inch, so she stepped around him with haste. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Bull.” He crossed his arms and leaned back on the bar. “We have to talk about it.”
At the breaking point, she started to blast him, but instead got caught up in the flex of his biceps, how his soft cotton T-shirt stretched over his chest, how the denim of his jeans had faded over his...fly.
Stifling a groan, she set out more napkins and clean glasses just to give her hands something to do—other than reach for him. “About what?”
“Avery,” he chastised. “You know what I’m talking about.”
A spark of temper smashed through some of her embarrassment. She gave a quick glance around, but no one was close enough to overhear. “Are you talking about your inappropriate behavior in your office?”
“Yeah.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. “That.”
Well, if he could be so blasé, she would be, too. “Sorry about interrupting. Hope you didn’t—” she almost choked “—stop on my account.”
“I’d just finished anyway—but then, you know that, don’t you?”
Breath strangled in her throat.
He lowered his voice to a husky rumble. “I mean, since you watched.”
Shooting up to her tiptoes, Avery growled, “I was shocked! And actually, I figured you two had stayed at it for hours after I fled the scene.”
“No.” His humor faded until he looked far too serious. “I’m sorry you walked in on that.”
Before she could censor her mouth, she heard herself say, “But you’re not sorry you did it?”
As if sizing her up, Rowdy watched her without replying.
Good grief. Rushing, Avery pulled out the bags of peanuts and pretzels to refill the bowls. “Forget I said that. Not my business.”
“I’ve asked you—”
“I know you have,” she said, a little too loud and way too fast. Her rusty laugh wouldn’t convince anyone. “And if not me, then someone else, right?” Anyone else.
Way to make her feel special.
“Avery—”
She plopped the bowl up on the bar so hard that peanuts jumped out. “Believe me, Rowdy, I get it.”
“I don’t think you do.”
For whatever reason, that really annoyed her. Hands on her hips, her cheeks hot, she faced him. “You want sex. Constantly.”
He glanced around, then took her arm and pulled her aside again. “Keep it down, why don’t you?”
Already on a roll, she continued. “With any willing woman. I’m not ready, so you—”
“It’s not like that.”
“No?” Just shut up, Avery. But of course she didn’t. Around Rowdy, she lost much of her control. “Then how exactly is it?”
He dismissed that question with a shake of his head and asked one of his own. “What do you mean you’re not ready?”
Oh, crap.
Shifting closer, his gaze bored into hers. “You haven’t asked me to wait, Avery. Not once. All I’ve heard from you is a flat no.”
She stared up at him—and badly wanted to say, Wait.
As if he knew her thoughts, he whispered, “Avery—” and the bar’s landline phone rang, cutting off whatever Rowdy had planned to say.
She started to reach for it, but he beat her to it.
Watching her, he said into the phone, “Rowdy’s bar and grill.” He might have adopted her suggested name for the place, but he rarely referred to it that way. “How can I help you?” His eyes narrowed. “Yes, she’s here. Hold on.” He held the phone out to her.
Avery lifted her brows. “For me?”
“You’re Avery Mullins, right?”
She stepped back so fast she bumped into the bar. Someone had asked for her by name? An invisible fist squeezed her lungs. “Who is it?”
Concern and suspicion narrowed Rowdy’s gaze. “He didn’t say.”
He. Thoughts churning, unreasonable worry blooming, Avery tried to decide what to do, how to act.
Rowdy covered the phone. “What’s the problem?”
She chewed her bottom lip. Surely it was just a customer, a bar question maybe. The caller couldn’t know that the owner himself had picked up and could share any info needed....
Rowdy moved so close, they almost touched. “Want me to take the call for you?”
He was so big, so impressively male, that he inadvertently emphasized the differences in their sizes, making her feel even smaller and far too vulnerable.
Feelings she’d tried to bury deep.
“No.” She was an independent adult—time to act like one. “No, of course not.” She tried to smile, but didn’t feel real successful. Taking the phone from him, she said with only a modicum of caution, “Hello?”
The cold silence sounded louder than a shout.
Her heart started pounding a wild tattoo. The way Rowdy studied her didn’t help. She said again, a little louder, “Hello?”
She heard a faint laugh—and the line went dead.
Worry burned into real alarm.
“Avery?”
From now on, she’d have to be more careful. No more walking out to the bus alone. No more getting to her apartment unprepared for the worst.
“All right, enough.” Rowdy took her shoulders. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
And no reason to share her absurd past with Rowdy. “Nothing is wrong.” Nothing that he could fix. Not that she’d let him anyway.
She’d gotten along well enough before meeting Rowdy.
And since he didn’t want to get tied down, well, she’d get along fine and dandy without him still.
“Nothing, huh? That’s why you’re strangling the phone?” He took the receiver from her, put it to his ear.
“He hung up.” Avery turned to do a few refills along the bar. When she finished, Rowdy still stood there. Waiting. Maybe she’d misunderstood. “You say he asked for me? Like, he asked to speak to the bartender?”
“Actually,
