As Bad As Can Be. Kristin Hardy
she were dancing for him alone, swaying for her lover, and her hands were his hands, touching her. The buzz spread through her system.
When the song ended, she found herself stepping down to a roaring ovation. Perhaps she ought to get on the bar more often, she thought. Then again, she’d only enjoyed it so much because of the stranger. She passed out beers and shots quickly, waiting for her system to settle.
“Nice job.” The words jolted her system.
She looked up to find him leaning on the hinged panel of the walkthrough at her side, those midnight blue eyes on her. He might have had her up against the wall, mouth and hands on her, for all that she felt his presence. The air between them almost sizzled.
Liane tapped her shoulder and she jumped. “Hey, the keg on line two is out.”
Mallory blinked, still looking at the stranger, then registered what she’d heard. “Where’s Randy? He’s supposed to be working the back.”
“He’s disappeared. Maybe he’s on a break or something.”
Mallory cursed as she looked for the bar back who kept them supplied with liquor and fresh glassware. Reliability wasn’t his strong suit; strength was. Still, with one tap down, she wasn’t going to stand on ceremony. Not that she was thrilled with the idea of wrestling kegs, but there was nothing for it. “Okay, I’ll go down and take care of it.”
“You’re out of your mind!” Liane hollered. “Those kegs weigh a ton.”
“You want to tell these guys they can’t have their Bud? Send Randy down when he shows up.” Mallory flicked another glance at the stranger, then ducked through the door behind her, heading into the back where she could get access to the cold room in the cellar.
She passed the dishwasher filled with glassware and opened the door to the basement. It wasn’t that her mystery man was so fabulous, she thought as she snapped on the light and clattered down the stairs. It had simply been too long since she’d had a lover, that was all. Taking a lover had just become too much of a bother. For some reason, no matter how often they said a physical relationship was fine, once she started sleeping with a guy, sex wasn’t enough. Suddenly they’d be pushing for more, wanting to get into her head, which was simply not an option. For Mallory, the barriers were high and solid and nonnegotiable. In her world, anything more than sex was impossible. Once you got beyond sex, you ran the risk of giving the other person power over you. The years of watching her father drown his pain in drink were all the proof she needed of that.
The trio of bare bulbs that dangled from the ceiling of the cellar did little to banish the shadows. Along the far wall, the stack of silver kegs gleamed dully. Behind her was the door to the cold room, where the kegs that fed the taps upstairs were kept.
She opened the door to the cold room and stepped inside with an involuntary shiver. Temperatures that were perfect for keeping beer icy cold weren’t quite comfortable if you were hanging out in a miniskirt and thong. The sealed door thudded shut behind her. Even though she knew it had an inside release, it always gave her the willies to be stuck inside what was essentially a walk-in refrigerator. The faster she finished this job, the better, she thought, staring at the neat row of kegs with vacuum lines snaking up through the ceiling. At least they kept a couple of spares in the cold room for easy access. Pulling the tap off the old keg with swift efficiency, she rolled the new keg into place and hooked it up.
Shivering, Mallory stepped outside and stared at the wall of kegs. Now for the ugly part—wrestling a new keg into the cold room. It was her strict policy that anyone who changed out a keg always put a new one in. You never knew how much beer you were going to go through in a night, and nothing pissed customers off more than warm beer. She kicked her heels off and cursed as her bare feet hit the chilly floor.
Then a noise behind her had her whirling with a gasp.
3
IT WAS HIM.
Adrenaline surged through her, mixed with little bolts of desire. “What are you doing here?”
He studied her. “I thought you might need some help. Kegs aren’t exactly light.”
“Customers aren’t allowed in the back. We’re not insured for it.”
“I’ll be careful not to drop the keg on my foot, then,” he said, with a grin hovering around the corners of his mouth.
That utterly delectable mouth.
She looked until she realized she was staring, then relented. “Well, if you want to help, I need two kegs from the stacks on the left. I can roll them, I just can’t lift them down.”
He crossed to the tiers of kegs and brought two of them to the floor with approximately the same amount of effort she’d expend on a bottle of whiskey.
“Guess you keep up your gym membership,” she said, struggling not to be impressed.
“Or something,” he said, grabbing one of the kegs and carrying it in the cold room.
Mallory took the other, tipping it onto an edge and rolling it along. The grating sound it made was magnified in the close quarters of the refrigerator, then he took it off of her hands.
“Just stack them on that side wall,” she directed. “That’ll give us enough for the rest of the night, I think.”
Back out in the storage room, she looked up at him, studying the hard planes of his face. She was tall for a woman; it wasn’t often that a man met, let alone bested her height. “Thanks for coming down to help.”
“No problem.” The bare overhead lights threw his eyes into shadow, bringing out that pirate look again.
It made her heart thud a little. Mallory rubbed her arms and shivered.
The look in his eyes changed. “You’ve got to be freezing in those clothes,” he said, closing his hands around her shoulders.
Heat was all she could register for a moment, heat from his palms flowing into her arms, heat from his body radiating out toward her. It made her exquisitely aware of the fact that a sizable, strong, and extremely attractive specimen of a man was just inches from her. This close to him, she could look her fill. “I wasn’t really thinking about the cold,” Mallory murmured, staring in fascination at his mouth.
“Well, you could use some warming up now.” He ran his hands up and down her arms lightly, chafing the skin into warmth, tantalizing the nerve endings.
“Does that mean you’re volunteering?”
His teeth gleamed in a half smile. “I told you, I’m here to help.”
“What did you have in mind?”
“There are all sorts of ways to warm you up.” He moved in closer to her. “What was it you said about always finishing what you start?” he murmured, sliding his hands down to hers and raising them to kiss her fingers.
She swallowed, her throat suddenly tight. “What kind of a finish are you expecting?”
“It changes by the minute,” he said, his voice suddenly sober.
Abruptly she slid her hands up his chest to pull his head down to hers. “I guess we’ll just have to see, then, won’t we,” she whispered, and fastened her lips on his.
Mallory didn’t bother with teasing nibbles and pecks. Since his arrival she’d watched his mouth, wondered how it would feel under hers. Now she would discover. She dove into the kiss with abandon, tasting the tang of beer, the spice that was him. His tongue dipped and circled around hers, the silky stroking making her suddenly greedy for more. She made an impatient noise and pushed herself closer to him. The long cords of muscle in his back were sharply defined under the cloth of his shirt. Against her hips, she could feel him growing harder.
Need sliced through her, sharp and intense. She needed his hands on her, his skin against hers. She needed his mouth on her, hot and wet.
“When