He frowns. I can see he wants to ask why I moved here if I’m freelance, but I turn on my stool to look at the people in the dimly lit bar, avoiding it.
“See anyone you’d like to take a picture of?” he eventually asks, and I am about to say no, until my gaze alights on one fine specimen of a man who has just entered.
He’s dressed like a biker, a helmet under one arm, leather pants, leather jacket and dirty-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail. The planes of his face are smooth and symmetrical, his eyes pale and his mouth sensual. He struts into the bar like he owns the place and plants himself on a stool at the other end of the bar.
Oh boy.
A strand of pale hair falls in his face and he pushes it back impatiently before shrugging off his jacket, and holy crap Batman, the guy has arms like a bodybuilder, thick and muscular, covered in dark ink.
I’m positively drooling.
“That one,” I say, breathless. “I’d pay to take pictures of that one.”
In my mind I can see a whole calendar with him. Maybe with a Christmas theme, since the holiday is fast approaching. I could have him, naked, with a red bow.
Yeah.
“You have an eye for trouble, that’s for sure,” the bartender grumbles.
“Trouble? Why?”
“Because Kaden is trouble,” a woman chirps up, taking the stool next to mine. She throws her long dark hair over her shoulder and nods at the bartender. “The usual.”
“Double martini coming right up, sugar.”
A regular. “You know this Kaden?”
“Who doesn’t? He’s bad. A bad apple.”
“Why?”
The bartender slides her drink over and she curls her manicured hand around it, giving me a sideways look. “His ex-girlfriend filed charges against him for forcing deviant acts on her.”
“Deviant…? As in sexual acts?”
“The very same.” She gives her drink a tragic look and takes a long gulp from it. “Charges didn’t stick, though. I mean, she’d been his girlfriend. She left him for another guy and he’s been drinking and banging every chick who’s drunk enough ever since.”
“Did you?”
“Bang him?” She laughs, a raspy smoker’s laugh. “Never been drunk enough. He sure is a hot piece of ass, though, isn’t he?”
“I see.” I hide a wince. What’s this, the meat market?
“Marcela Presti.” She puts out her hand, and after a second’s hesitation, I take it and shake.
&nb
sp; “Hailey Allen.”
“If you’re here for a good time, and believe me that’s what I’m here for, too, then move to the dance floor. Kaden won’t move from the bar until he’s well and truly hammered, and then only to grab a chick and take her along.”
“He takes them home?”
“His tastes run too dark, like I said. He needs privacy and space for the sort of stuff he likes, or so the rumors report.”
My mouth is dry. I take another sip from my gin and tonic. Dark, huh?
When I decided to move from Chicago to Kansas City, my only concern was to move as far away from Trent as possible without moving to the moon. Chicago isn’t on another continent, but I figured this was far enough.