in, so to speak.”
“Cool. I may need a job if this football thing doesn’t pan out this year.”
“If it doesn’t work out, not to go all woo-woo and shit, but it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Speaking of woo-woo . . . don’t think I didn’t catch—football pun for ya—you deflecting the conversation from your sister’s concerns about your mental well-being.”
“She’s a master at deflection. The girl’s got secrets. Ugly ones.” His jaw tightened. “Ones she should’ve come to me about. Instead, I had to get an earful from a pissed-off Russian. So what Dallas thinks she ‘saw’ in me the past year? Partially true. But she confused unhappiness with controlled rage.”
What the holy hell was going on?
“I can’t get into the details. It’s better that you don’t know”—he flashed his teeth—“from a legal standpoint. The good news? Dallas is . . . well, Dallas again. I don’t have to keep my distance from her now that some time has passed.”
“This has to do with Igor?”
“Igor did what needed to be done. I owe him. I’ve no doubt he’ll be back at some point to collect.” Ash clapped me on the back. “Ain’t ya glad ya asked?”
“Hell no. But I’m not obsessed with digging out secrets like some female Lund family members. I’ll probably forget this entire conversation by tomorrow.” Total lie there. “I figured if I got around to asking about your woe-is-me attitude after we’d knocked back a few beers, that you’d tearfully confess you were still busted up over what’s-her-face.”
“Tearfully. Right.” He snorted. “You mean Olivia?”
I frowned. “Olivia? I thought the ball-buster’s name was . . . Victoria or something?”
Ash laughed. “You’re really in the dark. Veronica—ancient news. Olivia . . .” His humor faded. “Long story and there’s been way too much drama tonight already for me to subject you to more. Let’s get our drink on.”
He opened the door and I followed him in.
The bar carried that musty smell I associated with century-old buildings. We walked up a short ramp, pausing at the top.
I should’ve been checking out the space, but my eyes scanned the bar patrons until I saw Rowan.
The cheeky woman let her eyes scroll over me. From my boots up to the brim of my ball cap, then back down to linger on my mouth before her gaze reconnected with mine. Her smile? Sexy, secretive and a little naughty.
My body reacted instantly. Dick hard. Mind set on the one track of getting her alone and making her mine.
Ash and I snagged the two empty seats at the high-topped bar table. Immediately I scooted mine closer to Rowan’s, leaning in to whisper, “Enjoy it while you can, sweetheart, because we won’t be here long.”
Amusement glinted in her eyes. “I never get to kick back in a dive bar with a table of hot guys. So cool the fire in your jockstrap, Lund. We’ll get there.”
I grinned at her. “I think Nolan got it right in calling you Red Hot.”
“What can I get you to drink?”
My focus moved to the waitress standing between Nolan and Ash. “What’s on tap?”
The woman addressed Nolan. “This is why table signage is a waste of money. Guys like him?” She indicated me with a jerk of her head. “Expect the server to recite the beer list. It doesn’t matter if the beer menu is written in colored chalk in gigantic letters across the enormous blackboard above the bar”—another jerk of her head toward the blackboard she’d described, directly behind her—“they’re in a bar for personal service. That means spending the money properly training the servers to be friendly and knowledgeable.”
Nolan let a smile slowly bloom on his face—the one I called you’re-about-to-get-schooled. “Then we’ll leave the ‘friendly’ aspect of training to someone more qualified than you. Careful about using that black Irish temper on me, Simone.”
Ash made the time-out sign between them. “Don’t start, you two. We’ll take a pitcher of Leinie’s.”
“And a glass of your finest Zinfandel for my lady,” I said, not caring that it had sounded cheesy.
Simone addressed Nolan again. “Balls-for-brains over there does realize that no one at this table is drinking free tonight?”
Balls-for-brains? Yeah, she did have a hate-on for athletes.
Rowan tapped Simone on the arm to get her attention. “Just so we’re clear . . . while I applaud your creativity, tonight it’s my right to level any insults at him about his balls, not yours.”
Silence.
Then Nolan pantomimed a mike drop.
Simone tilted her head at Rowan. “You? I like. Your glass of Zin is on me.” Her gaze encompassed the table. “I’ll start a bar tab for the rest of you assholes.” She sauntered off.
“So . . . now you’ve met Simone,” Ash said dryly.
I said, “Too bad she’s not a silent partner.”
“Good one, JB.”
Rowan frowned. “Do I want to know why you called him JB?”
