Rescue Me

If guilt wasn’t spreading through her like a bad case of chicken pox, she might have thought the shock that left his jaw slack was funny. It really wasn’t.

He stepped away from her, a deliberate movement that took him out of range for round two. Not that there’d be one.

He rubbed his cheek, the gentle scritch, scritch, scritch of his stubble sending a tingle down her spine.

“Let me get you some ice.” It was the least she could do.

He stared at her for several seconds before his entire body started shaking with laughter. The sound of it rolled out of him, a little rusty and rough. She liked the timbre of it. Like he didn’t use it often and it was a privilege that he was sharing the sound with her.

No, she wouldn’t let it get to her.

“It isn’t funny,” she said, barely controlling the urge to stamp her foot. She’d slapped the shit out of him and he was laughing?

“I beg to differ. Can you imagine telling this story to our grandchildren? About swapping ice for our injuries the first time we met?”

What? Tucker blinked, panic and confusion tumbling around inside her. “Whoa there. No one said anything about grandchildren. This is a pretend relationship.”

“So you are going to do it?”

Tucker sighed. How the hell had they gotten to this point? Not five minutes ago this man had had her backed against the wall with his tongue down her throat and her mind blank with wanting him.

Beneath her breath, Tucker swore. Finn heard it anyway. She could tell by the tiny quirk to his lips. Damn, she wanted to feel them again. To really savor the moment this time, instead of being blindsided.

Nope, she needed that like she needed a hole in the head.

“I don’t have much choice, do I? But I do have one demand. You can’t bring Duchess into the bar.”

His eyebrows creased together, wiping away his jovial expression.

“She’s the reason I was asked to do this, Tucker. Without her there’s no point in me being here. I need her to scent your customers for traces of drugs.”

“No.” She wasn’t budging on this. “I can’t have your dog running around my bar, freaking out the patrons.”

“She didn’t bother anyone last night.”

“She bothered me. And having her here after throwing y’all out last night would only raise everyone’s suspicions.”

Finn threw his hands in the air. Beside them, Duchess stirred and Tucker couldn’t stop herself from skittering in the opposite direction. Yes, she hated to admit that the dog scared her. But that was the reality.

“Then I might as well not even be here.”

Tucker shrugged. “Okay. Sorry I couldn’t help more.”

She could practically hear Finn’s molars grinding together with frustration. The muscle in his jaw ticked and the vein in his neck throbbed.

“Tonight. I’ll agree to leave Duchess home tonight, but we’re going to revisit this issue.”

“You can revisit it all you want, but I’m not changing my mind. She isn’t a service dog, Finn, and doesn’t belong in my bar.”

She could tell he wanted to argue more, but was smart enough to realize it wasn’t going to get him anywhere. “We need to talk about the rest of it, then. Your staff needs to believe that we’re a couple.”

“Good luck with that. They were all here last night and saw the sparks flying between us.”

“So we use that to our advantage. Some of the fieriest relationships stem from passionate hate.”

Yeah, not in her experience. As far as she was concerned, any relationship that started out rocky was most likely doomed to failure. Actually, most relationships were doomed to failure, period.

“My team know me a little too well to believe we’d suddenly be together after only one night.”

“So we play things a little slow for the next couple days. I hang around, which is really the point of me being here in the first place. You gradually spend more and more time with me.”

She really didn’t want that, either, but there wasn’t much she could do to prevent it. Unless she wanted to refuse to cooperate and have her security team toss him whenever he showed up—and they’d want to know why. Much simpler just to let him spend a few days at her bar, realize he was mistaken about what was happening here and finally leave her alone.