of the image that she wanted to project.
He could only assume that she’d wanted her clothing to scream sex, and, oh, had it ever worked.
He tried, really he did, not to let his gaze linger on the delicious cleavage rising out of her neckline, or on the creamy expanse of thigh that made him think of what those legs would look like wrapped around his waist.
She shifted, the already-short hemline riding up even higher, and he lost the battle. It wasn’t the first time, either—in the month since he’d met her, he’d had a very hard time fighting his attraction for the petite brunette.
In another world, fighting it wouldn’t have even been an option. That first day they’d met, when he’d gone to the Marchandes’ home to convince Jo to take a job, the spark had been immediate. There she’d sat, surrounded by her sisters, and the only one he’d seen was her. And if they’d gone for it right then, it probably would have been okay. But now?
Now he and Theo were friends. He and Jo were friends. The Marchandes were a package deal, their mother and Theo included. And that meant that starting anything up with Meg, even a fling, was...well, complicated.
Meg was like a sister to Theo, and wasn’t that an unwritten rule in the bro code? Sisters were hands-off. Sisters were especially hands-off when he was only going to be here for one more week.
That didn’t stop him from thinking about what it would feel like to wrap a hand in those long, loose waves, tugging gently until she gasped.
His cock, which had only paid the barest minimum of attention to the waitress, was fully on board with this new plan. It didn’t help his restraint. Nor did the flare of emerald green jealousy when the man who Meg had been speaking to—flirting with—moved in behind her, placing his hands on her hips and tugging her back against him.
He didn’t like it. He didn’t like it at all, even as he reminded himself that she had the right to dance with whomever she wanted. She could flirt with whomever she wanted, and she could sleep with whomever she wanted.
None of that, however, meant that he couldn’t throw his hat in the ring.
Looking across the bar, he saw the table where Jo and Theo still sat, wrapped around each other like ribbons on a maypole. John knew Jo well enough to understand that she would just shrug and say it was Meg’s choice, but Theo would string him up and flay him alive and enjoy doing it. He didn’t want to risk the first real friendship he’d had in...ever.
Theo would probably come around if he knew that John liked Meg, on top of wanting to screw her brains out. That was part of the problem, though... No matter how much he liked Meg, it could never be anything more than sex.
He didn’t do connections with other people. It was something of a personal rule, and he wasn’t some naive idiot who needed to lie down on a therapist’s couch to figure out why—he avoided relationships of all kinds because when you cared about people, they could hurt you. This had been his truth since before he could remember, and hitting the streets at age thirteen had locked it in.
Theo and his friendship had sneaked past John’s barriers, but after careful examination, John had decided that he could handle any potential fallout. Same with Jo.
What he felt for Meg, though? That was something best left unexplored, which was why he’d spent the past few months trying to ignore it.
Right now, watching the sway of her hips as she danced? As the primal urge to fight his competition for her thickened in his blood? Combined with the fact that he admired her, liked her?
He’d honed his self-control in iron for his whole life, but he was still only a man, and he wanted her with every fiber in his being.
Before he’d decided on a plan, he started toward them. He ignored the alarm that started shrieking in his head, warning him of the impending danger.
He’d built a very successful company that had made him very wealthy by going after what he wanted with laser focus.
And right now? Maybe he had an undiscovered masochistic streak that had him craving her company, even if he wasn’t ever going to do anything about it. Yeah, he must, because he found himself walking straight toward her.
He couldn’t have her, but the only thing he wanted was Meg.
IF THE MAN rocking his pelvis against her ass knew that Meg was going over her list of orders for the next day in her head while he got handsy, he probably wouldn’t have been too thrilled. And it wasn’t that he bored her or anything—she’d quite enjoyed their flirtation, which had started after he’d watched her down two shots in quick succession. He was hot, and she wasn’t immune to the sensation of his hardening erection pressing against her from behind.
It was just that she had a lot going on these days. Her brain was full, and she was tired. Or wired. She couldn’t tell anymore. Before she’d opened her small catering company, others had told her how proud she’d be, how nice it would feel to be her own boss and set her own hours. These things were true, but why hadn’t anyone told her how freaking hard it was? In the past, at the catering company she’d worked for since she was a teenager, there had always been someone high ranking to pass problems to.
Now? She was that high-ranking person. She was the end of the line. And while she was happy, it also meant that most of the time, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. Which sometimes led to multitasking...like working in her head while a hot guy tried to get into her pants.
Jo had all but dragged her out by the hair tonight, reminding her that after fighting so hard for her success, she should be enjoying it a bit, too. Meg knew her sister was right, but even two shots hadn’t been enough to clear her head.
Behind her, she felt Aaron—that was his name, right?—slide one of the hands resting on her hips down lower to toy with the hem of her short dress. The pads of his fingers were hard, the calloused skin of a man who worked with them for a living, and she liked the sensation of them scratching her skin. A thin ribbon of arousal spooled out in her belly, and she pressed back against him, making him groan.
“Want to get out of here?” he whispered against her ear. “My place is only a block away.”
She considered. Maybe some sweaty sex was just what she needed to clear her head. Aaron was hot, in a rough kind of way—his nose had the crooked lines of a brawler, and the body beneath his no-nonsense jeans and T-shirt promised that she wouldn’t be disappointed. She suspected that sex with him would be the same—straightforward, simple, a transaction that got them both off.
She could get down with that. She shifted in his arms so that she could reply in the affirmative, but as she did she found her gaze drawn toward the long, sticky surface of the bar. Gaze awareness, she thought it was called—that weird thing that happened when you sensed someone looking at you.
She wasn’t wrong. Someone was indeed looking at her, and when she saw him, she knew she wouldn’t be going home with Aaron tonight, or any other night.
Keeping one eye on her new admirer, she turned in Aaron’s arms, smiling up at him ruefully. “Not tonight, but thanks for the dance.”
He furrowed his brow momentarily, and Meg felt herself tense. Some men—not all men, but some—didn’t understand that a dance wasn’t a promise, that accepting the offer of a drink, or a flirtatious conversation, or the choice of a short skirt and high boots wasn’t a contract promising that they’d get their rocks off.
Aaron, however, shrugged good-naturedly after a moment of disappointment and took off into the crowd, in search of a woman who would take him up on that offer of simple sex. Meg exhaled a sigh of relief before turning back to where the other man still watched her, a slight smirk turning up the corners of his mouth.
“See something you like?”