“Habit when we’re in public and he doesn’t want to be recognized by his distinctive name.” Nolan winked at her. “I’ll let you ask him what the B stands for.”
After Simone dropped off our drinks, the four of us fell into an easy conversation for the next hour.
I took a moment when Rowan was discussing cheerleading athletic scholarships with Ash to soak up the atmosphere. Everything in here was vintage. The long carved bar, the wood floors, the smoke-stained tin ceiling. The two stories of windows and the curved staircase leading to the second floor. There wasn’t a single TV in the joint. Music played in the background, but not at a noticeable level. A great vibe filled the space and I could see why Jax had invested.
Rowan’s hand slid up my thigh, startling me so I nearly spilled my beer.
“Sorry. I just—”
I held her hand in place when she attempted to pull it away. “Never apologize for touching me.”
“I haven’t had a chance to say that you look great tonight.”
“Nolan’s doing. But I am going to make an effort to look less like a college frat boy from here on out.”
“You’re mistaken that any woman would look at you and see a ‘boy.’”
This was what I’d been waiting for. For Rowan to be comfortable enough to show me that the physical aspect of us didn’t scare her. I understood her skittishness. She’d been so loaded down with responsibilities at such a young age that she never had a chance to explore the sexual side of herself. Oh, it was there. I saw it. I wanted it. I couldn’t wait to bear the brunt of all that pent-up sexual energy because I knew how to handle it.
Seeing Nolan and Ash deep in conversation, I set my elbow on the table to give us some privacy. “What were your plans for tonight that fell through?”
“Seducing you.”
I would’ve choked on my tongue if my mouth hadn’t gone dry.
“After I left Calder at Nicolai’s, I stood outside your apartment. I almost knocked to tell you I had a free night. But showing up looking like I normally do didn’t seem special enough.” She glanced away for a moment. “My hesitation with you hasn’t been about you.”
Special enough. Christ, she didn’t have the first clue about how special she was. I angled my head to softly kiss her shoulder. “I get that.”
“So I got dressed up and gave myself a pep talk.” She released a nervous laugh. “I even practiced saying sexy things out loud because I worried I’d go speechless when I saw you naked.”
“You’re killin’ me here.”
“It took three tries before I had the guts to completely cross the hallway.”
I had a sudden panic about how long it would have taken her to find that courage again if I hadn’t been home tonight.
Question now is: Why the hell are you here and not at home, naked with her, proving that her trust in you isn’t misplaced?
I slowly pulled her hand up my thigh until it reached the hardness between my legs. “See what just thinking about
you in my bed does to me?”
“Kissing you has the same effect on me.” She dragged an openmouthed kiss from the edge of my jaw to my ear. “So hot it feels like fire dancing across my skin.”
“Rowan—”
“Hey, guys. Chill on the PDA.”
I eased back but didn’t take my eyes off hers. “Fine. We were leaving anyway.”
“Nope. Karaoke starts in ten.”
“Well, have fun with that.”
“JB, I’m holding you to your promise.”
I finally glared at my annoying cousin. “What promise?”
“You skipped karaoke at Axl’s bachelor party. You skipped it at Mimi’s birthday party. You swore—pinky-swore with Dallas and Annika as your witnesses—that the next time we were in a karaoke situation, you’d sing. It’s time.”
“And if I say fuck no?”
Ash dangled my keys over the table—when in the hell had he snagged those from me?—and smirked. “Then you forfeit. I call Uber to haul your loser ass home and I will make sure everyone in the family knows you’re a chickenshit pinky-promise breaker.”
Why was Ash pushing me on this? He didn’t give a damn about karaoke. Was he purposely trying to keep me—
“Got eyes on the prize,” he said casually.
Then it made sense. That was code for we were being watched.
I hated this part of being a public figure. I didn’t bother to ask where the person spying on us was sitting. Ash never lied about this. And he’d never been wrong.
Nolan had bailed to watch the situation, even pulling taps as if he were just tending bar. Both my cousins were recognizable—though like me, not so much in the spotlight the last year—so splitting us up was a good idea.
“Stop glaring at each other,” Rowan said. “If Je—JB doesn’t want to do karaoke, that’s his decision.”
“Karaoke setup is on the second floor,” Ash said. “Private. Simone will see to it.”
“Fine. I’ll do it.” I took out my phone. “Give me time to find a song.”
“Good luck. But you ain’t allowed to sing ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ or ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’”
“Dick.”
Ash laughed, left the table and walked out the front door.
