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  As if on cue, Scott’s voice drifted from the den. “Hey, baby, make us something to eat, would ya?”

  “Fine,” I grumbled.

  A further examination of our tiny yet modern kitchen revealed that we still had some mayonnaise, half a loaf of bread, and some half-stale tortilla chips. I put together a couple of egg sandwiches, paired them with some of the chips on plates and lugged them to the guys.

  Scott and Dreadlocks kept their eyes glued to the television; my boyfriend’s beautiful blue eyes didn’t even flicker towards me when I shoved the plate at him.

  “Here.”

  Scott reached for the plates, passing one to Dreadlocks without ever making eye contact with me. No thank you either.

  Great.

  I rolled my eyes and went back to the kitchen to whip up my omelet, then sat down at the kitchen counter that opened up to the dining room on one side to eat it. I grabbed up my phone to distract myself from the sense of loneliness that I felt, despite the fact that my boyfriend was in the next room. I scrolled through Facebook, pausing my thumb on the screen when I saw an ad that caught my interest.

  Penn’s was having a live band tonight. That sounded like a lot more fun than watching whatever game was on at Rennie’s. I finished my omelet, cleaned up the kitchen, and padded back to the den.

  I paused in the doorway, watching Scott throw his muscular arms in the air and cheer when his team scored. When he quieted down, I walked over to him and sat down on the arm on the couch was stretched out on.

  “Hey, Scott.” No response. “Baby?”

  He finally managed to tear his eyes away from the game. “What’s up?”

  “There’s a band at Penn’s tonight. Wanna go there instead of Rennie’s?”

  Scott’s eyes widened, and he looked at me like I’d just suggested we take a one-way trip to Mars. “There’s a game on, Jules. We gotta go to Rennie’s.”

  He shook his head, his dark hair ruffling from the movement. Hesitating when he saw that I was definitely pouting a little, his lips curled into that smile that he knew I couldn’t resist. The one that showed off the cute dimple on his right cheek and made his eyes light up like he actually, just maybe, cared about me more than the game.

  Scott’s arms wrapped around my hips and he pulled me onto his lap so that I was straddling him. It was entirely inappropriate with Dreadlocks right there, but he didn’t seem to notice, and Scott clearly didn’t care.

  He cupped my face in his hands and brought my lips closer, until they were inches away from his. “You know we gotta go to Rennie’s when the game’s on, babe. I promise to make it up to you later.”

  Scott flashed me another smile, a sexy one that made my nether regions supremely aware of our position on the couch. I was wishing we could take advantage of it when Scott started smothering my neck with kisses. A shiver of pleasure ran through me when his lips brushed a sensitive spot behind my ear. What we had together wasn’t so bad. And damn, the man could definitely kiss.

  I sighed happily, every kiss cheering me up a little bit more. When I was about ready to get started grinding my hips against his, Dreadlocks be damned, I pressed a quick kiss to Scott’s cheek. “Fine, Rennie’s it is, but you better have something awesome planned to make it up to me.”

  Scott’s dimple came out to play again when he answered me in slightly rougher than usual voice. “Don’t I always?”

  He didn’t, actually, but I wasn’t pointing that out to him now. It would only start another fight that I wasn’t in the mood for, and besides, I was trying to cling to the warm glow that his kisses had given me. So I let it go and rose from his lap. “Sure.”

  He slapped my butt when I went to move past him. So hard that it stung a little. I winced but tucked my chin down to hide it. “Go put on something sexy for me, babe. We’ll leave in about an hour.”

  Sexy? For Rennie’s? I honestly didn’t see the point of dressing up to go to the hole-in-the-wall sports bar, but maybe it would inspire Scott for later. Shrugging, I nodded and headed for my closet to try to find something that fit the bill.

  Chapter 3

  Pacey

  The game was streaming on each of the five flat-screen televisions mounted on the exposed brick walls of my favorite sports bar. If I had another choice in the matter, it might not have been, but since Rennie’s was also the only sports bar in town, it was my favorite by default.

