"No. Don't." I'd uttered the words before thinking and the fact he didn't recoil at my sharpness of tone settled the nerves in my stomach.
His arm had frozen, half-extended, in that terribly, terribly British gesture of here; shake my hand. Pleased to meet you. "No?"
"No." I bit my lip.
"I can assure you it's not something embarrassingly Scottish."
"Even so." A pause before continuing. "I'd rather not know what you're called."
"Then how can you possibly know what to shout? God, I can't believe I even said that out loud. I'm so ashamed of myself."
"Are you really?"
"Absolutely bloody not. I often find the cheesiest chat-up lines get a laugh and after that?" A casual shrug, completely devoid of shame. "I'm in there."
"You're trying to pick me up?"
"Why yes, Texas. I am. And I'm absolutely shameless."
"My name is Austin. Austin Lombard, as you very well know."
"Yeah. But if I'm not allowed to tell you my real name, I get to call you whatever I like. Them's the rules."
Unable to help my amusement, I suppressed a laugh. His eyes, even under the artificial lights of the bar, twinkled with something more than merriment. Devilment, I'd have said. "Rules? You've done this sort of thing before?"
"Picked up a complete stranger in a club?" If the lighting hadn't been artificial and neon, I'd have sworn his cheeks colored then. The ones on his face.
Damn it, Lombard, now you're thinking of his ass cheeks.
"Maybe I have. Would you still respect me if I had?"
"You..." I chanced a quick look at him, wondering what color his eyes were under natural light, and his shameless, blatantly flirtatious grin nearly took my breath away. The indiscreet down-up of his eyes finished me off, and I turned away, exhaling nervous laughter.
"Well hey, I'm not the one who wants to fuck a guy without knowing his name." He picked up his bottle and emptied it in one gulp, holding the rim --- steady, Lombard, steady --- to his lips for a second too long while he met my gaze with unblinking eyes. "Am I?" he asked, slamming the bottle down on the counter top.
"But..."
He lifted his eyebrows, silently daring me to protest.
"We've only been here five minutes."
"You've been here five minutes. I've been here ten. Maybe fifteen. Whatever."
"You came on your own?"
"I frequently do these days," he said, punctuating his words with an overdramatic sigh. "Which is something I'm hoping you can help me with."
I opened my mouth to speak, said nothing, and ended up draining what was left of my American beer.
"Come on, drink up. We need to get out of here before they start playing Cher. Do you know, I used to have a friend who did that song on karaoke but he always sang do you believe in love without lube? Jesus."
He shuddered. "You can understand why I say used to have a friend. Well?" Stepping away from the bar, he looked back at me and asked, "Are you coming?"
Now there was a loaded question.
Chapter Two
"I'm hungry." Whatever-his-name was stopped in the middle of the street, and it threw me, this sudden juddering to a halt.
A few steps ahead of him, I backtracked and followed his gaze to the neon sign and brightly-lit window of an all-night fast food place.
He stared at the window booths like they were the lost city of Atlantis, the key to eternal life and Shemar Moore ripping his shirt off all in one.
The way he licked his lips made something in the pit of my stomach flip over, but I didn't think it was deliberate. The promise of junk food in the evening held his attention more closely than I did.
For now.
"You're kidding me."
"No, why?" His feet rooted to the spot, the only part of him that moved was his neck, turning slowly to one side. Then his eyes as he blinked, slowly.
"I thought we were..." I thumbed over my shoulder in the general direction we'd been walking, the one in which I assumed he lived. We hadn't had the "your place or mine" discussion, so assumptions were all I had to go on thus far.
The ever-so-slight frown wrinkling his brow, contemplative rather than disgruntled, melted away and the corners of his mouth quirked in a vague, barely-there smile. "Yeah, I know what you thought."
"You seemed pretty keen to get out of Archangel's." Oh, like I hadn't been as well.
"I was. But we can spare half an hour to get something to eat can't we?" He winked, and I could have sworn he knew he was in complete control of the situation. "Gotta keep our strength up, after all. Come on."
Scarlett Parrish He beckoned with a quick nod as he headed for the restaurant doorway and threw over his shoulder. "I can't help it. The need for stodge is in my DNA. I'm Scottish. My blood's ninety-nine percent lard."
"I doubt that very much," I muttered, grabbing myself an eyeful as I followed him in, wishing I had the courage to grab myself a handful. He could only make fun of the national stereotype, the Scottish addiction to unhealthy food, because he definitely wasn't overweight. Slender, but not overly so. And I couldn't help wondering what he looked like underneath that shirt and jacket. Underneath those jeans.
"Every time I ask for chips they keep handing me a bag of crisps in these places. I keep forgetting you lot don't know how to speak English."
"Two nations divided by a common language," I said. "Ask for fries this time."
"French ones? Vive la auld alliance."
"You speak French? I thought Scots just communicated in a series of grunts and throwing broken-off beer bottles at each other."
"Oh, you've visited Glasgow, then?"
I grinned as we edged closer to the front of the line. "Never had the pleasure." The surprisingly clean tiled floor gleamed and my shoes squeaked every time I took a slow step. The line didn't
