She jerked but he held her fast.
“Sit down, querida,” he murmured. “Just sit. Enjoy. Don’t clean the tables. Don’t go visit your friends. Wait for me.”
Because, damn it, he wanted her to wait for him. He wanted to be the focus of her attention.
She looked doubtful, but finally gave a small jerky nod and sat down again dutifully, folded her hands, then gave him a beatific smile. It was such a sweet smile—so unlike Molly—that he gave her a narrow look, wondering what he’d forgotten to forbid her to do.
“Wait,” he said again. “I’ll be right back.” Then, giving her one last nail-her-to-the-chair look, he hurried to the bar. Another night he would have stopped to chat, to flirt, to tease, to charm the women in his way. Tonight he was on a mission. So he smiled and sidestepped them all, ignored Michael the bartender’s curious look, and returned with a pitcher and two glasses of beer in a matter of minutes.
Molly, he was relieved to note, was still there.
He poured the beer and pushed a glass across the table for her. She wrapped her hand around it and said politely, “Thank you.”
“My pleasure.” He sat down opposite her and focused on her. “Now,” he said, “we talk.”
“About what?” She licked her lips again.
His gaze went straight to her mouth. He swallowed. “We get to know each other.”
“But we already do, Carson and I. I told you that.”
Forget Carson, he wanted to say. But he was the reason they were here, of course. So Joaquin raked his fingers through his hair and said, “There must be things about him that you don’t know. What makes him tick? What drives him? What matters most?” He was talking off the top of his head, just wallowing in the green magic of her eyes. “Do you know all that?”
“I—maybe not,” she admitted. “Or I wouldn’t be doing this, would I?”
“Exactly. So you focus. You pay attention to him. You ask questions. Yes?”
“Okay, yes.” She sipped her beer and did that quick tongue thing to her lips again.
Joaquin felt his blood run hot and did his best to distract himself. “So you try, all right?”
She touched her upper lip with her tongue. “You mean, ask about what he—you—most care about?”
“Yes.” And stop doing that thing with your tongue!
“All right.” Molly nodded, pressed her lips together and looked down into her glass a long moment, then she lifted her gaze and met his. “Are you afraid to come watch Lachlan and the kids play soccer?”
“What?” He stared at her, gut punched.
“You don’t come. I know he’s asked you. But you never come.”
His jaw clenched. “I don’t talk about soccer,” he said harshly.
She looked genuinely surprised. “Why not?”
“Because—” He hesitated. He didn’t want to continue. Didn’t want to go there. But there didn’t seem to be any way out. The noise and commotion in the bar swirled around them, but he didn’t hear any of it. He heard the roar of blood in his head and the echo of Molly’s frank question.
“Wrong question?” she asked gently when he didn’t reply at once.
His fingers tightened on the glass he held. He let out the breath that seemed to be choking him. “No,” he said honestly. “I asked for it.” Because he had. He’d challenged her—and she’d challenged him right back.
“I don’t talk about it because it makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable.” He swallowed. “It hurts.”
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