  The Atlanta Hawks were battling it out on the screens with their longtime nemesis, the Boston Celtics. The game had drawn a larger crowd to Rennie’s than usual.

  But it was a big game, though: the biggest of the season so far. Despite that fact, I was only half watching it.

  Most of the guys in the place had their eyes firmly stuck on the game, but mine had landed on a group of girls giggling at the other end of the bar as soon as I walked in, and kept roaming back to them every once in a while.

  I leaned forward on the pockmarked wooden bar, spinning my beer between my fingers as my gaze alternated between the screen mounted above their heads and the girls themselves. Not girls, actually. One girl, in particular, had captured my attention the moment I saw her, and my eyes kept returning to her.

  A quick scan of the bar early on told me there were a few attractive women in attendance tonight, but the only one who really stood out was the blonde across the bar. She was wearing a dress that was a little fancy for the old bar that smelled like stale tobacco and beer spilled sometime in the early 90s that had taken up permanent residence in the dark wood of the bar and floors.

  But fuck. That dress.

  It hugged every damn one of her curves, hitting mid-thigh and revealing just hint of cleavage between her perfectly round tits. She was built athletically, but not in that CrossFit way that made some women look like men and triggered the urge to arm wrestle instead of fuck. She was toned, yet still curvy and soft.

  A cheer went up around me, and several guys punched the air in celebration of a basket that must have been scored, but I wasn’t watching the game so much as the girl. She was far more interesting than a bunch of sweaty guys tossing a ball through a hoop.

  I loved sports as much as the next guy, but I wasn’t a fanatic about it. I’d choose a good fuck with a pretty girl over sports every damn day of the week, and twice, or maybe three times, on a Sunday.

  And this girl was more than fucking pretty. She was gorgeous: beautiful, even. An image of her plump lips wrapped around my dick flashed into mind, and just like that, my jeans got a bit tighter over my cock.

  I briefly considered going over to where she was talking to a brown-haired girl and making that mental image a reality, but I decided against it when I realized that my jeans weren’t the only thing that was tightening. My chest did too, especially when she threw her head back and laughed at something her friend was saying—and that wasn’t all that made it difficult to breathe; it was a hell of a lot worse than that.

  The sound of feminine laughter hit my ears at exactly the same time, just barely rising above the din of the bar. My heartbeat sped up for a split second, the first taste of that old adrenaline that I’d not experienced in years spiking in my blood.

  Fuck.

  I wasn’t remotely interested in anything or anyone that had that kind of effect on me. Nothing had in years, and if I really thought about it, no person had, ever. Not even May.

  The realization stunned me. I took a deep swig of my beer, then decided to drain the glass instead and ordered another one.

  I must be more exhausted than I thought. My sleeping patterns were seriously fucked, and it was messing with my body. That’s all.

  Even so, I wasn’t going anywhere near the blonde. I tore my eyes from her and that tempting little black dress she was wearing and fixed them firmly on the screen above her. Then I turned on my stool to face the screen on the other wall just in case.

  I tried to immerse myself in the game, but I was having trouble concentrating. By the time the whistle blew to indicate halftime, I was feel
ing itchy again. I needed to move.

  Lifting my empty glass to Adam, the dark-haired bartender that I’d gotten to know a little, I caught his attention. “One more. I’ll be right back.”

  I went to the bathroom, more to alleviate the need to stretch my legs than to piss, but at least it would give me something to do. Other than to give in to the intense urge to hit on the only girl in the bar that had managed to stir something in me.

  The blonde was still there, but she and her friend were slowly making their way to my side of the bar, causing more than a few heads to turn in their wake now that every man in the bar wasn’t glued to the television. I purposely chose to walk the other way around the bar to the bathroom. No need to tempt myself even further. If she smelled half as good as she looked, there would be no controlling which brain would take over.

