Page 23 of Hell or High Water

“Don’t act like girls don’t do it too,” I said, jerking my eyes off her to study the menu, although I knew what I was going to order.

“I don’t,” she shot back immediately. “So, do you do this with all girls or just the ones you want to…you know?”

She was a stripper’s daughter, for God’s sake. Say the wordfuck.

“If they’re at least a high seven and they have a cunt, then I’m gonna think about fucking them.” I didn’t look at her as I said it, but, damn, I was curious as to what her expression was now.

“Huh,” she said, and then there was a pause. “I guess I know what number I am then.”

Unable to help myself, I looked from the menu to her. “Is that so?”

She shrugged a shoulder, and one of her eyebrows slightly lifted. “You hate me. I disgust you. Not that I care if you want to have sex with me. I was just pointing it out. That means I’m not a seven. I’m a six or under. Anyway”—she opened the menu—“what’s good? This is overwhelming.”

I battled with clearing that assumption up for a moment, then said nothing and went back to staring blindly at my menu. She’d looked in a mirror. She didn’t need me to reassure her she was a walking wet dream. Most of the men in this restaurant were going to beat off with thoughts of her when they got alone. And she did care. The way her cheeks had turned a light pink gave her away.

“I almost always get the sweet bourbon burger,” I told her. “The mac ’n’ cheese bacon burger is good too. I’ve had it once or twice.”

I stopped staring at the damn menu like I needed to and gave in to looking at her. She had that plump bottom lip between her straight white teeth as she studied the options. I wanted to ask her about shit I’d read on her phone, but then she’d question how I knew about those things.

Leaning back, I stretched my arm along the back of the bench, then scanned the room for the hostess. When I found her, she was looking directly at me. After staring at Montana, the hostess had dropped to a six. Yeah, I wasn’t going there. She had that too easy, stalkerish feel to her.

Not giving her any more encouragement, I turned my attention back to Montana.

A guy showed up beside the table, and I cut my eyes at him to see he was the waiter.

He placed two glasses of water in front of us. “I’m Kevin. I’ll be your waiter. Can I get you anything else to drink?”

Montana looked from him to me. I nodded my head at her to order first. She swung her eyes back to the waiter, who I realized hadn’t taken his eyes off her. Fucker. I was sitting right here. Sure, I wasn’t her date, but he didn’t know that.

“Sweet tea, please,” she replied with a smile.

She was going to give the guy a boner.

It looked as if he had to tear his gaze off her.

“And for you?” he finally asked me.

“Same.”

“All right, I’ll get those and give you a few more minutes with the menus.”

He was staring at Montana as if he wanted her to say something more, but she wasn’t paying any attention. Her focus was back on deciding what hamburger she wanted.

“What year did you fail in school? Or was it two years?” I asked, knowing it was going to piss her off.

Her expression hardened, but she didn’t look up at me from the menu she was studying. “Third.”

“Damn,” I muttered. I hadn’t expected elementary school. “Addition and subtraction too much for you?”

That got those eyes on me instead of the menu. Her glacial expression as she glared at me was hot.

“No. Math is one of my best subjects,” she said, clenching her teeth.

I was finding that I enjoyed getting her all worked up. It was better than fucking her. Since Linc would likely beat the shit out of me if I did.

“Cursive writing then? It’s a bitch.”

She gave her eyes a hard roll, then closed the menu with more force than necessary and set it down. “I was absent too many days.”

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