Page 2 of Made for You
I shrugged, offering her a slow grin. “Figured I’d start slow. Didn’t want to scare you off.”
She arched a brow. “I don’t scare easily.”
Christ. That voice.
I leaned in, noticing when her eyes dropped to my mouth. “Good to know.” I eased onto the stool, giving her just enoughspace to keep things respectful. “Gage,” I offered, resting my forearm on the bar.
The bartender—Cal, a guy I’d known since grade school—sidled over and lifted his chin in greeting. “The usual?”
“Yeah,” I said. “And whatever she’s having—on me.”
She cocked a brow at that but didn’t protest. “Cabernet,” she said to Cal, then turned her gaze back to me. “That’s bold, offering to buy a drink for a woman who might not even tell you her name.”
I shrugged. “Guess I like a little risk. Also, I figured if you were going to send me on my way, you’d have done it already.”
Her lips twitched. “Confident.”
“I prefer optimistic.”
“Mmm,” she hummed, propping an elbow on the bar. “And what exactly are you feeling optimistic about?”
“That you’ll let me keep talking to you for a little while.”
Cal set the glass in front of her and popped the cap on my beer, sliding it across the bar. I took a long pull, trying not to look like I was buzzing from the fact that she hadn’t shut me down yet.
She considered me for a beat. “And what makes you think I’m worth the effort?”
I set my bottle down and met her gaze head-on. “Because the second I walked in, I saw you and couldn’t look away.”
Not surprise, exactly, but something … softer flickered in her expression.
“You’re beautiful,” I continued, the corner of my mouth tipping up in amusement. “Though you don’t need me to tell you that. It’s not just the packaging, either. It’s the way you carry that beauty. Like you know exactly who you are, and fuck anyone who doesn’t know it, too.”
She studied me for a long second. “That almost sounded sincere.”
“Because it was.”
A beat passed between us, quiet and charged, until she dragged her gaze over the crowd. I watched as she took in the room, pausing every couple of seconds on a small group of women. Folks dressed like they belonged in a Montana honky tonk on a Friday night. The type of blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls most guys I knew would give their left nut to sleep with. Eventually, she turned back to me.
“Tell me something real, Gage,” she said, voice low. “Something you don’t say to every woman who sits at this bar.”
I stared down at my hands wrapped around the beer bottle, surprised by how much I wanted to give her exactly what she was asking for. I lifted the bottle to my lips and took a long pull, using the moment to figure out why I wanted to tell this woman things I’d never said to anyone else. “You looked untouchable when I first saw you. Still kinda do, to be honest. But now that I’m sitting here, you don’t seem cold. You seem … careful. Weary.”
Her eyes flashed—not with offense, but with something that looked like maybe I’d seen more than I was supposed to.
She set her wine glass down slowly, her expression turning thoughtful. “You’re good at reading people, then?”
“Only when I want to understand them.”
“And you want to understand me?”
“I want to know everything. Even if it’s just for tonight.”
“Hmm,” she hummed again, and I was beginning to think that was her way of filling the silence when she didn’t know what she wanted to say, but she didn’t want to stay quiet.
“What brings you to Bridger Falls?” I asked, steering the conversation away from my inadvertent proposition. To be clear, I wanted to sleep with this woman … whose name I still didn’t know … but I hadn’t meant to come right out and tell her that. Not yet, anyway.
“I’m just visiting.”
