Page 66 of Dare to Love Again

“I’m Keiran, Esme. Or Finn, which you seem to favor. You don’t have to call me sir when we’re not in the club or playing. Okay?”

“Yes, sir.” A hand flew to her mouth, her soft laughter a beautiful sound. “Oops, force of habit. But since you don’t mind, I’d like to stick with Finn. I’m rather partial to it.”

At the coffeepot, he glanced back at her. “Why is that?”

He caught the color flooding her cheeks before she crossed to the cupboard to get plates.

“It’s how I’ve thought of you since the first night—so it’s already set in my brain.”

Though he presumed from her blush there was more to it than that, he let it go, for now, eager to get some caffeine in his system and her food in his belly.

They chatted easily over breakfast, which ended much too soon. Keiran would have preferred taking her back to bed to spend the rest of the morning exploring her beautiful body, but he had a case, and she had to get home to see to her cat. Tonight wouldn’t be soon enough to have his fill of her again, but it would have to do.

Chapter 15

SITTING WITH HER BACKto the bar, Esme shifted on her stool and tugged on the back of her denim skirt. It was short, and the effort wasted because it didn’t go anywhere.

She had dug through at least six boxes in the garage to find it. Bought for a hoedown back in college, she wasn’t exactly sure what possessed her to keep it and haul it cross-country. Now, despite the skirt fitting a lot snugger than it had when she was twenty, she was glad she did.

She didn’t have a vest like Finn suggested, but found a cute pink-and-white gingham shirt in the back of her closet. Left unbuttoned with the tails knotted beneath her breasts, it exposed an eye-catching amount of her curves and white belly. The latter made her a little self-conscious; her stomach was flat but not even close to concave, and she lacked sculpted abs many of the other women had. But as she thought back to last night, and the way Finn had dragged his lips and tongue in a path from her throat, through the valley between her breasts, down past her navel, and all the way to her spread thighs, he hadn’t minded her softness in the least.

Other than her short skirt and skimpy top, she wore nothing else, as instructed, except pink ribbons at the end of her twin braids, and on her feet, four-inch T-strap pumps. Her shoes weren’t western, but they were a pale pink, almost nude, that matched her shirt. Besides, she didn’t own cowboy boots. Regardless of the missing elements of her costume, she thought her sexy look would please Finn, and if nothing else, was a vast improvement over the business suit fiasco.

Esme swiveled on her barstool until she had a clear shot of the doors. When she’d arrived, the parking garage and rear lot were overflowing, and she expected the bar to be standing room only. She’d been right, but almost everyone was on the dance floor.

Her eyes kept darting from the crowd to the doors as she divided her time watching for Finn and trying to get a glimpse of the band who was playing a set of Evanescence covers and doing it very well, the lead singer’s voice indistinguishable from the real thing. One of her favorite bands, she’d listened to their version of “My Immortal” at least a thousand times after Andrew’s death. It seemed to sum up her struggle with memories that wouldn’t fade, and wounds that wouldn’t heal, as if the songwriter had peered into her broken heart and lifted her thoughts from her brain.

It always made her cry until now. Rather, until Finn.

Turning on her stool, she blocked out the memories. They had no place here tonight, intruding on her new beginning.

He was all she’d been able to think of since they’d parted this morning. Something had dawned on her as she sat on her patio, looking over the valley, rewinding the night before in her head. She’d slept in Finn’s bed, while snuggled up to his side, her cheek pillowed on his chest, his arm around her, for a continuous six-hour stretch, which never happened. She had dreamed, but for the first time in a long while, they weren’t filled with horror and gore, or characters from TV with bizarre demands, or rotund disgusting kings from centuries past forcing her to do lewd, repulsive acts. Esme shuddered as she always did when Henry’s greasy image popped into her head. To get him out of there, she shook it hard.

“So, what’s your story?”

Esme whipped around to find Mistress Latrice with her red braided quirt sitting on the stool next to her, watching her with keen interest.

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