Erin McCarthy: It’s About Time

He blinked hard, trying to focus a little better. Damn room was dark and the cigarette smoke hanging like a factory cloud always made his eyes water.

She switched tactics. Her hand rested on his arm. Her tone became conciliatory. “Just take a break,” she said. “I hate to be the only one not drinking.”

But Caleb wasn’t fooled. She looked and sounded too wily and calculating to be genuine. Women with short hair were like that. They existed in a world of hair products, where everything could be sculpted and molded and tamed to their liking, and he thought she probably viewed him as an unruly cowlick.

Unsure what to say, and wanting to ask why she was in a bar if she didn’t want to be around drinkers, he gave a grunt that could be interpreted any way she liked and turned back to the TV.

“Can you pass me a nut?”

She smiled at him, her hand held out expectantly. Caleb felt prickly annoyance as he passed the bowl of peanuts to her. Was she bored or was she flirting with him?

His brain was a little addled from the beer, so he decided if he were uninteresting, she’d move on to someone else. Because she really wasn’t what he had in mind.

Oh, she was pretty enough if you were into perfection. Long cheekbones, artful makeup, stylish dark-brown hair with lighter highlights. Great shoulders, tanned and toned, making him wonder just briefly if the rest of her would be the same before he stopped himself. Only the message didn’t quite reach his bottom half in time and he felt a hard-on rising in his jeans.

Thanks, pal, he told his unruly appendage.

Despite his body’s reaction, he knew he wouldn’t know quite what to do with a woman like this. Self-assured, bossy, clipped and manicured, wearing a sleeveless dress that screamed classy businesswoman, she was from a different world. One of cappuccinos, Audis, and business trips to New York-nothing like his life managing his small construction business, and living in a dingy little duplex.

“You know, I’ve never met a huge man who grunts before,” she said, popping a nut into her mouth and pouching it in her cheek. “I mean, I’ve seen guys like you on TV and checking purses at the airport, but I’ve never actually talked to anyone like you. Are you a cop, a welder, or a mechanic?”

He gave her a hard stare, hoping to scare her into leaving. He did not want to be her blue-collar novelty of the night.

Instead she shivered and gave him a smile. “Oh, do that again. And growl this time.”

She was making fun of him. Caleb frowned deeper.

“Here.” She took a peanut and shoved it between his lips. “I think the alcohol is dulling your reflexes. You’re just staring at me.”

With good reason. The woman was friggin’ crazy. But he couldn’t protest, not when her warm finger was still resting on his lips, the salty, fleshy taste of the tip still lingering on his tongue. If he sucked, he could draw her into his mouth.

It was nothing, a little gesture that meant nothing, but his long-neglected body stood up and took notice.Hey, it said.I remember this. This is foreplay.

It could be, but it wasn’t.

He hated to disappoint his gonads, but this woman was only amusing herself. At his expense.

“Chew the nut,” she said. “Food will help absorb the alcohol before it hits your bloodstream.”

“One peanut?” he asked.

“Good point.” She grabbed a whole handful and started toward him.

Caleb clamped his mouth shut and shook his head.

She grinned. “No? Well, Joe can get a sandwich for you. They make club sandwiches and really greasy fries here.”

“I’ll have one if you do. I don’t like to eat alone.” He smiled smugly, throwing her words back at her.

A snort of laughter flew out of her mouth, and she covered it with a soft, golden hand, her short, rounded fingernails painted white at the ends.

Diamonds flashed in her ears, and dark, intelligent eyes gave him another once-over. “I might as well, I guess, since I missed out on dinner when my date stood me up.”

Caleb figured his brain was firing a little slow, but he couldn’t believe this woman had been stood up. Personally, he would have been scared to. She was intimidating as hell.

“Some idiot stood you up?”

“Sad, but true.” She popped a nut into her own mouth, then offered him another one by hovering her hand over his.

He opened his fist and let her drop the peanut into his palm. “So you came here instead?”

She nodded. “Even more sad, isn’t it? That when lonely and pissed off, I came to a bar.”

If it was sad, then he was doubly so. “I can understand that.” More than he even wanted to admit to himself.

Gesturing for Joe to come back over, he chewed the nut. And looked down at the woman beside him, all straight-backed and confident, one leg crossed over the other, a hint of cleavage popping out of her little black dress. “What’s your name?”

“Trish,” she said, and stuck her hand out like they were in a business meeting. “Trish Jones.”

He took her hand, small and soft in his, but possessing a firm, bold grip. “I’m Caleb Vancouver.”

She pumped his hand up and down twice, then let go, a mischievous smile on her perfectly painted, caramel-brown-lipstick lips.

Those lips were very distracting. Very luscious, very arousing. Caleb had a sudden image of what exactly she could do with those perfectly pretty lips on what part of him. He shifted on the stool.

And when Joe came over to see what he wanted, Caleb completely forgot to order another beer.

Trish watched Caleb pack away his second club sandwich in awe. The guy was huge, granted, and probably needed a lot of fuel to drive that big old muscled body of his, but Jesus. Come up for air once in a while.

“Don’t you feel better now?” Trish asked, not sure how she felt. He was really damn cute, in a pathetic, kissable, lumberjack sort of way.

He nodded. “I didn’t realize I was so hungry. You’re a smart woman, Trish, but I bet you hear that all the time.”

Damn good at her job. Dedicated. A bitch.She’d heard all of those lately, but notsmart. Sometimes it seemed like a woman was only allowed to be intellectual, academic, with her intelligence-not sharp, driven.

The compliment meant more to her than it should. “I’m a prosecuting attorney. I handle all the sex-crime cases.”

Caleb licked mayo off his lip, and carefully set his sandwich down. “No kidding? Are you sure you’re in the right joint? Me, I’m a construction worker, and not your usual type, I would guess.”

Of course he was a construction worker, and of course she had to have an arousing vision of him shirtless in the summer heat pop into her head. Carrying a two-by-two, or whatever those pieces of wood were called, jeans sinking down low. Sun lightening that short brown hair until it was the color of milk-doused coffee. Tan. Hard.

And of course she was wearing a dress that revealed that her nipples had suddenly gone leaping out toward the bar like they wanted to join that sandwich being palmed by his fingers.

Waving her hand, Trish gave a scoff, striving for cool and sarcastic. No need for him to see that she was tilted a little off her axis. “My type for what? Besides, I’ve adopted you for the night.”

Snatching one of the bottled waters off the bar, he glared at her. “Adopted me? I don’t need you to baby-sit me, Miss Prosecuting Attorney.”

“You were drunk when I sat down.”

“So? And not nearly enough, in my opinion.”

Trish nibbled on a French fry, then tossed it down as her stomach recoiled. It was like licking bacon grease. “But you feel better now that you’ve stopped drinking, don’t you?”

He didn’t answer.