“Sorry. I’m being a dick.” Add that to his list of things he hated. Because deep down, he really hated this fucking attitudethat he couldn’t shake. Now, though, it was comfortable. As easy to slip on as a pair of fleece pants.
Flynn worried that the day was coming—soon—when he’d lose the ability to ever take it off again.
“Oh, you mean tonight? Yeah. You’ve been a total dick. Pretty much every day for the past seven months, too? You bet.” Kellanlifted his mug in a fake toast, then drained almost half of it.
Offering up as close as he could get to an olive branch, Flynn said, “This isn’t as easy as we thought it’d be.”
“Nope.” Kellan cocked his head to the side. Those blue eyes, way lighter than his own, squinted at him. “Want to tell me whatexactly you and Rafe were high on when you thought this might be easy?”
Drugs were for idiots. “You know we don’t touch that stuff.”
“Yet it’s the only explanation I’ve got for you two thinking this would be a cakewalk.”
Before he could defend himself, a loud shattering noise had Flynn jerking around just in time to see Sierra fall to the floorin a heap. Right next to a knocked-over table with a spray of broken glasses all around it. That she was lying in the middleof.
He didn’t bother going down to the end of the bar and lifting the hatch. Every second he wasted was another moment that Sierramight put out her hand to lever up and cut herself. So Flynn just planted a palm in the middle of the bar and vaulted overit.
Crouching next to Sierra, he heard the crunch of glass as Kellan rushed to his side. “Don’t move,” he cautioned her. Flynnput a hand lightly on her abdomen to drive the point home. Tried not to notice the way she tightened at his touch.
“It’s hard to serve beers from the floor,” she quipped. And those bluish-gray eyes that almost never looked at him head-onlifted to meet his. With what he’d swear to his dying day was an audible click.
Nah.
Had to be the crushed glass shifting.
Didn’t it?
It was easy for Flynn to slip back into his take-charge mode. It was a mask he’d put on every day at the construction companyand he knew exactly how much force to put into his voice to be sure people listened to him—and responded. “Where are you hurt?”
A self-deprecating smile ghosted at the edges of her pretty pink lips. “My pride’s pretty well bruised.”
“Sierra.”
“My ankle.” She sighed. “I landed on it and sort of twisted.”
“Kellan, we’ll need ice.” His brother wordlessly left to carry out the order. Flynn splayed his fingers wider when he feltSierra start to shift. “Does it hurt anywhere else? Are you cut?”
“No. Just sticky and wet from all this beer now on the floor.”
Sticky and wet. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear that the woman was trying to get a rise out of him.
But Flynn did know better. Because while Sierra was just about the only person he felt comfortable talking to, she sure ashell didn’t flirt with him. Not ever. Only made bearable by the fact that she didn’t flirt with anyone else, either.
“I’m going to pick you up,” he announced. “Once you’re vertical, put all your weight on me. Then I’ll brush off the glass.”
“Oh, you don’t have to do that.” Sierra spoke so quickly all the words merged together into one.
What the hell? Why did she sound . . . scared at the idea of him holding her?
Flynn put an arm beneath her knees and worked the other behind her neck and down her back. Glass nicked the back of his hand.
It didn’t matter.
Because he was finally touching her. He might as well have been lifting a dandelion, she weighed so little. Even though heconsciously held her away from his body because of the glass, Flynn noticed everything. The firm calf muscle against the backof his hand. The heat of her back through the sticky shirt. The way it pulled taut against her small breasts.
He watched to be sure she kept one foot off the floor, and then stood her up. Flynn grabbed the bar rag from where he’d stuffedit into his waistband and wrapped it around his hand for protection. Sierra white-knuckled his left arm.
Slowly, carefully, he brushed her off from shoulders to ankles in long, sweeping motions. He kept an eye peeled for any dotsof blood on her shirt that might indicate a nick. Instead, it was just the blood from the backs of his knuckles seeping throughthe towel. Flynn tried like hell to keep the whole thing professional. Medicinal. One coworker performing a safety check ofanother.
Yeah. That angle sure as hell wasn’t working for him.
When he finished her sides, Flynn came back around in front. Damn if her cheeks weren’t pink. “I’m going to carry you intothe back now.”
“Oh, but Flynn, you—”
Whatever objection she was trying to get out he cut off by sweeping her back into his arms. This time, he did hold her close.Who knew when he’d ever have another chance? Flynn cradled her against his chest.
Holy hell. He almost stumbled in shock and decided that—if her ankle wasn’t broken—this would now rank as his best day sincethey’d moved to this dot on the map. Maybe even his best day in the last four dots.
Holding Sierra was like holding sunlight. Her warmth shot through him, reminding him how good it felt to be alive. How goodit felt to be a man. That maybe life wasn’t a complete shitstorm after all.
Reminded him that no matter how hard he tried to be good and stay away from her . . . well, maybe he wasn’t good enough to be that strong anymore.
This rush of goodness was the way he’d heard some of the mobsters talk about doing heroin. Flynn had no doubt that Sierrawas even more addictive.
And dangerous.
