As Bad As Can Be

Shay sighed. Even a half hour of this was going to be too much. It was going to be a long night if he had to hang around more than a few minutes.

A CROWDED BAR, that was what she liked to see, Mallory thought as she poured drinks, her hands an efficient blur of motion. Above her, Kayla swung her long blond hair and danced with redheaded Belinda, while Liane and Michelle worked next to her to pass drinks to patrons.

The buzz of the register was its own seductive music, especially after the lean weeks just past. If she could keep the bar full like this on a regular basis, her financial concerns would be only a memory.

“I’m going to take a quick walk around,” she said to Michelle and ducked under the walkthrough. Part of running her own place meant being responsible for every aspect of it, knowing what was happening outside as well as in. A good manager knew what was going on in her establishment.

She threaded through the crowd around the bar. A glance outside told her the admission line had doubled from when she’d seen it earlier in the night. “How’s the traffic look, Benny?” she asked her doorman in an undertone.

“We’re still at about three-quarters capacity,” he answered.

She could let them all in, but a line created buzz. Mallory checked her watch. “Keep the line at about six people until eleven, then let everybody in up to capacity.”

Benny grinned. “Whatever you say, chief.”

EVEN AS ONE OF THE DANCERS stepped down to go back to tending bar, another jumped up to take her place. Bored, Shay stepped away from the crowd at the bar and began to look around. The space was bigger than it looked on first impression. It stretched back beyond the bar area and widened out into a section filled with a couple of scaled down pool tables and some tables and chairs in an area that could double as a bar or a dance floor. Currently it was only lightly populated; everybody wanted to be by the bar, where the action was.

He grabbed a stool by the wall and sat down to watch the chaos. The servers behind the bar were feverishly pouring drinks. Definitely designed to appeal to the frat boy crowd, he decided, surveying the clientele. It made an impact all right, but for how long? This kind of novelty had to wear off sooner or later. And if it didn’t, what kind of a clientele was it likely to draw into the area once word spread?

The song changed and the blond bartender leaped back onto the bar. Shay scanned the crowd and shook his head. Dev, old buddy, you’ve gotten yourself into a king-size mess. Then his gaze fastened on a woman by the door and he froze.

She was, quite simply, stunning. Beautiful in the larger-than-life way of models and movie stars, in a way that seemed to suck in all available light. She wore a snug leather miniskirt and a short, white tank top that clung to her and exposed a tanned midriff where a gold navel ring glinted. A river of thick, dark hair tumbled down her back. Amid all the noise, it was as though for a moment he was in a cone of silence.

And all thoughts of Dev flew out of his head.

2

MALLORY STOOD BY THE DOOR, scanning the crowd for trouble out of habit. Some nights, the torqued up, liquored up patrons could turn on one another like snapping dogs—a possibility that justified having a second bouncer—but tonight they were content to be entranced by the dancer/bartenders, enticed enough to buy them drinks, tantalized enough to make passes that never succeeded. The girls knew the drill: flirt but don’t fall. Every guy who walked through the door, of course, assumed that he’d be the exception, and so they were happy to stand in line to get in, just for the chance of seeing and talking to the dancers. It was the source of Bad Reputation’s recent success.

Mallory took another glance across the room, and in the sea of faces, one leaped out at her. He wasn’t entranced—far from it. If anything, he looked bored. He didn’t nod his head to the music, but sat against the wall with a kind of stillness, the dim lighting shadowing his deep-set eyes. The beginnings of a beard darkened his jaw and encircled his mouth. And it was a beautiful mouth, she couldn’t help noticing even from this distance.

At the bar, the noise of the crowd spiked as Kayla and Belinda danced together. It was then that she saw it.

A smirk. A head shake. A faintly supercilious look that spread across his face as he took in the scene.

Irritation flashed through her. On its heels came her innate practicality—a bored guy wasn’t going to stick around and buy drinks, and he sure wasn’t going to recommend the place to friends. Part of the path to success was sending everyone out happy and ready to return. Maybe she needed to do something about him.