  I pushed through the saloon-style doors to the bathroom and was unzipping at the urinal when a loud snort sounded from the stall behind me. It was followed by a loud, racking cough and another snort. There was only the one stall in the bathroom, and there was no doubt in my mind what the loser inside was doing.

  Real smart, bro. The idiocy of snorting whatever brain-cell-destroying substance he was snorting, notwithstanding, I wondered if he realized what the hell else he was getting off that fucking toilet. I shuddered a bit and tried not to think about it. It was fucking disgusting really.

  A tall, dark-haired man stumbled out of the stall when I was done and zipping up again. His hair was tousled, though not in an artfully styled kind of way, and his blue eyes were glassy and rimmed in red. He tripped over his feet as he headed to the double sinks that hung on exposed copper piping.

  High as a fucking kite.

  I was no choir boy and generally didn’t judge people because I honestly didn’t give a fuck, but I prided myself on the fact that I’d never touched drugs. Outside of alcohol of course, but that didn’t really count in my mind.

  The very thought of the stuff rubbed me the wrong way in fact, and after what happened to May, it actually pissed me the hell off. The drug trade ruined lives, ended lives…it ended hers, in a way. The people responsible for this shit did.

  Shaking my head, I clenched my hands into fists to keep from slapping the idiot upside his head and went to take my place at the sink next to him.

  Only, his hand slipped when he reached for the tap, causing it to send a rush of water spraying out all over both of us and soaking the counter around the sinks.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, jumping back to avoid getting the front of my jeans completely drenched. The druggie asshole started laughing like it was the funniest damn thing he’d ever seen. I didn’t think he even noticed that the front of his pants looked like he’d pissed himself.

  “That was awesome. Like a fucking fountain.” He grinned at me in the reflection of the grimy mirror. A lopsided, sneer of a grin that made the urge to punch him that much stronger. I gritted my teeth.

  “A fucking fountain that soaked the counter and the floor.” I pointed out, waiting to see if he was going to apologize or clean up the mess he’d made.

  He did neither of those things. Instead, he shrugged and muttered. “Some bitch will clean it up later. It’s only water. It’ll dry by itself anyway.”

  Some bitch? Wow. “Listen to me, jackass. Clean up your own goddamn mess.”

  The asshole smirked and flipped me off. “Mind your business, dickhead.”

  His tongue was slurring his words, and I knew that it was a lost cause. Guys like him weren’t worth the fucking time of day it would take to school him.

  But my obsessive-compulsive tendencies borne from years of religious organization didn’t allow me to just leave the bathroom in that state, so I grabbed a couple of towels from the roll and wiped off the counter. It was probably cleaner by the time I was done that it had been before the water explosion, but that didn’t matter.

  There wasn’t much I could do about the floor, but my hand still gave an involuntary little twitch when I turned to leave the bathroom knowing that it was still a mess. But those were the breaks.

  The game had already resumed by the time I got back into the bar. My eyes narrowed when I saw that the same asshole from the bathroom had taken up my spot, his eyes glued to the TV screen like he couldn’t see anything else in the room.

  Fuck me.

  He’d even helped himself to my beer. I shoved my hands through my hair. This wasn’t going to end well for him.

  I walked right up to him, not that he noticed at first, and tapped him on the shoulder. He didn’t look away from the screen as he grunted, “What?”

  “You’re in my spot.” My shoulders were tight, my body bracing and begging for a fight. The asshole still didn’t look at me, he just rolled his eyes and took a long sip of my fucking beer. “And you owe me a beer, dickwad.”

  At that, he raised his eyebrows, laughed, and turned to look me right in the eyes as he lifted the glass to his thin lips to take another sip. And that was it. The end of my saint-like patience with this guy. I felt like I’d already been a saint for not just punching him right off the fucking bat.

  I hated causing a scene, but rage and irritation were buzzing like electricity over my skin, and my breathing had already slowed, the way it always did when I focused and readied my body for a fight. I was forming a fist to punch the piss out him when out of nowhere, the hot blonde from before jogged up to him and threw her arms around his neck from behind.

