He jerked his head back. “No fuckin’ way. Guy’s a wimp-ass. Why’d you dance with him?”
“Because this is a bar with a dance floor.”
“You like being a smartass, don’t you?” His deep laugh washed over her and sent shivers skating across her skin.
Zoe stumbled back to the table with the preppy-looking guy, laughing. Grateful for the distraction, Casey turned her attention to her friend.
“The band’s good, don’t you think?” From the corner of her eye, she saw him staring at her with that steady, unflinching look that made her pulse jump even as she tried to ignore it.
“They’re awesome. I bet they’re from Denver.” Zoe plopped down on the chair and picked up her empty glass. Turning her head around, she said, “Where’s the waitress?”
“I’ll get you a drink,” the preppy guy said. He looked over at Casey. “Do you want something?”
“I’ll get her a drink,” Chase said, his tone cutting like ice. “You just focus on your girl.”
Mr. Preppy blanched for a second then walked away.
“You didn’t have to be rude,” Casey said, turning to look at him.
“I wasn’t. I was telling it like it is. He’s with a chick”—he pointed at Zoe—“so he needs to pay attention to her and not you when you got me next to you. He caught on.”
“Who are you?” Zoe said, pointing a long ice blue fingernail at him.
Chase didn’t answer, his gaze was back on Casey, deliberate and hot.
“Weren’t you dancing with Nathan?” Zoe asked Casey.
“He had to leave,” Chase said, his focus still on Casey.
He leaned one hand against the back of Casey’s chair. His gaze held hers—hazel, deep and molten, the brown warm as whiskey and the green sharp as temptation.
“Do you always stare at a woman like you’re about to start a fire?”
The corner of his mouth ticked upward. He slid his gaze from her lips to the hollow of her throat, pausing there just long enough to make her shift in her seat. Then lower. A slow trail that made heat coil low in her belly. When his eyes returned to hers, they smoldered, making her breath catch, traitorously loud in her own ears. She hated how easily he got under her skin, hated the way her body betrayed her, when every rational thought told her to push back and tell him to go to hell.
“Only the ones who want me to,” he said, voice low, rough like velvet wrapped in gravel.
She felt the flush in her cheeks but held his stare, even as the weight of it pulled at her, unraveled her. Around them the music played, the bartenders poured drinks, Zoe laughed, and some people hollered over a pool game, but it all felt distant.
“Dude, are you in for the next game?” someone called across the room.
Not looking away, he shook his head, while his stare stayed locked on her, a heat pinning her in place.
“If you’re good at pool, your friends might not appreciate you sitting out,” she said, trying to summon enough edge in her voice to cover the hammering of her pulse.
A smile tugged at his lips. He leaned in, close enough for her to feel the warmth of his body, his lips just a breath from hers. “I’d rather be here with a sexy, good-looking woman.”
Then he kissed her. Slow, confident, tasting faintly of mint and whiskey. His mouth claimed her with unhurried dominance: It wasn’t frantic or over eager but controlled and steady, like he had all the time in the world to wreck her.
Around her, the noise of the bar blurred into nothing. The only thing she was aware of was the steady press of his mouth and the easy roll of his tongue against hers.
Casey grabbed the front of his T-shirt, pulling him closer even as her mind screamed for control. He deepened the kiss, and the world narrowed to the heat between them: the faint scrape of stubble, his hand threading in her hair, his scent of cedar and leather wrapping around her.
When he finally pulled back, his lips still brushed hers, “Fuck, baby, you know how to kiss.”
Casey straightened, breath uneven. “You’re trouble.”
“The good kind or the bad?” He reached out and brushed his thumb along her jaw.