Just then, he turned and looked at her. The eye contact shivered through her veins, stopping her dead. Those eyes pulled at her in a way that made everything recede until she was only conscious of them and of the sudden thud of her heartbeat in her ears.

Then someone at the bar rang the cow bell signifying a tequila shot and she snapped out of it. Magic eyes or no, he was just another customer, and the thing to do with customers was jolly them into spending money. She hooked a circular tray from behind the bar and walked toward him.

The closer she drew, the more clearly she could see his face, the black brows and the slashes of the high cheekbones that gave him something of the artist-in-a-garret look, an impression enhanced by the white poet’s shirt he wore. His hair appeared disordered, as though he raked his hands through it regularly. But it was his mouth that drew her, full and sculpted with equal parts humor and anticipation hovering around the corners.

She gave her head an impatient shake. This wasn’t about getting distracted by a pretty face, it was about turning a wall sitter into a paying customer. It was time to pull out the charm, blast him with sex. He’d be buying drinks before he knew what hit him. Three, she decided, looking at him under her lashes. He’d buy at least three before he walked out.

Mallory stopped and fixed him with a sultry smile. “Welcome to Bad Reputation, sugar. What’s your pleasure?”

SHAY BLINKED. SHE WAS HIS pleasure, if he was honest, though he had a pretty good idea that she wouldn’t be all that impressed with that response. He’d watched her move across the room in a lithe, flowing walk that managed to be far more provocative than any hip sway might be. Why she’d decided to come his way, he wasn’t sure, but he was certainly interested in finding out. Up close, she was everything the glance from afar had promised and more. In another century, she would have had men dueling over that aristocratic beauty, vying to tease a smile from that wide, mobile mouth with its full lower lip.

One slim brow arched as she looked down at him. “I get the impression from the way you were looking that we’re not doing a very good job entertaining you.”

Shay smiled. “Quite the contrary. I’m very entertained right now. And I’ll take a beer when you get a chance. You have Guinness?”

“No Guinness, at least not yet. We’ve got Bud, Bud Light, Miller, and Heineken.”

“Heineken, then,” Shay said. She was in a whole different class from the rest of the bartenders in the place. Whoever had hired her had known what they were doing.

She leaned over to collect bottles from the shelf behind him, setting them on the tray. “Is this your first time at Bad Reputation?”

Shay nodded, watching her. She had the kind of face that sucked a man in, that made it impossible to look away, because the minute you did, you started wondering if anyone could really be that beautiful. “Just stopped by to see if what I’ve heard was true.” Not just beauty, he thought. Sex. Something in the curve of her lips and the tilt of those dark eyes suggested abandonment, disregard for rules. Come with me, they said, and I’ll show you things you’ve never even thought of.

“And what had you heard?” The brunette propped her tray on the shelf and looked at him under her lashes.

His mouth curved. “Something about half-naked women dancing on the bar.”

“Well, you’ve got to admit, they’re on the bar and they’re dancing.” She glanced over her shoulder to where the blonde was whipping her hair to the music.

“Like college girls having a wild night.”

“You’re calling us girls?” She smiled, but her eyes narrowed a trifle in warning.

“Not you, darlin’.” He ran his gaze from her long, smooth legs to the sleek curve of hip and waist, to the dark hair tumbling down her back, and up to that fabulous face. “You’re a whole different class from girls.”

A little buzz went through Mallory at his look, and she gave herself a mental shake. She might be giving the appearance of flirting, but she was supposed to be working a customer. It definitely didn’t do to get caught up in it. “And here I thought I’d heard about every line out there.”

“I didn’t intend it as a line.” His teeth gleamed, and something of the pirate came out in him then. “Did you want it to be?”

For the first time in years, she found herself at a loss for words. To buy time, she picked up her tray. “Let me go get you that beer,” she said, and turned for the bar.

It was something worth thinking about, that he’d thrown her off her stride. It wasn’t just the good looks—she’d had plenty of handsome men come on to her. There was something about him, some command of his surroundings that made him far more compelling than the usual pretty face. To allow her system time to settle, she stopped for a few more orders on her way in.

