The Care and Feeding of Unmarried Men by Christie Ridgway Page A

slung his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll pay you, Evie, I’ll pay you anything you want. Just come back to my room with me.”
    Nash didn’t think twice. He gripped the geezer’s wrist, removed the offending appendage, and let it drop. “You’re done, dude.”
    â€œBut—”
    â€œDone.” Putting on his I-crush-cars-for-a-living face, Nash rose and stepped closer to the older man. “The lady doesn’t want you or your money.”
    Maybe he sounded menacing, too. His only intention had been to get the guy out of Eve’s face, but he couldn’t say he was sorry to see the man push away from the bar and stumble off. When Nash settled back onto his own stool, Eve slid him a sidelong look and pulled the olive spear she’d resumed sucking out of her mouth again.
    â€œI could have taken care of that myself, Preacher. I’m not one of your Farrahs.”
    That reminded him. He had to ask the front desk to make a 3:00 a.m. wake-up call to his little sister, with Nash’s compliments. “Can’t we forget about that? The Preacher and the Farrahs?”
    That sent her back to her martini glass for another gulp. “Absolut-ely! Get it? Absolut-ely. As in the vodka. Tonight we’re here to forget.”
    â€œI’ll bite.”
    Her blue eyes went innocent-wide and her voice breathy. “Promise?”
    Shaking his head, he laughed. “You are sloppy.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œA few martinis and you lose your subtlety, darlin’.”
    She stared at him, obviously indignant. “I do not.”
    â€œI’m afraid so. Too much vodka and the vamp is way overdone.”
    Her jaw dropped. It made him focus on her puffy bottom lip and the wet texture of her pink tongue. “I’ve never overdone anything in my life.”
    â€œWhatever you say.”
    â€œI say I’m right.” She slapped the top of the bar. “I’ve been wrapping men around my little finger—with subtlety and without an ounce of ‘vamp,’ mind you—since I was a toddler in petticoats and a pinafore.”
    Oh, he could see it. Pink ribbons, too. “Maybe you’re getting old, then. Stale.”
    She blinked. She blinked again. “Huh?”
    â€œYou know, used up. Your wiles, your charm. Maybe they wear out or something.” A smile was struggling to break free. This was the most fun he’d had since he’d entered the record books five years ago with the longest monster-truck jump in history. He gestured toward her. “After a few years, your tits sag and trying too hard sets in.”
    She stared another second longer at his face. Then she glanced down at her spectacular chest, then up at him again. “Take that back. I’m only twenty-eight years old.”
    If she’d been sober, he wouldn’t have had a prayer of survival. He knew that. But God, he felt as if he was taking a few points back for every male she’d slain from toddlerhood until today. “But going on twenty-nine, right?”
    He braced—okay, barely—for the insulted superbeauty’s next reaction. In her vodka-induced state, he figured she was virtually harmless.
    So when she slid to her feet and stood between their seats, he only grinned, despite the fact there was nothing the least bit funny about her stiletto heels, denim worn as tight as a suntan, and T-shirt that was tickling the belly ring in her navel. When she gripped one of his knees to swivel his stool to face her, he didn’t protest.
    It was only when she stepped between his veed thighs that he felt his smile die. The inner leg seams of his jeans kissed the outer seams of hers as she moved closer. Her naked-except-soap scent filled his head. “That sounds like a dare to me.”
    Christ. Even martooni-d she was a force to be reckoned with. He breathed in another gulp of that wet-flesh perfume of hers and forced