‘You okay?’ he asked.
She nodded, her gaze not quite meeting his. ‘Fine,’ she rasped out finally. ‘Something went the wrong way.’ She gestured towards her throat and his gaze followed where her finger indicated.
She had beautifully creamy skin, with a smattering of small dark moles just west of the hollow of her throat. A strange impulse to stroke his fingers across them gripped him. He’d probably make her choke in shock again if he did. He almost tried it, just to see if his theory was borne out.
When his gaze returned to her face he noticed two spots of colour had appeared on her high-set cheekbones.
Cute.
He could see now why she favoured such high heels too; even with them on, the top of her head only just reached past his shoulders.
She was studying him warily, as if trying to decide whether to spend more of her precious time talking to him. Clearly she deemed him worthy because she said, ‘I’m Lu,’ and put out a small, delicately boned hand for him to shake.
He took it, his own looking obscenely monstrous in comparison. He was afraid for a second he might crush her if he wasn’t careful.
‘Short for Louise?’ he asked.
She smiled back and opened her mouth to speak but, before she could, a harried-looking barman came over and leaned in towards her, suddenly eager to take her order.
She asked for a glass of wine before turning to him and murmuring, ‘Buy you a drink...?’ She raised her eyebrows in a double question, asking for his name as well as his answer.
Whoa, that voice. It made him think all kinds of inappropriate thoughts as it lapped indecently through his head.
‘Tristan. Tristan Bamfield.’ He shook her a curt no thanks in response to her offer of a drink, reluctant to get into anything more than a passing conversation. The thought of being dragged over and introduced to the gaggle of women she’d been sitting with made him feel faintly woozy.
She nodded in an odd, knowing kind of way, but apparently had other ideas about what he actually wanted, adding a bottle of the beer he’d been drinking to her order.
He caught her eye when she glanced back at him. ‘You noticed what I was drinking?’
‘I’m good with details,’ she said, flashing him a coy smile.
‘That’s a useful skill.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s moderately useful. Not like having superior strength or the ability to see into the future or anything. Now that would be useful.’
Yeah. If he’d been able to see into the future he could have circumnavigated the total train wreck of his last relationship.
The barman returned with their drinks and he watched Lu hand over the cash in silence, feeling a niggling discomfort about her buying him a drink. She gestured towards his beer. ‘For coughing all over you.’
Tristan smiled. ‘Unnecessary, but thanks.’ Picking up the bottle, he took a long swig.
Lu did the same with her wine, the large glass looking enormous in her dinky hand.
‘I see they do wine by the pint here,’ he said, nodding towards the glass. ‘That drink’s almost as big as you are.’
He caught a flash of what looked like startled irritation before she converted it to wry amusement. ‘Yeah, well, you get quality with me, not quantity,’ she said, a steely edge creeping into her voice. ‘And I thought real men drank beer from pint glasses, not namby-pamby little bottles.’ She flashed him a disparaging grin.
He raised an amused eyebrow back. He’d annoyed her, he could tell, but she wasn’t making an excuse and moving away—she was taking him on.
The woman had grit by the truckload.
He liked that about her. He liked it a lot.
In fact, now he thought about it, she was the first woman to pique his interest since Marcy had left him.
Taking a step towards him, Lu looked up directly into his face, her gaze roaming over his hair, his eyes, snagging on his mouth.
There was something in her expression that made his libido sit up and take notice. He smiled, feeling the intensity of their attraction heat his blood.
Something akin to determination was playing across her face, as if she was having some sort of internal fight with herself.
Intriguing.
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Should I be worried here? Do you have an insanely jealous lover who’s about to storm over and demand I step outside or something? Only you seem to be arguing with yourself about the wisdom of speaking to me.’
She let out a deep guttural laugh, the dirty carnal suggestion of it playing along his senses, making something fizz and tickle deep in his throat.
He swallowed hard.
‘I’m freshly out of a disastrous fling with someone who couldn’t care less about me, actually. I seem to have a knack for choosing losers and users.’ She swayed in towards him. ‘What is it about me that screams sucker, do you think, Tristan?’
He knew he shouldn’t articulate what had just flitted through his mind, but there was something about her beleaguered expression that made it impossible to resist.
‘From where I’m standing, sucker is a word full of possibilities.’ His gaze dropped to that smooth, curvy pout of hers as it twisted into a smile and he saw her shift in her heels as she twigged exactly what he was insinuating.
Lu turned away from his gaze and took another hefty swig of her wine before placing the glass carefully back onto the bar, her fingertips catching the stem at the last second so that it spun and rocked for a moment before settling down to its former inanimate state. The spots of colour on her cheeks flared further outwards.
Was she nervous? Or excited by the idea?
He realised with uncomfortable certainty that he hoped it was the latter.
Whoa, boy. Put the brakes on that impulse.
Chatting to a woman in a bar was one thing, but taking it further wasn’t on the agenda right now.
Was it?
‘You celebrating something?’ he said, nodding towards the huddle of women at the table she’d just vacated in an attempt to take the charged atmosphere down a notch or two.
‘A friend’s birthday. We both work round the corner so this is our after-work local.’ Something troubling seemed to occur to her and she frowned and picked up her glass again, taking another large gulp of wine. After giving herself a little shake, she flashed him a wide smile.
‘How about you? What are you doing here all on your lonesome?’ She made another move towards him, drawing herself up to her full height and putting out an arm to casually lean on the bar, bringing her tantalising floral fragrance with her.
He drew in a deep lungful of her heady scent and smiled down at her. ‘I ducked in here to avoid being mauled by a woman with a hungry look in her eyes.’
She looked at him steadily. ‘She fancied a slice of you, did she?’
‘I got that impression, yes.’
‘And you didn’t feel like being her Tristan Topping tonight?’
He laughed. ‘Or any other night.’
She swallowed and stared somewhere to the left side of his head before flicking her gaze back to his. There was a flash of something he couldn’t quite pin down in those baby-blues.
She was one contrary lady. One minute cool and assertive, buying him a drink, the next uncertain and wary.
He’d