She swallowed hard, staring into her glass. “He already left.”
The bartender leaned back against the stainless sink behind him. “That's too bad. I can't imagine ever leaving Tahoe.”
“He loved it here,” she said as a sob rose up in her throat.
Oh God, she couldn't cry here, in this bar, in front of a stranger. She immediately took another slug from her glass to keep everything from spilling out.
She held her glass out. “I'll have another, thanks.”
His eyes were on her and she didn't want to face the questions in them, but somehow she couldn't make herself look away.
“You sure about that?” he asked. “Maybe you should take a breather for a few minutes. Tell me more about yourself.”
She blinked at him as rage and frustration and misery swirled together in her gut. She hadn't come here for a therapy session. She'd come to get blasted.
She shook the glass at him and a couple of pieces of ice sloshed over the rim onto the bar top.
Her message came across loud and clear and as he shrugged and refilled her glass, the way his thin T-shirt rode up his thick biceps made her mouth water. She didn't have to see him naked to know that his abs would be ripped.
He looked hard and beautiful.
And then it hit her: This stranger was another sign. First the bar appearing at the end of the road, and now, a fallen angel sent to help her forget.
Please, God, let me forget.
He moved forward, close enough for her to reach out and touch his face. The impulse to touch him, to kiss him happened so fast that she didn't think—she couldn't, it would kill her if she did, she just pushed herself up on the bar stool and grabbed a handful of his T-shirt in her fist. His mouth hit hers a moment before she was ready for it, knocking the breath from her lungs.
His kiss consumed her, rough and sure. She hadn't caught her breath yet, could only steal air from his lungs. She'd never been kissed like this, with an intensity that made her forget where she was, who she was, that she didn't even know his name.
His facial hair was coarse against her skin and she welcomed the violence of their kiss. Everything was purely physical now, about chasing sensation. Maya left her emotions on the bar stool. They belonged to someone she didn't want to be anymore.
He tasted like sugar, but he smelled like smoke. Her knees found the top of the bar and she crawled closer to him, using his shirt for leverage with one hand, the back of his neck with the other. His large hands circled her rib cage and he hoisted her over the bar without breaking their tongues and teeth and lips apart.
Wildness joined desperation as she pressed herself against the hard wall of his chest, running her palms and fingers over his torso. His skin was warm under the hem of his T-shirt and his tight abs jumped beneath her fingertips.
Without warning he closed the remaining distance between them, shoving his hips between her legs. His erection was hard against her lower belly and she instinctively rubbed herself into the thick length. He shoved her against the wall and cold bottles pressed into her spine.
Anguish came at her then, fierce and sudden.
Tony was dead. And she was in a bar with a stranger. What was she doing? She needed to pull herself together and get back out there to clean up his cottage—and find the person who'd lit the fire that had taken his life.
Her stomach twisted up and her skin felt cold and clammy as reality threatened to break through. But then the bartender ran his lips and teeth over her jawline, down her neck, and Maya let herself get lost again in his touch, let his kisses shroud her in temporary safety.
She arched her neck back, shivering in gratitude, losing herself in this stranger. He moved his hands over her br**sts and his thumbs brushed across her hard ni**les a moment before his mouth covered her, first through her tank top and then—oh God—his tongue flicked over bare skin, demanding an arousal she'd never known before.
She shifted into his mouth, wanting more friction, more heat. Her elbow caught a bottle and it crashed to the ground. The scent of bourbon pervaded everything; a fitting backdrop to their fierce, anonymous love-making.
The stranger gave no indication of having heard the bottle shatter and with every rasping kiss he planted on her feverish skin, reality and broken glass moved further into the distance. He stood again and captured her mouth, robbing her brain of the ability to follow the direction of his hands, to realize he'd unzipped her jeans. His fingers slid into her damp pubic hair, her wetness.
She wasn't shocked by anything but the force of her need as she bucked her hips into his hands, silently begging him to enter her. His kiss was ruthless, his mouth never leaving hers, his tongue moving in time to his fingers as they slipped and slid, in then out of her desperate body.
She'd never been this out of control, never wanted to come so bad. She clawed at his back, his hips, using all of her strength to pull him into her. He obliged and his clothed erection joined his hands between her legs, thrusting, pushing harder and harder. An orgasm took her, pulling her under wave after wave of intense pleasure.
Maya was caught in the middle of a beautiful, violent ocean. Drowning, she cried out, begging for help, but she was too far gone.
Sudden sobs wracked her frame with as much force as her ongoing climax and she was powerless to control either of them. The only thing she could do was hold on to the man between her legs.
The weeping stopped Logan Cain dead in his tracks. This had been consensual, hadn't it? She'd grabbed his shirt, not the other way around. Still, he should have known better than to make out with a woman who looked that unhappy.