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Holy muscles.
I clamp my mouth shut to keep it from falling wide open. Brawny. Strapping. Muscular. Built. None of the words coming to mind seem adequate enough to describe the Herculean god sitting before me. It’s almost a sin he covered himself up with all those tattoos. Almost. The intricate pieces of art twist around his muscular arms, all the way down to his knuckles. A tease of ink pokes out of the neckline of his shirt, stopping halfway up his neck. Every inch of his body has trouble written all over it.
His face though … his face is a different story. It’s so handsome it looks like it doesn’t belong on his body. The icy-blue of his eyes is warmed by his smile, which is complete with a set of dimples. A backwards baseball cap covers his hair, but his thick brows and scruff peppering his chiseled jawline are as dark as a cup of coffee.
He’s an oxymoron. The face of an angel with the body of Satan himself. A dark ray of light. A friendly nemesis. The man is menacingly beautiful.
And I’m gawking. I clear my throat and try to remember what it was he’d asked me. “I’ve had a long trip. I’m going to call it a night.”
“Where you coming from?”
“Florida. Just arrived.”
“And the first place you come to is a bar?”
My eyes narrow and I prop my hand on my hip. “Don’t judge me. You don’t know a thing about me.”
His hands shoot up. “Hey, I wasn’t judging. I was just making an observation.”
“Well, don’t do that either.”
I turn to leave, but I’m stopped by his large, tattooed hand around my arm. It’s a warm, gentle touch, and my skin sizzles. I yank my arm away, angry at my body for having such a reaction to this man.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to offend you. Sit. Let me buy you another beer.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He’s waving the bartender over before I can stop him. “Corona for my friend …” He looks at me expectantly.
“I’m not your friend.”
He grins. “Corona for my not-a-friend.”
His smile is so warm and inviting. It doesn’t go with anything else on him. He looks unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. Or maybe he doesn’t, and I’d just been too preoccupied to notice anyone else. Being in love is what I now refer to as preoccupied. It hurts less when I say it that way.
I’d been preoccupied with someone.
I’d been preoccupied with planning our future.
I’d been preoccupied with naming our unborn baby.
Now, I’m just preoccupied and alone.
That thought makes me want another beer, so I reclaim my stool. The bartender replaces my empty bottle with a new one and I tap it against the stranger’s glass. “Cheers.”
“So, how long are you here for?” he asks.
“A week.”
“Are you visiting family?”
“Nope.”
“Are you going to continue to give me one-word answers for the rest of the night?”
“Probably.”
He smirks and returns his attention to the fight.