When she returned with his beer, he still sat loose and relaxed, observing his surroundings with an almost purposeful air.

“Miss me?” she asked teasingly.

“Every second was an eternity,” he said dryly.

Mallory laughed. “I’ll bet.”

“Hear any good lines on the way back?”

Her pulse jumped. She set a napkin down on the little shelf and placed the beer on top. “I’m at work, sugar. We don’t date customers.” On the other hand, she was beginning to wonder if it wasn’t time to reevaluate that policy. She stared at his mouth wondering how it tasted.

“So you’re allowed to tease but not to close on the deal?” he asked in amusement, putting the mouth of the bottle to his lips to take a drink. “You ought to at least come up with a way to let your customers down easy, encourage them a little so you get a lasting draw.”

Mallory raised a brow. “And are you looking for encouragement? That’ll be three dollars, by the way.”

“I’m probably not your target clientele, but yeah,” he said, pulling out his wallet.

It was a challenge. Mallory gave him a smoky look. “So you don’t think I can provide a lasting draw?” She was rewarded when his eyes darkened.

“I get the feeling you can pretty much do anything you want to do,” he said, holding her gaze until she felt something in her begin to heat and soften. “Then again, I haven’t seen you up on the bar.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything like me.” The words were a challenge, the tone a promise.

He looked at her. “You’re right. I haven’t. For you, I’d make an exception and stay. That’s why you should polish up your shut-down line. Teasing is a tricky business. Sometimes people expect you to finish what you start.” He took another drink.

“I never start anything I’m not prepared to finish,” she said coolly.

He tipped his head to one side and eyed her. “Now, that’s a thought that’ll keep me awake tonight.”

“On the other hand, flirting is just flirting. It doesn’t mean I’m starting anything.”

“That’s a pity. And here I was just going to buy another beer,” he said.

Her lips twitched. “And it doesn’t mean I’m not. You’ll just have to buy that beer and see how well I follow policy. Or buy two,” she said, remembering her promise to herself.

“And then do I get to see you dance?”

“I don’t dance,” she said automatically.

He finished his beer and set it down on her tray. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Don’t.”

“Really? You don’t strike me as the type who would be afraid to be up in front of a crowd.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“Of course not.”

“Get that idea out of your head.”

“I don’t doubt you,” he said agreeably. His smile grew wider.

Was that condescension she saw? “I should take care of the other customers,” she said at last. “Are you in for another beer?”

“Sure.” He eyed her assessingly. “I figure I’ll stick around to see if you get up there. Since you’re not scared.”

Recklessness snatched at her control, but she held on. Mallory turned without a word and went back behind the bar. Normally the routine of drawing beers and pouring drinks soothed her, but not tonight. She wanted to wipe the smirk off his face. He thought he knew something about her from a five minute conversation? He was dead wrong.

The tinny bang of three guitar notes heralded the start of INXS’s “You’re One of My Kind” on the jukebox. The monster groove begged her to move, and without thinking about it she found herself up on the bar.

SHAY’S MOUTH WENT DRY. Had he thought that the dancing was harmless? He’d been catastrophically mistaken. Long and lean and the stuff of men’s dreams, she moved on the bar with lithe grace, whipping her hips and arms to the beat of the music. Raven hair swung around her shoulders, her eyes fastened on his, hot and dark and full of promise. A teasing smile played over her mouth. At that moment, every man in the room might cheerfully have fought to have her.

But she was looking at him.

The song went on, a tale of teasing and seduction, the moan of a man luring his lover. As she was luring him. Moving to the beat, she mouthed the words and slid one fingertip up her leg, over her hip, across the bare skin of her flat stomach with its gleaming gold ring. Trailing her finger up between her breasts to shouts from the crowd on the floor, she slipped it between her lips, pursing them around it as though she tasted something sweet. Shay felt his body tighten.

The blonde and the redhead climbed back onto the bar to flank her and go through their gyrations, but they were like backup singers behind the lead performer, forgettable and easily dismissed. She and she alone had the crowd surging in a frenzy. She and she alone lured him with the hot promise in her eyes.

