“Has your brother always had such an imagination, Shay?” Fiona asked, picking up her laden tray and walking away with a toss of her head.
“You shouldn’t tease her so much,” Shay said, watching her go.
“What?” Colin wrinkled his brow. “It’s just joking around. She can handle it.”
“She’s an employee, Colin.”
“Yeah, right. So what’s put you in such a good mood? Did you have a few too many at the bar last night and wake up in bed with a looker whose name you couldn’t remember?” He tied on his apron. “How was the new bar, anyway? I was thinking I might stop in and check it out.”
But Shay didn’t answer. He was staring at the door and the woman who’d just walked in.
Or stalked, more accurately, like a tiger after prey. Fury shouted from every rigid line of her body. Two spots of color burned high on her cheeks.
When he’d been lying in his bed the night before, searching for the sleep that refused to come, he’d told himself that she couldn’t be as beautiful as he remembered. He’d told himself that her smooth, flawless skin, her haunting cheekbones were just tricks of the light. Her mouth couldn’t have been such a delectable curve of humor and sensuality.
He’d been wrong.
He’d been wrong in so many ways, he thought in irritation, fighting to push down the memory of the heat of her body against him. A face and luscious body alone weren’t justification enough to make a man toss aside the habits of a lifetime. He’d had no business putting his hands on her, whether she was Dev’s sister or not. The fact that she actually happened to be Dev’s sister just made it all the worse. That morning on the phone, he’d done his best to duck out of any further involvement, but Dev wouldn’t hear of it.
“She’s my sister, man. I’m asking you, just keep an eye on her, keep her from getting too far out on a limb. I’d do it for you,” he’d wheedled, and Shay had relented, knowing Dev spoke the truth. Now, as Shay watched Mallory come toward him, he felt that unholy clutch in his gut that had him thinking once, only, and always of sex. But the night before had been the end of it. Dev’s sister was off-limits.
Period.
Mallory approached where he stood by the walkthrough, her stare unwavering as she came to a stop in front of him.
“Hello,” he offered.
Her face was unsmiling, unpainted, and as gorgeous as he’d ever seen on a living, breathing woman. “I’d say it’s time we introduced ourselves. Mallory Carson,” she said without extending her hand.
“Shay O’Connor.” Something in her cocky, go-to-hell stance needled him even as the whispers of her husky velvet voice shivered through him.
“So I’ve heard. It would have been nice to know that last night. What I want to know now is, where in the hell you get off coming into my bar and playing secret investigator, so you can carry tales back to my brother?” Her voice rose with each word.
“Now just hang on,” he began, rankled.
“Don’t tell me to hold on,” she said venomously. “I’m just getting started.”
“Stop right there.” His voice was a commanding hiss that brooked no argument. “You want to talk? Fine, we’ll go in the back and talk. This is a business establishment and you are not going to come in here and make a scene.”
“You have no idea of the scene I can make when I want to,” she said grimly. “And believe me,” her voice rose, “right now I really, really want to.”
Without thinking, Shay slammed the walkthrough back and tugged her behind the bar, ignoring her startled cry as he pulled her into the back. “Take over here, will you?” he asked Colin, who was watching, bug-eyed.
“Don’t you ever go dragging me along like a piece of meat,” she hissed, yanking her hand loose from him.
“Then don’t you come into my bar shouting and disturbing my customers,” he snapped back. “No wonder your brother’s worried about you, if you don’t have any better sense than that.” He led her into a cramped room beyond that served as the pub’s office, closing the door and turning to her. “Okay, you’ve got five minutes to say whatever it is you came here to say.”
“Listen, buster, I’ve got a million reasons to be upset at you right now, so don’t even try to shut me down.”
Shay dropped into the chair behind his desk and eyed her. “Tough as nails, huh?” So long as she acted like a spoiled teenager, it was easier to imagine that he might be able to go more than a few days without having to have his hands on her.
“Don’t push me,” Mallory said. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me who you were last night?” Fury burned in her eyes.
“I was just there scoping things out. I didn’t realize I had to check in at the security desk,” he drawled in a voice calculated to annoy her.
“You weren’t just dropping in at the new neighborhood bar. You were there to review the place for my brother.”
“Who wanted me to take a quiet look and tell him what I thought.” He didn’t bother masking the edge in his voice. The frustration he’d felt all day finally had an outlet.
“I had a right to know,” Mallory said stubbornly, sitting down in a chair by the wall.
“Well I wasn’t about to tell you I was checking out the bar. It was Dev’s place to tell you, not mine.”
“You didn’t think it was a courtesy I deserved?”
“Come off it.” This time, the impatience sounded thick and ripe in his voice. “It’s eleven o’clock at night, the place is packed to the rafters, the last thing I’m going to do is run around looking for the owner. Anyway, I didn’t want to get the happy tour. I wanted to get my arms around the place, see what you were doing with it.”
“Well, you managed to get your arms around a few things quite efficiently.” Her voice was tart.
“I didn’t see you telling me you owned the place.”
“That should make a difference? It’s okay for you to sleep with my employees?”
“Who kissed who first?” he demanded.
If she’d been a cat, she’d have been hissing with her back arched. “You need a razor to help split that hair? You were the one who followed me into the basement and you were just as into it as I was.”
His voice rose to match hers. “Well, one thing I can tell you is it sure as hell won’t happen again. It wouldn’t have happened last night if I’d known who you were.”
“Or if I’d known who you were. And then you’ve got the nerve to call my brother this morning and tell him that I’m not handling things properly.” It rankled even more now that she was looking at him.
“I told him what I saw,” Dev snapped back. But he hadn’t, not really. He hadn’t told him about the way she’d looked in the dim lighting, the way she’d danced like an invitation to sin, the way his mind had already had her undressed, twisting hot and urgent against him. He hadn’t told him that the image had kept him awake all night.
Mallory stood up and braced her hands on the edge of the desk. “Bad Reputation is mine. Do you understand that?” She leaned toward him, her eyes dark with intensity. “I don’t need some stiff-necked son of Ireland spreading horror stories about it. Thanks to you, Dev’s got some crazy idea that I’m going to scandalize the neighbors and get run out of town on a rail.”
“I just told him what I saw.”
She turned around and sat back down, squeezing the arms of