Confess (The Blue Line Series Book 1) Read Free

the back door. He could practically hear the gears shift in her head before she squared her shoulders and met him stare for stare.
    He leaned in closer. “I’m not offering anything more than a night of hot sex. No strings. No broken promises. No hurt egos. Just you and me. One night. Then life goes on as normal.”
    He turned to the game behind him. If she was as smart as her teasing little mouth made her sound, she’d take the pause for what it was, a courtesy exit. A way out before she agreed to a night of his brand of fun on his terms.
    “Okay.” Her voice came low, throaty against his back. “Deal.”
    He twisted to face her and restrained his surprise behind a stoic smile.
    Lacy reached under the bar and plopped a deck of playing cards facedown beside his beer. “Five card draw, deuces wild, just like my Grammy taught me to play. You deal.” When he answered with a sideways glance she added, “I said I’d play you for drinks. I didn’t say which game.”

 
     
     
CHAPTER TWO
     
     
    Lacy studied the callused hands of the stranger she’d secretly watched around the bar for the last week. He cut the deck of cards and shuffled them into a steeple.
    “Why did you call me cowboy?” He glanced up from the deck and dealt back and forth between them.
    Lacy had been lost, watching his nimble fingers work the cards with expert precision. No ring, which she could have guessed from the way he’d practically undressed her with his eyes back at the pool table.
    She tried to guess his profession, a bar game she and Connie had perfected on long nights with few tips to keep them sane. His nails were trimmed short and clean, but his hands were tanned, like someone who worked in the sun for a living or enjoyed the outdoors. Imagining where else he might sport tan lines elevated her pulse and made breathing a conscious effort.
    Pull it together, Lace. He’s just a tip like any other.
    An overly dominant tip .
    She fanned her cards out face down on the bar and pulled up the top corners, trying to ignore his searing gaze on her. A three of clubs, eight and six of hearts, eight of diamonds, and eight of spades.
    Not the best hand for a hustle, but she could make it work in her favor. Hell, at this point, she should go for the full hustle. Raise the stakes to cash and drop the profits into the tiny account she and Connie had started over a year ago to open their own place. She might be able to fleece first and last months rent on a place along Main Street from the guy if she played the cards right and used Connie as a lookout for Charlie since hustling the customers was frowned upon only slightly less than meaningless sex in the single stall bathroom.
    “Huh,” she uttered, looking up from her cards and finding him staring her down like a slice of grade A beef tenderloin.
    “You keep calling me cowboy? Why?” His timbre was low and strained. The roughness grated her nerves and sent them sparking under her skin.
    “Your outfit.” She gave him a deliberate once-over. “Black leather racer’s jacket. Polo. Designer Seven jeans. Motorcycle boots and,” she pointed a blue-polished fingernail at the dusting of dark chest hair peeking up from his collar, “Aviators.”
    Reaching out to flick the pair of dark glasses dangling from his open collar wasn’t one of her normal flirty moves, but the sudden need to touch him, to take some semblance of power in this game of wills, overrode her normally sound reasoning skills. “You’re the quintessential anti-cowboy. You belong in some mass-produced trendy clothing company ad more than a seedy little dump in no-place Tennessee. So, naturally I’d call you cowboy.”
    She’d meant it as a joke, but the way his gaze narrowed and his chin lifted ever so slightly, he’d missed the humor.
    “Really?” His mouth lowered into a frown, but under the dim light of the bar his eyes sparkled. “So we’ve just met and you’re already trying to change me? Are you always so possessive