Page 5 of Restless Hawke

It’s been too long of a day.

Too much time being “on” and not relaxing.

But I immediately tense again as the stool next to me slides back and my skin prickles from a heated gaze raking over me.

I’ve always known when someone’s eyes were on me, when I was being watched. It’s something I learned to use to my advantage at a very young age. And it has served me well.

“Glenfiddich, forty-year, double, neat.”

His deep voice rumbles across the tiny space between us.

Assertive.

Almost commanding.

This is a man who knows exactly what he wants and likely demands perfection from everyone around him to obtain it.

A little shiver rolls through me.

I know this kind of man.

Beenwarnedabout his type.

Learned a long time ago not to get involved with anyone who oozes that type of confidence that borders on arrogance.

Arrogance is very rarely—if ever—warranted. Men merely wear it as a shield against the things and people in the world they’re intimidated by or as a badge of honor they haven’t earned.

Which means the man seated beside me with the voice that was enough to get a physical response from me with only a few words isn’t anyone to trifle with.

He is used to getting his way, and I need to prepare myself for what is undoubtedly coming mine.

Because he didn’t choose the seat beside me by accident…

The bartender turns away to make the requested drink, and I continue to stare down into my cosmo, running my finger along the rim of the glass lazily. Disinterested despite my new neighbor’s gaze continuing to heat my skin.

He accepts his glass from the bartender. “Thank you.”

Out of my peripheral vision, I catch the glint of the lights off the tumbler as it moves up to his lips, but I keep my focus anywhere but him. I won’t give him that satisfaction—at least, not that easily.

Make him wait.

Make him sweat.

He takes a slow sip before he sets it down and releases a contented sigh, like that single taste of the expensive scotch waspreciselywhat he had been waiting for all day.

I know the feeling…

I’ve been waiting, too.

“Strong drink…” I continue to glide my fingertip along the rim of my glass, my long, crimson nail almost dipping into the pink liquid. “Bad night at the slots?”

The leather on his stool creaks slightly as he swivels toward me, and the scent of smoke and something crisp and briny, almost like the ocean on a beautiful summer day wafts over me.

It draws my focus away from my drink, and I finally turn my head slowly to look at him.

A lazy grin spreads across his perfectly formed lips—lips that look like they could perform any number of sins and do it devilishly well.

Warm, Caribbean-blue eyes that call for me to dive into them and swim forever assess me carefully, roaming from my hair down to meet my gaze for a brief second, then over my bright-red lips, my exposed cleavage, the shimmering green of my dress, and finally the leg slipping out of the high slit that leaves very little to the imagination and promises the same kind of sin his mouth does.