  What the…?

  She smacked a big kiss onto his lips, but he barely even seemed to notice.

  That was the lucky bastard who was taking her home? Oh, hell no.

  I unclenched my fist when I was hit with a dose of inspiration. Instead of beating the shit out him, I was going to fuck his girlfriend instead. Screw the fact that I’d sworn her off earlier.

  I had wanted her as soon as I saw her and now I was determined to have her. A good old revenge fuck.

  Was I proud of it?

  No.

  But a girl like her deserved better than a dick like that anyway. Sure, I would only be around to show her that for one night, but it might be enough to open her eyes to the great big beyond where not all men were drug-addicted losers.

  It was a much better idea that beating the jerk up. That would hurt for a couple of days. A month, tops, if I really let loose the way that I wanted to and got those hits in before someone played hero and pulled me off of him. Stealing his girlfriend away from him? That would sting for the rest of his miserable life. And would be doing her a favor in the process.

  Bingo.

  Chapter 4

  Juliana

  “I knew you’d come,” I told Amber when we arrived at Rennie’s to find Amber and some of the other girls already there.

  Amber fluffed her lustrous chestnut hair and sat up a little straighter in her seat when she saw us. “Of course. I couldn’t leave you to your own devices in this testosterone-filled shithole.”

  I gave her a quick hug. “Thanks. I tried to convince Scott to go to Penn’s instead, but the game and all, you know how it is.”

  Amber’s eyes fell onto Scott beside me, dropping quickly to our joined hands before she pulled him in for a side hug. “Yeah, I know. Hey, Scott.”

  He gave her an awkward pat on the back, and she released him. “Hey, Ambi. You doing okay?”

  “Fine, you?” she answered, fluffing her hair again. What was with that? Although, her bright green eyes were already a bit glassy, so she’d probably just had a few cocktails already.

  “Good,” he said, stepping back from her. His blue eyes sought out mine. “Gotta go find a seat before all of the good ones are taken.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t expecting a full makeout session worthy of a romance movie, but jeez, a peck before he left would’ve been a nice touch. Scott was gone before I could even reach for him. He weaved his way through the crowd, making a beeline for a seat right up against one of the TV screens.

  No surprise there. He pro
ceeded to thoroughly ignore me in favor of the game, but at least it gave me the chance to catch up with the girls and giggle with them as they sized up the male talent, or lack thereof, in the bar.

  If I had pictured a sports bar back when I was too young to go into one, Rennie’s would have been exactly what I envisioned. Slightly darkened, low ceilings, with televisions everywhere and a long, rounded old wooden bar that may not have been properly cleaned since the troops came back from Vietnam.

  It wasn’t exactly a hotbed of activity insofar as talent was concerned, and we knew most of the regulars. There was, however, one piece of man candy that even I couldn’t help but ogle.

  Just because I was dating Scott didn’t mean that I’d suddenly gone blind, and you’d have to be if you didn’t stop and stare just a little at that guy. Although in retrospect, he was so hot I was certain that even blind women would feel it radiate from him enough to give them pause.

  Scott was a looker, sure. He was tall and lean with a decent body, ice blue eyes and midnight- black hair. I knew that there were always girls after him, a lot sometimes, and I was happy to be the one he had chosen to give the relationship thing a go with.

  But hot dang.

  The guy at the other side of the bar, staring as intently at the damn screens as the rest of them, was in a league all of his own. He wasn’t even playing the same damn sport as any man I’d ever met. Certainly not in this town.

  Maybe they built ‘em like that in New York or Los Angeles, but they sure as shit didn’t look like that in Stone Mountain.

  Because, holy crap on a cracker. I actually had to physically stop my jaw from dropping; he was that kind of hot. Dark brown, almost black in the dim lighting of the bar, his hair was short and swept up and slightly to the left on the front. It was shorter, though not completely shaved, on the sides, but thick and full on top.