Rowan tapped me on the arm. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“It’s a stupid family thing.”
“That’s why you’re ignoring me and scrolling through your Twitter feed, as if that’s where you’ll find the perfect song?”
“I’m taking requests.” I hadn’t seen any tweets about me in the past two hours. Good.
After another minute of no conversation, Rowan said, “How about ‘All by Myself’ because that’s the way your night is looking, JB,” and excused herself to storm off toward the bathroom.
About two minutes after Rowan left, the lone guy I’d spotted up by the window started toward me.
Putting my phone to my ear, I kicked my feet up on Rowan’s chair and stretched out. Then I launched into a conversation in a thick southern accent. So when the guy slunk past me, he heard a bunch of y’alls and me yakking about hiring a livestock transport truck to haul pigs from Kansas City to Tulsa.
Nope, buddy; I’m not a football player trying to be a normal guy out for a few beers with my family and my woman. I’m a good ol’ boy from Texas dreaming of being a pig farmer.
The guy bought it. He left through the front door.
Simone wandered over to the table. “I’m supposed to tell you to head upstairs after your date returns. Your cousins will meet you up there. Then we’ll shut the door like we’re closed for a private party.”
“Thanks, Simone.”
She leveled an evil smile on me. “I already named the price for my cooperation.”
Great. “And that’s what?”
“Warm up those vocal cords because you really are singing a round of karaoke.”
“Humiliating the player is your price?” I said tightly.
She shrugged. “I’d think you’d love the chance to prove you’ve got balls.” Then she sashayed away.
Behind me I heard, “I don’t know if I should be jealous or annoyed about that woman’s obsession with your balls.”
Seventeen
ROWAN
“I only care that you’re talking about my balls, baby,” Jensen said to me. He stood and grabbed my hand. “Come on. Karaoke is upstairs.”
“Is this a long-running ‘family’ thing where you have to humiliate yourself on a regular basis?” I demanded.
“Nope. It’s a matter of honor. I said I’d do it, and I’m doing it.”
Up on the second floor, I scanned the empty, dark space. “At least there’s no one up here.”
Just then, Simone yelled, “I locked the front door, JB. But prepare yourself because we’re all coming up there.”
He muttered, “Awesome.”
I slapped my hands on his chest. “What is going on? For real.”
“A guy downstairs recognized me. Or thought he did. With some fast thinking, we avoided a situation.” His eyes clouded. “Celebrity . . . it’s part of my life. I get it. But it’s not part of yours. It’s not part of Simone’s. Ash and Nolan are used to it, but this bar is a new venture for them. Doesn’t appear I’ll be able to make this place my new secret hangout.”
“I hate this for you.”
“It is what it is, Ro. And what it is tonight, is me doing my penance and shutting my cousins up.” He grinned. “There’s like eight people down there. Plus the four of us? I’m getting off easy if there are only a dozen witnesses. The rest of my family would video me for blackmail material.”
“Why do you trust that none of these strangers will secretly tape you and this performance will hit social media tomorrow?”
He scratched his neck. “Faith, maybe? Nolan said Simone guaranteed privacy and she personally vouched for all the regulars.”
“Too bad Ash bailed on you.”
“Ash is here. He just left to move my car.” Jensen sighed. “That part of public life sucks ass. Some reporter told people what I drive. Fans see my Corvette and it’s game over for me. Which means I don’t drive it as much as I want to.”
“Poor baby.” I patted his chest. “Then maybe you shouldn’t have plunked down so much cash for a screaming-ass-yellow ZR1.”
“It’s gold, not yellow,” he corrected. “Vikings gold, to be accurate. And the interior is Vikings purple. But I didn’t go for the personalized license plate . . . so there is that.”
“My bad. That totally renders you—and the car—incognito.”
Jensen hooked his arm around my waist, hauled me close and pressed a quick kiss on my lips.
Or maybe he’d meant it to be a quick kiss. But neither of us moved away.
His hand slid down to cup my ass and he brushed his lips across my ear. “You look beautiful tonight. Have I said that?”
“Yes.” I nuzzled my cheek against his. “But I’ll never get tired of hearing it.”
“You’re beautiful every night, Rowan.” Jensen’s lips found mine. There was nothing sweet and fast about this kiss. Nothing tentative about it, but he took his time exploring my mouth and my reactions. His fingers stroked the curve of my ass with such deliberate sensuality that my knees went a little weak. When I didn’t bat his hand away, the next thing I knew, both hands were