Page 14 of Love Me Darkly
“We’re here to work, not get drunk.”
“Please,” Donovan huffed. “Our hands are tied for the night. Observing and snapping pics only. I could do that in my sleep.”
The man had a point and Mateo’s anxiety only heightened the longer they sat here. He had just made up his mind to go for that second drink when movement near the bar caught his eye. In his peripheral vision, he could see that the VIP booths were starting to fill up, the men from downstairs filing in and making themselves comfortable.
But he couldn’t tear his gaze away from her.
Her skin was dark-as-night, smooth and unblemished, gleaming like onyx in the colored lights of the club. Long, slender braids ran down her back, ending just above the swell of her ass. And what an ass it was, barely covered by a black leather miniskirt, round and firm and perfect. He let his eyes wander down her bare legs, tracing the sinews beneath that supple skin, the sculptures of her thighs and calves. She wore a pair of gold heels with delicate straps wrapped around her ankles.
Mateo went rigid when she flipped those braids over her shoulder, revealing that she wasn’t wearing a top. No, that couldn’t be right. It took him a solid thirty seconds of staring at her naked flesh to realize the shirt she wore was completely backless. The thinnest of straps held it up around her neck and at her waist. He didn’t think he’d ever seen something more striking than that bare back, the lines of her waist, the slight ripple of muscle and shoulder blades as she moved, seeming to react to the music.
His leg ceased its agitated bouncing. The music faded into a dull whine pricking the edges of his consciousness, and his vision narrowed to a single point. The gilt of a golden shoe, the gleam of a bared, brown leg, the very edge of an ass cheek showing from beneath her skirt as she leaned over the bar to talk to the man mixing drinks behind it.
Holy fuck.
Leaning toward him over the table, Donovan grinned. “If your eyes bug out any farther, they’re going to fall out of your head.”
Mateo snatched his gaze away from the woman, mortified that he’d been caught. He could argue that close observation of the people in this room was the entire point of this. But Donovan wasn’t an idiot. Mateo definitely hadn’t been watching the woman because he thought she was suspicious.
“My eyes were not bugging out.”
“Were, too. It’s okay, she’s hot. At least from behind… she could be a butter-face.”
“What the fuck is a butter-face?”
“You know, bangin’ body, but then she turns around and … well … ‘but-her-face.’”
Donovan erupted into laughter at his own joke, but Mateo didn’t respond. He couldn’t respond because the woman took that very moment to lift a tray of drinks from the bar and turn around. A breath escaped him on what could only be described as a wheeze. Donovan might have been right; he felt as if eyes might leap straight out of their sockets.
“I stand corrected,” Donovan murmured. “Definitely not a butter-face.”
That had to be the grossest understatement Mateo had ever heard. Her face was heart-shaped, framed perfectly by the braids that swung and moved when she began to walk with the tray balanced on one shoulder. High cheekbones slashed beneath a pair of eyes that appeared dark from this distance. She had the cutest button of a nose, and her jaw sloped gracefully into the point of her chin. Her mouth was luxurious, wide, plump and full.
He winced, looking down to find that his fingernails had gouged half-moons into his palms; he’d been clenching his fists so hard. Fighting to keep from following her around the room with his gaze, he focused on his hands. Specifically, the left hand, which had only recently lost the prominent pale mark of where his wedding ring had once been. He’d stopped wearing it months ago, but felt the weight of the jewelry as if it were still there.
“Finish your Scotch.”
Mateo sucked in a breath as if he’d just burst out from underwater. His chest burned as if he had forgotten how to inhale. “What?”
Donovan gave him a pointed look, then darted his eyes at the waitress. She now stood only one table over from them, smiling and nodding while taking drink orders. “Finish. Your. Scotch.”
Reaching for the tumbler in front of him, Mateo lifted the glass and drained what was left in one swallow.
“Perfect,” Donovan murmured, raising his bottle to get her attention.
Mateo’s tongue turned into a dead weight in his mouth as she approached, her gaze skimming over Donovan as if with mild interest. Then, she was looking at Mateo, the feathery arches of her eyebrows ticking upward slightly. She didn’t look away. God damn her, her eyes were velvety brown and almond-shaped and fringed with a heavy fan of curled lashes, and she wouldn’t stop looking at him.
“Hi,” she said in what could only be described as a purr.
The sound stroked, unwelcomed, down Mateo’s spine.
“What can I get y’all?”
Donovan shook his empty bottle. “Another Heineken, and a shot of Jameson for me. And … would you happen to know if your bartender has a better brand of Scotch back there? My friend here ordered one, but what he got made his face look … well, like that.”
She was looking at him again. Mateo met her gaze as if his head were on a swivel that she controlled. Those eyes of hers gleamed with amusement and her lips quivered as if she held back a smile. Apparently, something was amusing about his facial expression because she and Donovan exchanged looks as if sharing a private joke. At his expense.
“Was it that bad?” she asked, pushing her lower lip into a teasing pout.
