Taryn Leigh Taylor - Playing Dirty

Jesus.

It was bad news when you were so lonely that you’d rather clean a public restroom in the afterglow of an awkward conversation than go home.

With as much swagger as he could muster, he bowed slightly and gave her the “after you” gesture. She raised an eyebrow, which, if he wasn’t mistaken, signified both surprise and something he hadn’t been expecting.

He was alone with a gorgeous woman and he’d just managed to earn her respect. Like his day hadn’t gone badly enough already.

His last thought as he followed her into the ladies’ bathroom was fuck my life.

3

DAMNED IF HE hadn’t managed to impress her after all.

Lainey tried to keep her attention on the mirror she was cleaning, but the sight of Cooper Mead in a black T-shirt, jeans and yellow rubber gloves gamely cleaning toilets was too intriguing to ignore.

She’d fully expected him to diva-out and leave her to close the bar in peace. That had been the plan. Instead, he’d ruined everything by making her question if he was more than cocky grandstanding and cheesy pickup lines.

She finished with the mirror and reached back into the bucket, her mind racing as she wiped down the sinks, faucets and countertop while surreptitiously sneaking glances at her assistant.

Hell, Brett had a way of getting under people’s skin—she knew that well enough. Cooper’s dogged persistence to get her number earlier could definitely have been more an attempt to stick it to Brett than outright douchebaggery.

Something warm flared in her chest, and when Lainey identified it as hope, she knew she was in big trouble. She scrubbed the ugly green counter with more force. Kind of an “out, damned spot!” thing, and just as futile.

Stupid, she admonished herself. She should have sent Cooper Mead packing the second he walked back into her bar. Instead, she’d foolishly let him stay, and she’d told him more about her father than she’d ever told anyone, and her toilet-cleaning goading had backfired because he’d actually done it, and now she was making excuses for him.

The realization shored her resolve, made her angry. Mostly at herself. “So what are you really doing here, Slick?”

He straightened in the stall—a tight fit for his broad shoulders—and shoved his cleaning supplies back in the bucket. “Insomnia’s a bitch,” he said simply, punctuating the words with a toilet flush.

She could relate. One of the reasons this bar gig suited her so well. Not that she was planning on keeping it. The second someone made an offer on her late father’s ridiculous midlife crisis, she was going to take the money and run.

Lainey kept her gaze on Cooper as he pulled off the rubber gloves and hung them over the side of his bucket before joining her at the sink. The soap dispenser whined out a cloud of grape-scented foam onto his big palm, and he set about washing his hands.

The honesty of the answer surprised her. She gave the counter beside her a last swipe and threw the disinfectant wipe in the trash can. Standing beside him as she washed her own hands, she felt a strange buzz in the chemically scented air.

Cooper reached past her to grab a piece of paper towel from the dispenser, and his arm bumped hers as he tossed the damp ball into the trash can. The innocuous contact hit her like an electrical current, raising goose bumps from her shoulder to her wrist.

She frowned. They were standing in the least erotic of all locations—a public bathroom—and the most innocuous of touches had her all revved up. She had to get out of there. Maybe some space would help.

“We’re done here.” She grabbed her bucket off the counter and retrieved his from the floor, ignoring the way he held the bathroom door open for her. “You can help me change the keg and then you can go.”

She made it an order, hoping he might take issue with it and leave now, but his answer was a genial, “Sure.”

She pushed into the janitorial room, abandoning the buckets by the door for the sake of speed, not even caring that she’d get an earful from Aggie tomorrow about how there was a place for everything and blah, blah, blah.

Cooper followed her into the bar, behind the counter and then into the back room where the kegs were stored. Lainey unhooked the tap the way Darius had shown her.

“It’s a pale ale,” she told him, so he could pick the right silver barrel from the stack. Grabbing the empty keg, she moved it out of the way, watching as Cooper expertly maneuvered the full keg into the spot she’d cleared. He made it look effortless, just a quick lift and push. And if his back muscles moved with jungle-cat grace beneath his T-shirt and his biceps flexed with the power of a cobra about to strike, Lainey certainly wasn’t affected by it. Much.

He flipped the plastic cap off the keg and reached for the coupler.

“You don’t have to—”

Cooper glanced over his shoulder and his grin struck her dumb. “I know you probably won’t believe this, but I’ve tapped a keg or two in my time.”

Again, his deft mastery of the task made her skin flush. It was like his hotness was inversely proportional to the size of the area he was in—and, Lainey noticed on a visceral level, they were standing in a very small area. Self-preservation, she thought, escaping from the back room to behind the bar, where she could breathe properly.

What the hell was happening here?

“Need me to do anything else?” Cooper walked out of the back room as if he owned the place, all confidence and capability as he closed the door behind him, and that was the last straw.

She hated that she noticed his body—the height of him, the breadth. That she wanted to flirt. Touch his arm again. Run her fingers across all the muscles she’d pretended not to notice.

Because that way lay madness.

That way lay hockey.

“What’s your game here, Slick?”

“What?”

His genuine surprise at the attack pissed her off.

“You walk in here like you’re God’s gift to womankind and now that you’ve cleaned a toilet and changed a keg, I’m just supposed to forget what an asshole you were earlier?” She was coming in too hot; she knew it even as she stepped toward him.

Too much had happened today—too much yelling at Brett, too much talking about her father and too much Cooper short-circuiting her common sense.

Thankfully, she managed to rein in her irrational anger before she poked him in the chest like an insane person.

“What’s your problem? Jesus, I told you I was sorry about earlier. What else do you want me to say?”

His chest rose and fell with anger. Dark brows slashed over brown eyes that sparked with heat. Proximity turned the frustration simmering inside her to something else—something hotter—a potent mix of resentment and lust.

She grabbed a fistful of black T-shirt and pulled him down until their mouths were practically touching and the throb in her wrist beat like a drum. She’d broken it a long time ago, but for once it was urging her to focus on the present instead of dredging up the past.

“I don’t want you to say anything.” Lainey caught Cooper’s bottom lip between her teeth, raked them along the sensitive flesh. When she pulled away, their heavy breathing had synced.

Breathing as one, staring at each other, his eyes reflecting the wild desperation that pulsed through her in that suspended moment of calm before she unleashed the angry lust that coursed through her veins.

She smashed her mouth to his, a little too hard, so that his tooth jabbed her lip. But she relished that moment of pain, that tie to reality, proof she was still in control of herself, of the imperfect moment.

Then his tongue traced across her bottom lip, soothing the sting of their lustful collision, and Lainey was lost, swept away in a tidal wave of hormones so potent she needed Cooper—no, not him, she reminded herself. She needed sex. That’s all this was about.