Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 27555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 27555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 138(@200wpm)___ 110(@250wpm)___ 92(@300wpm)
Not that I was opposed to hooking up—I wasn’t—but I was too damn old to bang a chick just because she was hot. It took more than that to get me goin’ these days, and Robin had a hell of a lot more than looks. “Ready to talk about why you’re so sad?” Valentine’s Day was a distant memory, and soon we’d be celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, so I doubted she had the V-Day blues. I assumed nothing and simply waited her out.
“No,” she sighed, as if she had the weight of the world on her delicate shoulders. “I’m just not ready to deal with it. Not yet.”
I could respect that. I wasn’t one of those people who needed to talk everything to death. “But you’re okay? Nothing dangerous or life-threatening?”
“No.” She flashed a wide grin and licked her full lips. “Nobody is going to die. But thanks for giving a damn.” She looked over her shoulder and froze. “Shit.” Her full lips parted in shock. “I’m sorry, shit, Levi, why didn’t you say anything?” She picked up her tiny purse—the smallest I’d ever seen (what the hell was even in that thing?)—and mumbled to herself.
I laughed at her question. “I can handle one drunk chick, Robin.”
That earned me a menacing glare. “First, call me Rob. Second, I’m not drunk. Not at all.”
“No?” I folded my arms and arched both brows.
“No. I’m comfortably numb.” Her smile was sassy and flirty, and a little bit sexy. Okay, sexy as hell.
“Okay, Rob. Fine.” She smiled brighter when I used her preferred name. “The bar is clean, mostly anyway. The owner will bitch about it in the morning, but it’s okay. He can’t resist my smile. Ready to settle up?”
She laughed to herself and slid a card across the bar. “You find your smile irresistible?” Her plump lips parted when I nodded.
“It’s one of my best features.” At least, that’s what I’ve been told.
Rob shook her head and studied me carefully while I waited for her receipt to print. She pulled out a bill and set it between us. “Your smile is great, but you don’t smile enough for it to qualify as your best feature.”
Heat suffused my body when I looked up and saw the naked appreciation in her eyes. Curiosity got the better of me. “Then tell me, what is my best feature?”
She tapped her chin, as if she was thinking, when I knew she already had an answer. “Eyes first. That shade of green, a mix of emerald and forest green, is the kind that a girl could get lost in. And with those lashes? Pretty irresistible.”
I realized I was having fun with her. “Why do I hear a ‘but’ coming?”
“Because, Levi, you are a very smart man.”
“And you are trying to get out of answering the question.”
She feigned shock. “Never!”
“Then answer the question.”
“Fine.” She looked me over again. “Your arms. You wear the hell out of a flannel, and you seem to have an endless supply of them, which is awesome because…arms.” She waved in the general direction of my arms. “There’s a hint of a tattoo on your left arm when the sleeve pulls, and they just look really…,” she didn’t finish the sentence, and I was dying to know.
“Hot?”
“Yummy,” she supplied instead.
My dick stood up and took notice of that compliment. Curious to see what else she had to say, I flicked the buttons and rolled up my sleeves for her. The gasp was satisfying as hell, but the way she leaned over the bar with heat and interest in her eyes was hella hot.
Rob reached over to trace the skull with the flowers growing out of it and then pulled back. “Sorry, that was a little intrusive of me. Well, I’m kind of sorry, but maybe you’ll tell me about them someday?” The question in her gaze caught me off guard. Was there a world in which a beautiful, leggy woman like her was ever rejected?
I licked my lips. Heat filled my entire body from this hour-long chat with Rob. I couldn’t believe my lips were forming the words until they were out of my mouth, but, fuck, Rob was gorgeous, fun, and smart. What was a red-blooded man supposed to do? “How about now?”
Those green eyes—jade green, I realized once I turned on the lights—rounded comically, and I wondered if I misread this conversation. Maybe she was just a sad woman in need of a few drinks until she was comfortably numb.
I held my breath for what felt like an eternity, waiting for the rejection that was sure to come.
3 ROB
Levi was smooth, I’d give him that. And he wasn’t smooth in that smarmy, greasy kind of way. Oh no, he was smooth like expensive whiskey, or really good tequila.
“You want to tell me about your tattoos…now?” I smacked a hand over my face because I sounded like an idiot.