Need pumped through him.

MALLORY LEANED HER BACK against the brass pole on the bar and slid down it and back up. She was conscious of him watching every move she made, sitting out in the dimness, utterly still. She was up and dancing because he’d goaded her into it. Now she continued because she knew he was watching. Slide over here, and give me a moment she mouthed to him, tracing her hands up her body, then lifting the heavy weight of her hair.

As though their minds were linked, she knew how much she was arousing him. It was as though she were dancing for him alone, swaying for her lover, and her hands were his hands, touching her. The buzz spread through her system.

When the song ended, she found herself stepping down to a roaring ovation. Perhaps she ought to get on the bar more often, she thought. Then again, she’d only enjoyed it so much because of the stranger. She passed out beers and shots quickly, waiting for her system to settle.

“Nice job.” The words jolted her system.

She looked up to find him leaning on the hinged panel of the walkthrough at her side, those midnight blue eyes on her. He might have had her up against the wall, mouth and hands on her, for all that she felt his presence. The air between them almost sizzled.

Liane tapped her shoulder and she jumped. “Hey, the keg on line two is out.”

Mallory blinked, still looking at the stranger, then registered what she’d heard. “Where’s Randy? He’s supposed to be working the back.”

“He’s disappeared. Maybe he’s on a break or something.”

Mallory cursed as she looked for the bar back who kept them supplied with liquor and fresh glassware. Reliability wasn’t his strong suit; strength was. Still, with one tap down, she wasn’t going to stand on ceremony. Not that she was thrilled with the idea of wrestling kegs, but there was nothing for it. “Okay, I’ll go down and take care of it.”

“You’re out of your mind!” Liane hollered. “Those kegs weigh a ton.”

“You want to tell these guys they can’t have their Bud? Send Randy down when he shows up.” Mallory flicked another glance at the stranger, then ducked through the door behind her, heading into the back where she could get access to the cold room in the cellar.

She passed the dishwasher filled with glassware and opened the door to the basement. It wasn’t that her mystery man was so fabulous, she thought as she snapped on the light and clattered down the stairs. It had simply been too long since she’d had a lover, that was all. Taking a lover had just become too much of a bother. For some reason, no matter how often they said a physical relationship was fine, once she started sleeping with a guy, sex wasn’t enough. Suddenly they’d be pushing for more, wanting to get into her head, which was simply not an option. For Mallory, the barriers were high and solid and nonnegotiable. In her world, anything more than sex was impossible. Once you got beyond sex, you ran the risk of giving the other person power over you. The years of watching her father drown his pain in drink were all the proof she needed of that.

The trio of bare bulbs that dangled from the ceiling of the cellar did little to banish the shadows. Along the far wall, the stack of silver kegs gleamed dully. Behind her was the door to the cold room, where the kegs that fed the taps upstairs were kept.

She opened the door to the cold room and stepped inside with an involuntary shiver. Temperatures that were perfect for keeping beer icy cold weren’t quite comfortable if you were hanging out in a miniskirt and thong. The sealed door thudded shut behind her. Even though she knew it had an inside release, it always gave her the willies to be stuck inside what was essentially a walk-in refrigerator. The faster she finished this job, the better, she thought, staring at the neat row of kegs with vacuum lines snaking up through the ceiling. At least they kept a couple of spares in the cold room for easy access. Pulling the tap off the old keg with swift efficiency, she rolled the new keg into place and hooked it up.

Shivering, Mallory stepped outside and stared at the wall of kegs. Now for the ugly part—wrestling a new keg into the cold room. It was her strict policy that anyone who changed out a keg always put a new one in. You never knew how much beer you were going to go through in a night, and nothing pissed customers off more than warm beer. She kicked her heels off and cursed as her bare feet hit the chilly floor.

Then a noise behind her had her whirling with a gasp.

3

IT WAS HIM.

Adrenaline surged through her, mixed with little bolts of desire. “What are you doing here?”

He studied her. “I thought you might need some help. Kegs aren’t exactly light.”

“Customers aren’t allowed in the back. We’re not insured for it.”

