Hard Beat

“If looks could kill, man…,” Pauly says with an audible exhale, and leaves the end of the sentence hanging.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mutter, shaking my head when he pushes a glass of something amber in front of me. “No, thanks.”

“What’d you do to piss off the princess?”

I snort at the endearment. “Nothing. She was being stupid, and I put her in her place. Now she’s pissed at me.”

“So in other words you were being an asshole? Or should I say you were being yourself?” He’s grasping for clues and fuck, I love him, but I’m not giving him the details he wants. That means confessing we were with Sarge, and that’s a Pandora’s box that needs to stay closed.

“Something like that.” I glance up and meet her eyes again, but this time she doesn’t look away. She meets me glare for glare before standing and striding over to where we are sitting. Pauly whistles at the sight of her curves swaying and tits bouncing beneath her tank. And of course I groan in reaction, and as much as I appreciate the sight of her, I know she’s going to cause a scene.

And a scene is not what I need.

When she’s a few feet from where Pauly and I are sitting, I stand up with purpose, the chair grating against the tile floor, and I begin to walk right past her. She flashes her hand out and grabs my biceps in a move I’m not real thrilled with.

“We’re gonna settle this here and now, Pulitzer,” she says, her voice low enough that only I can hear her.

“There’s nothing to settle.” I raise my eyebrows at her before looking over my shoulder to Pauly. “You know where to find me if you need me.” With that, I shrug my arm out of her grasp and walk out of the room. She mutters my name followed by a curse, and a part of me loves that I’m just as frustrating to her as she is to me.

The door sticks at the rooftop, but I welcome the chance to exert a little physical force to shove it open since it’s either up here or the gym right now, and I’m sore from pushing myself too hard yesterday. What I’d give to go for a run. Feet hitting the ground as my eyes take in the world around me, but I’m a long ass way from San Diego and my favorite beach run along Highway 101.

Instead, I take the tarp off the mattress and take up residence in my spot just in time to watch the sun start to fall from the horizon. It slips ever so slowly as I try to ignore the nagging voices in my head telling me I’m being an ass. It’s so damn easy to be an asshole with her, though, because I don’t think I’ve ever met a more frustrating woman. Or a more beautiful one.

And that is saying a lot.

The scrape of the door to the rooftop jars me from my thoughts. I’m up and looking toward it in an instant. Goddamn it. The fucking woman is invading my every thought, and now she’s in the one private space I have here.

“Go away.” Those two words are all I have for her as I sit back down and try to ignore her. Her footsteps draw closer, but I shake my head, close my eyes, and then lean back on the wall behind me. I can guess she’s standing in front of me, giving me a nasty look when the scraping sound of her boots stops. “Just once I’d appreciate it if you’d follow directions.”

Her laugh falls deep and rich around me. “Wow. I was right.”

“Good for you.” When she doesn’t answer, I can’t help my curiosity. “Right about what?”

“How far that stick’s shoved up your ass.”

Then I hear the clink of glass against glass, and my eyes flash open. She’s standing in front of me, her body framed by the sunset’s colors blazing across the sky, with a bottle of Fireball and a glass in one hand while the other is at her hip.

She’s looking for a reaction, and I refuse to give her one. “It only seems to be there around you.” I shrug. “What can I say? You bring out the best in me.” I finally meet her gaze on the last word, and damn it to hell, she has this cute little smirk on her face like she knows my game.

“Here’s how we’re going to play this, Pulitzer,” Beaux says as she kneels down on the mattress beside me, glass still clinking like a cowbell in a warning that she’s here to stay. “I’m going to ask you a question, and if you refuse to answer it, you take a shot. Then my turn.”

I slide a glance in her direction and see that she’s leaning over, cleavage on display, as her proposition takes up real estate in my mind. Kind of ballsy on her end, and I like that. “We only get to ask the question once, right?” I need to make sure the rules of this game are clear before I agree, because in my line of thinking, she’ll ask the questions she wants to know the most first, I can take the shot, and by the time I’m drunk and a little looser in my responses, the most pertinent ones will be off the table.

Plus, I make a living asking questions and then re-asking them in a completely different way after they’ve been evaded. This shouldn’t be a problem for me.

“Agreed.” She finally sits with her back against the wall with a sound of satisfaction. “You can go first, since I’m sure your ego’s going to need nursing once I drink you under the table.”

I snort. The amusement in her tone told me she knows there’s not a chance in hell of that happening, but I respect that she can talk a good game.

“Thanks for the mulligan. What to ask… what to ask…” I make a production of coming up with something. “Where were you coming from that morning I met you in the stairwell?”

That’s most definitely not the question I had planned on asking, and it sure as hell isn’t any of my business, but the whole idea of her being with somebody else is driving me crazy. I stare at the night beyond us as the city begins to come alive, not wanting to see the look on her face and whether my question has surprised her. But the clink of the bottle’s neck against the glass gives me the only answer I need.