Page 67 of Reckless

“He is,” Tyler said then his mouth covered my ear. “A permanent one.”

He slid a finger over my collarbone smoothing my hair back. When I refused to look at him, he chuckled and went behind the bar.

“Did you enjoy my surprise?”

“Clem didn’t want a stripper.”

“I didn’t ask if Clem enjoyed it. I asked ifyouenjoyed it.”

“I wasn’t the one handcuffed to a chair.”

“Would you like to be?”

I ignored his innuendo. “I know you don’t care about what people think, Tyler, but you can’t just go around and do whatever the hell you want. You are not supposed to be here.”

“That statement could have a lot more impact if you could say it to my face.”

“You can’t just burst in here,” I continued.

“I didn’t arrange for us to come here. It was Lucas’s colleague and his wife. And it’s not my fault the groom prefers his fiancée over hookers.”

I span on my seat to face him. I had never in my entire life wanted to kill someone more than I wanted to kill Tyler in that particular moment.

“You hired him a hooker?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Of course not. He’s marrying my sister. I am notthatfun.”

“It’s good to know you have some boundaries.” My eyes traveled down to his hands. He was making me my cocktail. “Being the best man and all.”

A wolfish grin appeared on Tyler’s face. “Well, I had my reservations about that. But then I heard something that changed my mind.”

“And what could possibly make Tyler Hartley change his mind about something like that?”

“I will keep that to myself,” he winked. “Try this one.” He offered me the cocktail.

“It looks exactly the same.”

“But it doesn’t taste the same. Think of it as dicks. They all look alike, but you tend to prefer one over the other.”

“Speaking from experience?”

“I like you sassy, little Spencer,” Tyler placed his hands on the counter on both his sides. “Try it.”

I did. It was better than the one Scott made, and I was going to take that observation to my grave.

“It’s different,” I said omitting the truth he was waiting for. He just smiled and kept silent.

One of the girls Clem worked with bumped into me. She was wasted and spent a few seconds staring at Tyler in silence. The way she was eyeing him grated on my nerves.

“You weren’t this hot a few cocktails ago,” she finally said.

“Women’s vision improves after their third cocktail. That’s a known fact amongst bartenders.”

She burst out laughing, then sent Tyler a flirtatious smile and asked him for a drink.

My pulse quickened. I could ignore Tyler’s sexual jokes and innuendos. Pretend I didn’t hear or understand because he was never pressuring me for a reply. He just let things slide whenever I refused to talk about something. But now that someone opened up the subject of his looks in front of me, flirted with him in front of me, I felt exposed. Like I couldn’t hide the fact I too found him attractive. Nor the jealousy that was slowly but surely creeping up on me.

Tyler made her a cocktail and the moment she took a sip, she groaned in pleasure.

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