“I’ll be careful not to drop the keg on my foot, then,” he said, with a grin hovering around the corners of his mouth.

That utterly delectable mouth.

She looked until she realized she was staring, then relented. “Well, if you want to help, I need two kegs from the stacks on the left. I can roll them, I just can’t lift them down.”

He crossed to the tiers of kegs and brought two of them to the floor with approximately the same amount of effort she’d expend on a bottle of whiskey.

“Guess you keep up your gym membership,” she said, struggling not to be impressed.

“Or something,” he said, grabbing one of the kegs and carrying it in the cold room.

Mallory took the other, tipping it onto an edge and rolling it along. The grating sound it made was magnified in the close quarters of the refrigerator, then he took it off of her hands.

“Just stack them on that side wall,” she directed. “That’ll give us enough for the rest of the night, I think.”

Back out in the storage room, she looked up at him, studying the hard planes of his face. She was tall for a woman; it wasn’t often that a man met, let alone bested her height. “Thanks for coming down to help.”

“No problem.” The bare overhead lights threw his eyes into shadow, bringing out that pirate look again.

It made her heart thud a little. Mallory rubbed her arms and shivered.

The look in his eyes changed. “You’ve got to be freezing in those clothes,” he said, closing his hands around her shoulders.

Heat was all she could register for a moment, heat from his palms flowing into her arms, heat from his body radiating out toward her. It made her exquisitely aware of the fact that a sizable, strong, and extremely attractive specimen of a man was just inches from her. This close to him, she could look her fill. “I wasn’t really thinking about the cold,” Mallory murmured, staring in fascination at his mouth.

“Well, you could use some warming up now.” He ran his hands up and down her arms lightly, chafing the skin into warmth, tantalizing the nerve endings.

“Does that mean you’re volunteering?”

His teeth gleamed in a half smile. “I told you, I’m here to help.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“There are all sorts of ways to warm you up.” He moved in closer to her. “What was it you said about always finishing what you start?” he murmured, sliding his hands down to hers and raising them to kiss her fingers.

She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. “What kind of a finish are you expecting?”

“It changes by the minute,” he said, his voice suddenly sober.

Abruptly she slid her hands up his chest to pull his head down to hers. “I guess we’ll just have to see, then, won’t we,” she whispered, and fastened her lips on his.

Mallory didn’t bother with teasing nibbles and pecks. Since his arrival she’d watched his mouth, wondered how it would feel under hers. Now she would discover. She dove into the kiss with abandon, tasting the tang of beer, the spice that was him. His tongue dipped and circled around hers, the silky stroking making her suddenly greedy for more. She made an impatient noise and pushed herself closer to him. The long cords of muscle in his back were sharply defined under the cloth of his shirt. Against her hips, she could feel him growing harder.

Need sliced through her, sharp and intense. She needed his hands on her, his skin against hers. She needed his mouth on her, hot and wet.

“When I first saw you I wondered what this would be like,” she murmured.

Desire slammed through him. Earlier, he’d watched her dance as though he’d been under some spell. Seeing her sway and tease, he’d imagined what it would be like to taste her, to feel her body against his. Imagination was nothing compared to the reality, though.

Hot and sweet, her flavor infused him, left him craving more. Her wild, sultry scent seemed to be everywhere. He could feel her breasts, warm and yielding against his chest, and the sensation threatened his control. He wanted to touch her everywhere at once. He wanted her, period, on the floor, against the kegs, anywhere, as long as it was now.

They were in the bar cellar, he struggled to remember, running his hand down her back to where her top ended and warm skin began. He definitely had no business wrapping himself around an employee on the clock and on the premises, but the sound of her soft moan made a mockery of his common sense. Her hands stroked the denim of his black jeans and he felt himself strain against the fabric, against the heat of her touch. Instead of stepping away and getting out, he found himself slipping a hand up under her tank top, sliding his fingers over the soft swell of her breast. With his eyes closed and the noise from the bar only a soft murmur in the background, they could have been anywhere. Then the insistent firmness of her nipples against his palm tore a groan out of him.