The Merciless Travis Wilde

Still, was this a good choice? She’d worked up logical criteria.

A: Choose a place that drew singles. She knew what happened in singles bars. Well, she’d heard what happened, anyway—that they were where people went for uninhibited fun, drinking, dancing … and other things.

B: Do what she was going to do before summer changed to autumn.

C: Actually, it had not occurred to her there might be a part C. But there was.

Do Not Prevaricate.

And she was prevaricating.

She put away her compact. Opened the door. Stepped from the car. Shut the door. Locked it. Opened her purse. Put her keys inside. Closed the purse. Hung the thin strap over the shoulder of her equally thin-strapped emerald-green silk dress, bought from the same consignment shop as the purse, the Neiman Marcus tag still inside.

Assuming you could call something that stopped at midthigh a dress.

She knew it was.

Girls on campus wore dresses this length.

You’re not a girl on campus, Jennie. And even when you were, back in New Hampshire, you never wore anything that looked like this.

And maybe if she had, she wouldn’t be doing this tonight. She wouldn’t have to be looking for answers to questions that needed answers, questions she was running out of time to ask …

“Stop,” she whispered.

It was time to get moving.

She took a breath, then started walking toward the entrance to the bar, stumbling a little in the sky-high heels she’d also bought at the consignment shop.

She was properly turned out, from head to toe, to lure the kind of man she wanted into her bed. Somebody tall. Broad-shouldered. A long, lean, buff body. Dark hair, dark eyes, a gorgeous face because if you were going to lose your virginity to a stranger, if this was going to be your One and Only sexual experience, Jennie thought as she put her hand on the door to the bar and pushed it open, if this was going to be It, you wanted the man to be …

Was that music?

It was loud. Very loud. What was it? She had no idea. Telling Tchaikovsky from Mozart was one thing. Telling rock from rock was another.

She caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

Maybe she was making a mistake.

Yes, the place was far from the university. She wouldn’t see anyone she knew, but what about the rest? Was it a singles

bar? Or was it—what did people call them? A tavern? A neighborhood place where people came to drink?

Such a dark street. Such an unprepossessing building. That neon sign, even the asphalt because now that she’d seen it, close-up, she could see that it was cracked …

That’s enough!

She’d talked herself out of a dozen other possibilities. She was not talking herself out of this one.

Chin up, back straight—okay, one last hand smoothing her hair, one last tug at her dress and she really should have chosen one that covered her thighs …

Jennie reached for the door, yanked it open …

And stepped into a sensory explosion.

The music pulsed off the walls, vibrated through the floor.

The smell was awful. Yeasty, kind of like rising bread dough but not as pleasant, and under it, the smell of things frying in grease.

And the noise! People shouting over the music. What sounded like hundreds of them. Not really; there weren’t hundreds of people at the long bar, at the handful of tables, but there were lots of them … And they were mostly male.

Some were wearing leather.

Maybe she’d made a mistake. Wandered into a gay …

No. These guys weren’t gay. They were—they were unattractive. Lots of facial hair. Lots of tattoos. Lots of big bellies overhanging stained jeans.

There were a few women, but that didn’t help. The women were—big. Big hair. Big boobs. Big everything.

People were looking at her.

Indeed they are, Genevieve. That’s what people do, when a woman all dressed up walks into a place like this.

Oh, God. Even her alter-ego thought she’d made a mistake!

Her heart leaped into her throat. She wanted to turn around and go right out the door.

But it was too late.

A man was walking toward her.

Not walking. Sauntering, was more accurate, his long stride slow and easy, more than a match for his lazy smile.

Her breath caught.

His eyes were dark. His hair was the color of rich, dark coffee. It was thick, and longer than a man’s hair should be, longer, anyway, than the way men in her world wore it, and she had the swift, almost overwhelming desire to bury her hands in it.

Plus, he was tall.

Tall and long and lean and muscled.

You could almost sense the hard delineation of muscle in his wide shoulders and arms and chest, and—and she was almost certain he had a—what did you call it? A six-pack, that was it. A six-pack right there, in his middle.

A middle that led down to—down to his lower middle.

To more muscle, a different kind of muscle, hidden behind faded denim …

Her cheeks burned.