and back to his side. It was better this way, simply to face him. If we were in contact, I knew I couldn’t trust myself. Nate was a temptation I had a hard time fighting against.
His jaw flexed, and I never realized how much that tiny tic could turn me on. Shifting my legs, I crossed the left over the right, exposing more of my bare thigh. The shorts I had on were already cinched high on my legs. Nate’s eyes followed the movement until they found their way back to mine.
“What… er… are you doing here?” I asked, faking a casualness I didn’t feel.
Ignoring me, Nate reached out and slipped his hand beneath my veil of hair, tucking it back behind my shoulder. My body quivered as his fingers gently caressed the exposed skin along the back of my arm.
“Cold?” the asshole asked, knowing full well it was stifling in this bar with the crowd. It’s why I chose to wear barely anything.
Squaring my shoulders, I told him that I wasn’t and waited for him to reply with something snarky as a response.
He didn’t.
Nate nodded toward Rachel, who all too gleefully bounced over to take his order. She was a new employee I recently helped hire, but I immediately hated her and her perfect smile and perfectly bouncy red hair.
“Stop… doing that.” My hand flailed wildly in Rachel’s retreating direction.
“Doing what?” Nate asked, leaning his arms on the bar, glancing at me over his shoulder.
“Flirting with my employee.”
“Is that what I was doing?” he asked as Rachel set his freshly and perfectly poured draft beer in front of him.
“Yes,” I hissed, eyeing the way the veins in his forearm flexed as he nestled the glass in his grasp. God, I really did love forearms.
A low chortle sounded from his chest just as he took a sip of his beer, ignoring my jab. Half of his beer remained as he set down his glass and turned his full body in my direction. His new position blocked me from the remainder of the bar. It was as if he caged us in our own little bubble.
“Want to tell me why you had that reaction when douchebag over there walked in?”
“No… um… I mean, what reaction? What guy?” I tried to backpedal, but it was clear Nate had been paying attention to me without me knowing. Which had me wondering how long he and my brother had been in the bar. It was a bit unnerving to not have a handle on my surroundings.
“The guy who looks like he fell out of a Preps-R-Us magazine and how, when he walked in, your entire body changed.” He’d been watching Stephen when he started speaking, but now Nate’s narrowed eyes were trained back on me. It was hard to skirt around the truth when he looked at me like he could read my deepest and darkest secrets.
There was a sudden uneasiness that welled up inside me. A fear of disappointing Nate, and myself, if I told him about my nasty history with the preppy newcomer.
“It’s nothing,” I projected with a wave, hoping Nate would brush it all aside.
He leaned closer, his breath a mix of mint and beer. The combo shouldn’t have worked, but everything about Nate seemed to find a way to mesh.
“I don’t believe you for a second, but I’ll let it slide for now. But if he causes any more trouble, I can’t guarantee your brother will let him out of this bar scot-free.”
In unison, we both forced our gazes apart and focused on the increasing commotion in the back room. Not only were the boys harassing each other, but they were doing it to the server and a few of the bar’s patrons. If things continued, security was going to have to step in, hopefully before Andrew did. My brother was usually the quiet and brooding type, but he didn’t tolerate when people acted out.
“What are you guys doing here anyway?” I asked, begging silently that Nate would allow me to change the subject as I trained my eyes on Andrew, who moved toward a booth with a couple of women I’d seen in here a few times over the years. Not local to Ashfield, but probably from a town across the county.
I felt Nate’s stare return to me. It had this penetrating quality I could feel down to the tips of toes.
“When you look at me like that, I feel… unsettled,” I confessed while I attempted to fan my hair forward again as a shield from his stare.
“Why is that?” Nate’s fingers brushed my hair behind my ear, the tips lingering along the top just a second longer than necessary.
Words I didn’t comprehend slipped from my lips in a whisper, but they made him move on regardless of what I actually said.
“Your brother wanted a beer, and your mother graciously offered to watch the girls for me. So, I joined him.”
“What?” I asked, my mind reeling from the conversation whiplash.
