Cuffs - Cara Lockwood Page 0,21

all. The man was made of granite. “Or you want to start a bar fight? Need some backup? Is that why I’m here? Who do I rush first?”

“God, this was a mistake.” But she laughed as she said it.

“I just want to know if we’re busting skulls or we’re simply trying to make him jealous.”

Mags threw back her head and laughed. “Don’t be absurd. Jealousy is a wasted emotion. I don’t believe in it.”

“You don’t believe in jealousy?” Gael raised his dark eyebrows in surprise, skepticism on his face.

“You’d have to be attached to something to be jealous. And I don’t get attached.”

“Not ever?”

“Not ever.” Attachment led to pain. She’d learned that the hard way. First with her mother. Then...her father. “You the relationship type?”

Gael glanced at her. “Not if I can help it.”

Now it was Mags’s turn to laugh.

“Well, then, we have something in common.” Clint slid two foamy IPAs in front of them, as well as two shots of Jameson. Mags took her shot glass and raised it. He met her glass in the air.

“To avoiding getting cuffed,” she said.

“Amen,” he answered, and the two of them took slugs of the drink, the Irish whiskey burning down her throat.

Metallica jammed out from hidden speakers in the ceiling, and Mags watched as Elena made her way past them and to the edge of the bar to pick up a round of drinks for one of her tables. She eyed Mags, a worry line appearing on her forehead. Why was everyone afraid of her? Why was everyone so worried she was going to start something? Mags might be tough, but she wasn’t a hothead. She left bar fights to the amateurs who couldn’t control their tempers. She was starting to think this was a mistake. She was the one being childish, after all. They should’ve gone to a different place. But...this was her bar as much as it was Clint’s. Hell, it had been her bar since well before Clint showed up. Why should she be the one to run off with her tail between her legs?

She glanced at Gael. He was the only one who didn’t seem afraid of her. Not in the least.

Gael nudged her elbow. “You okay?” he asked. Damn his sympathy. She didn’t need his pity.

“Fine,” she said, trying to stiffen her back a little. It was just a drink, dammit. Gael eyed Elena as she swept past them. Then he glanced at the adjacent room with the two pool tables. One of which was still empty.

“Do you play?” he asked her.

“Do you?” She couldn’t help but ask, surprised.

“A little.” He slid off his bar stool, and Mags followed, curious. She was suddenly glad to put some space between herself and Clint. She told herself it wasn’t because she cared. She didn’t. But she hated awkward. She had no time for it. Now she could focus on Gael. A suit that could play pool? This she had to see.

She took a slow sip of her beer as she watched while Gael stashed his beer on a side table and retrieved the balls from the pockets of the table. He racked them like a pro, sliding the triangle to the end of the table. The pool table had seen better days: its felt was faded in a few spots and torn at the far right edge of one hole, but it was still passable for play—or at least what passed for play at the Bulldog.

Mags watched Gael roll up his shirtsleeves and felt a little hitch in her throat. He almost looked...a little dangerous, which Mags told herself was ridiculous. Bankers weren’t the dangerous type. Unless, of course, they were foreclosing on someone’s family home, she reminded herself. Then they were very dangerous. But Gael looked anything but a pencil pusher or real estate thief as he chalked up the end of a cue, his forearm muscles working. He certainly seemed comfortable at the pool table. In fact, he seemed comfortable no matter where he was. That quiet confidence was sexy. More than sexy. It was...apex alpha.

She wasn’t the only one who’d noticed, either. The women sitting at the end of the bar, clad in fishnets and torn denim, eyed him with interest. They’d been staring since he’d arrived at the bar but intensified their looks as he prowled around the pool table. Even Elena cast him more than a single glance. He wasn’t wrong. He was eye candy. But he also was more than that.

She remembered