For Seven Nights Only (Chase Brothers) by Sarah Ballance Page A

Sawyer as he spoke.
    She didn’t.
    Sawyer caught the bartender’s eye and gestured for another one. One more glance at Kelsie gave him an eyeful of that guy’s hand resting on her waist. Sawyer wondered if she liked it. If she trembled for that guy, or if the asshat would press his cheek against her just for the chance to breathe in her scent. Sawyer thought about his drink. He should have asked for a double, but as thirsty as he was, he’d find his way to distraction fast enough. No doubt.
    By the time he cut through the crowd at the bar, his drink was waiting for him. “That your girl?” Harry, the bartender, asked. He sounded skeptical, and for good reason. He’d known Sawyer for months.
    “No one ever is,” Sawyer said. He threw back the drink, trying—and failing—to chase the bitterness from his throat.
    “That’s what I thought, at least until I saw the two of you over there.”
    “She’s nothing,” Sawyer said. He smacked the empty glass on the bar a bit harder than he intended. “Double,” he said. “And why the fuck are you down here talking to me? You have a hundred people waiting for drinks.”
    “They don’t tip as well as you,” he said. “And I’m not the only one serving up drinks, but I am the one who’s known you the longest.”
    “What’s that got to do with anything?”
    Harry grabbed the whiskey and poured a double shot before topping it off with Coke. “Those of us on this side of the bar figured I’d be the one to get the fact that you’re actually seeing someone out of you.”
    Sawyer scowled. “Yeah, well, I’m not.”
    Harry’s brow lifted. “The way you’re watching her with that other guy suggests otherwise.”
    “Half the men in here are watching her.”
    “Can you blame them? That woman is a work of art.”
    Sawyer tore his attention from Kelsie to glare at the bartender, who started laughing before wisely moving down the line, leaving Sawyer alone with his drink and his thoughts. And a damned good view of a woman who looked nothing like her usual mummified self. Her little black number wasn’t a standout in a crowd that was packed with a hundred variations of short and sparkly, but it didn’t matter. Kelsie, inexplicably, was a beacon. Despite the lack of caked-on makeup, she should have blended in with the crowd, but instead she beckoned him without even trying. And maybe that was it. Normally when a woman caught his eye, it was a blatant invitation. Kelsie, with her fresh face and increasingly exuberant smile, was a knockout—one who didn’t seem too damned interested in him. And he hated how hard that sucked.
    Screw that.
    The redhead who’d approached him earlier caught his eye. She was dancing with some other woman, both too drunk to do anything but bounce off of each other and anyone who happened to be nearby. She winked.
    He looked away.
    Unfortunately, right back to Kelsie. He didn’t even see the man she was with. Just the long expanse of leg that stretched between the hem of her dress and those damned shoes. He wasn’t sure he’d ever noticed a woman’s shoes before, but he wanted to take those off her feet with his teeth. Or maybe leave them on while he drove into her, her legs slung over his shoulders while she fisted sheets and screamed his name. Of course, the way she moved, she’d probably blow his mind with something slow and sexy. He could already see that long, lithe body stretched out on his bed, curving against his, crisp sheets twisted, kisses not coming fast enough.
    Jesus Christ .
    Sawyer probably looked like some kind of stalker glaring from the shadows, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her every sway was a seduction. She moved like an angel—or the devil incarnate—and he wasn’t the only one noticing those slow, sexy undulations. One guy cut in, then another. The way she maneuvered out there on that floor made him achy and feverish, and that had to be the alcohol. He couldn’t believe the motions were foreign to