Page 34 of Agency

Amusement, maybe? Yeah, definitely amusement. Definitely.

“What’s your name?” she asked as she took another shot.

“Jericho.”

“Jericho,” she repeated back, her voice sounding more than a little skeptical. “Is that really your first name?”

“Nah. My first name is my father’s. Jericho was my mom’s maiden.”

“Fair enough,” she said, standing and turning around to face me. “I’m Candice, by the way.”

“Candice? Pretty name.”

“Well, I didn’t pick it,” she said, smirking. “But thanks, I guess.”

“No last name to go with it?”

“Well, you don’t have a first to go with your last. Guess that makes us even.” Butt of her pool cue planted on the floor between her tennis shoes, she leaned back against the table and took a long moment to look me up and down.

Candice’s eyes took their time making their way down me, and I swear to God I suddenly understood how women sometimes felt as she bit her lower lip and nodded to herself. Because, for the life of me, I suddenly felt like a piece of meat under her traveling gaze. Down her eyes went, then back up, and that lightly bit lower lip began to curl with its partner into a knowing smile that was more intoxicating than any beer or shot could ever be.

Eyes back on mine, her eyebrow was arching again in an inversion of her curling lips, and I could already feel something burning deep down in the pit of my stomach. Burning and making all kinds of demands I knew just weren’t fit for polite society.

“How much longer you in town for, Jericho?”

“You heard that, huh?”

“What can I say?” Candice replied with a shrug. “I’m a good listener.”

“More like a good eavesdropper.”

“I’ve always thought that eavesdropping heavily implied that the party being listened in on didn’t want to be overheard.” She nodded to Andrew without much more than a pause. “You and your buddy over there were having a conversation in a public space. Quite loudly, I might add.”

I considered her words for a moment, then shrugged. She did have a point, and we had been pretty goddamn loud. Horrible op sec on our part.

“Fine,” I said with a chuckle. “I’ll give you that.”

“Oh, how generous of you,” she said with a small smile, then turned back to the table. “You didn’t answer my question, by the way.”

“Not sure. Maybe a few more days. You?”

“Who says I’m leaving town soon?”

“You, with the way you’re asking that question.”

“Fair.” Candice had rotated around the table for a better shot while we’d been speaking, and now she looked up at me from the other side. With her present angle, her slightly unzipped hoodie gave me a near perfect view down the front of her top.

And, well, damn. Just… Damn!

Definitely hadn’t seen a woman like her in the Beaver before, that was for sure. Hell, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen one like her, period, and I had a sudden urge to find out just what kind of body those bulky, baggy clothes were hiding.

“How about this?” I asked. “Why don’t you let me buy you a drink?”

She gestured to a small table off to the side, and to the martini there, saying, “Already got one.” Odd choice for a woman in a dive bar, especially one dressed in oversized jeans and hoodie.

“What about a game then?”

“Already playing.”