Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,28
brand on the backs of models and pop singers.”
Another snort. “I just pictured Marley giving you a piggyback.”
“She’d fold like a lawn chair,” I said on a laugh. “Look—you know if I could quit the life, I would. But this? Putting myself in the gossip columns to get attention when I was young and stupid? That was my mistake.”
“Our mistake,” he amended.
“It seemed like such a good idea at the time, didn’t it?”
“Can’t say it didn’t work.”
I sighed. “It’s like the mob. The only way to get out is to move to France like Johnny Depp.”
“Or Italy like Sting.”
“I heard you can shake down his olive trees during harvest season. For admission price.”
Theo snorted a laugh. “You’d better keep Amelia on the low. Talk about folding like a lawn chair. I don’t think she could handle the spotlight.”
I frowned. “I dunno. I think she’s tougher than she looks.”
He made the universal face for come the fuck on. “Tommy, she could barely hold eye contact with either of us.”
“Have you seen us?”
He ignored me. “I guarantee if some asshole shoved a wide-angle lens in her face, she’d have an epileptic fit.”
“Well, the flashes are really bright.”
He rolled his eyes. “Glad you didn’t miss the point.”
“Don’t worry,” I assured him. “I’m not gonna let them get to her. I won’t let anybody hurt her. She’s so little, so delicate. My brain keeps screaming that she’s breakable. Did you notice?”
“Notice what?”
“How small she is? Even her hands are tiny, but her fingers are long. I don’t even know how that’s possible.”
He was still making that face.
“I mean, I guess it’s her fingers. They’re longer than her palms, so it gives the illusion that they’re long in general. Pretty sure one of her hands would fit on my palm. Like in Beauty and the Beast when he holds her hand and it’s just a wrist disappearing into his big, hairy fist.”
He added blinking to the face. “Did you just compare yourself to a Disney movie?”
I shrugged. “What’s it to you, asshole?”
A pause. “You’ve given this a lot of thought.”
“I like her. She’s interesting, different. And she treats me different. I always feel like chum in the water, but for once, she makes me feel like a shark. She doesn’t want a piece of me, doesn’t care about the life. Her intentions are pure.” I shook my head. “You know how rare it is to find someone like that. Someone who isn’t a vampire. I don’t feel drained after she leaves. I feel…filled up.”
“You’re not gonna sleep with her, are you?”
The sound I made was similar to an air leak but wetter. “No. And anyway, she told me she wasn’t interested.”
The sting of that particular rejection rankled. I shifted in my seat to counteract it.
He eyed me, indicating he believed a grand total of none of that. But before I could defend myself, someone bumped into me, spilling my drink on my shirt.
I turned, brows drawn and ready to school somebody in manners, but the girl I found there kicked in another instinct altogether.
She was small, eyes big and brown, skin dark and smooth. But her cheeks flushed when she saw me, her eyes tight with concern.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said, grabbing a couple of cocktail napkins to dab at my shirt.
“What the fuck?” the guy in the suit behind her slurred, oblivious to me as he reached for her arm. “I bought you two drinks. What do you mean you’re not interested?”
I pushed back from the bar, my eyes on the place where his meathook was wrapped around her slender bicep. My jaw clenched so tight, I thought I might pull a tendon.
“Tommy,” Theo warned, standing with me and squaring up.
“Don’t worry. I’m cool,” I said, unable to look away.
The girl dislodged her arm from his hand. “I…I’m sorry.”
The suit laughed, his eyes hard and glinting. “Sorry? You’re sorry? I just wasted half an hour and forty bucks for you to tell me you’re not interested? Then pay for your own fuckin’ drinks, cocktease.”
I stepped between them, putting her behind me. “Hey, man. How’s it going?”
He jerked his chin at me. “Oh, look. It’s pretty boy Bane. What are you gonna do, clock me?” He leaned into my face. “Oh, wait. You can’t. Isn’t that right, pretty boy?”
In a grand show of will, I smirked, gripping the surge of rage in my chest. “Come on, how about I buy you another drink?”