Getting Hot (Jail Bait Book 3)

GETTING HOT

Getting

HOT

A Jail Bait Novel

MIA STORM

Getting Hot

Copyright © 2015 by Mia Storm.

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction.

Cover Design:  Sarah Hansen, Okay Creations

Dedication

For everyone who reads.

Chapter 1

Bran

I shouldn’t have fucked her last week. That was my mistake, and I feel like a douche—something I’m not used to.

I watch Destiny tuck a long strand of platinum hair behind her ear with her pen as she finishes taking drink orders at the table near the door. She shoots me a secret smile when she turns and makes her way over, and I mentally shoot myself for getting caught looking. This train’s already careening down the track, barely holding onto the rails, and when I pull shit like this, it only picks up momentum.

“We got Hendricks?” she asks, slapping her order on the ancient mahogany bar between us.

I look over the order. “Closest thing I got is Tanqueray.”

The smile falls off her face and she blows out a sigh. “I’ll ask him.”

I follow the curve where her tiny waist blooms into a killer ass as she turns and heads back to the table.

She’s hot. That’s what it boils down to. When I took her home last week, it was after her first training shift with Carol. We’d sat at the bar and knocked back a few after closing and I got caught up in everything she had going on. I totally missed the signs. I didn’t see that she was looking for more than a hookup until after it was too late—until she didn’t leave after we’d done the deed.

The only guy at the table with three women—some total wannabe with a dark suit jacket over a turtleneck and pressed jeans—scowls and gives Destiny some lip. I can’t hear what he says over the piped-in Kat Country, but she shrugs and says something back, then offers me an apologetic squint when the guy pushes up from his seat. He starts my direction on polished loafers, but his eyes widen slightly and he pulls up short when he sees me.

The reaction’s not unusual. When I left for boot camp eight years ago, I was already in decent shape. I was Oak Crest High’s first ever (and only, as far as I know) four sport athlete all four years—football in the fall, wrestling in the winter, and baseball and track in the spring. Which is probably a big part of the reason my grades weren’t good enough to do anything but enlist. But the Marines made all that training look like fucking Romper Room, and it was only a matter of weeks before my bulk didn’t fit into any of my old clothes anymore. Since Pop owns the local gym and my sister Brenda runs it, when I’m not working behind Mom’s bar at the Sam Hill Saloon, I spend most of my time lifting weights. I’ve managed to stay in pretty decent shape…which means guys like this pansy ass are generally intimidated. ’Course, the tattooed six-foot-three thing doesn’t hurt the intimidation factor. Since I let my dark flattop grow out, I look more like a biker than an ex-Marine.

After a beat, his shiny shoes start moving again but he stops three feet short of the bar, out of my wingspan. “Tanqueray or Tanqueray Number Ten?” he demands, putting on a “big man” show for the women he’s here with.

He flinches a little when I step aside to show him the rack behind me. “For top shelf gin, Tanqueray’s what I got.”

He closes his eyes for a moment and exhales his disappointment, then scans my top shelf again. “Tanqueray isn’t even in the same league as Hendricks.”

I shrug. “You want the citrus, I’d go with the Seagrams. Something drier, I’ve got Beefeaters.”

He rolls his eyes toward the ceiling as if my suggestions are all so far below him he’s afraid of getting a nosebleed if he has to look all the way down at them. “Just give me the Tanqueray. Make it a Tom Collins so I don’t have to taste it.”

He stalks back to his table and drops into his seat as I start on their order.

Destiny comes over and watches me mix. “That guy’s a jerk,” she says with a flick of her eyes back toward the wannabe professor. “Thank God he’s Carol’s to deal with in fifteen.”

“You’re giving Carol the tip?” I say with raised eyebrows.

Her lip curls. “Guys like that don’t tip.”

I lift my eyes to him as I shake his Tom Collins. “He give you a hard time?”

“He thought I should’ve known what kind of Tanqueray we have.” Her face scrunches. “I didn’t even know there were different kinds.”

I glance at the table again. City folk for sure. Probably up here in the foothills for something at the college. “Guess he didn’t realize he’d wandered out of his natural habitat.”

She busts out a laugh as I pour his drink into the highball. “So, I was thinking…” she says when her laugh dies. “I could swing by your place when you get off. If you want.”

“Listen…” I start, setting the drink on her tray. But just as I open my mouth to tell her I don’t do relationships, Mom shoves through the swinging door from the kitchen. Six years in the Marines and two tours in Afghanistan, and I’ve yet to come across another single person who intimidates me…except my mom. She makes some of my Marine COs look like kindergarten teachers.

“Hey Vicky,” Destiny says. “Has Carol punched in yet?” She tosses her eyes at Mr. Hendricks. “I’m giving her that table as soon as she does.”

“She just clocked in,” Mom answers, glancing suspiciously at the table. “What’s the issue?”

Destiny shrugs a shoulder and picks up the tray of drinks I slide across the bar to her. “That guy needs to get over himself. Carol’s better at dealing with people like that.”

It’s the “take no crap” chromosome in the Silo family gene pool. My cousin is almost as intimidating as Mom. She has a way of putting pricks like that in their place without them even realizing how it happened.

Just as I’m thinking it, I see her pass by the porthole in the wooden door to the kitchen, pulling her dark curls back into a ponytail. A second later, she pushes through the door.

She looks at the three of us and her eyes narrow as she slings her short, black apron under her bulging belly and ties it. “You guys do know that when everyone clams up and stares at you when you walk into a room, that’s a dead giveaway they were talking about you, right?”

“All good, cuz,” I say, lifting one hand in surrender while picking up my bar rag with the other.

She gives us a glare that could fry bacon. “I’m not fat.”

“No, you’re not,” Destiny says, handing her the tray of drinks. “But I’m punching out and I need you to take that table.”

Carol’s gaze shifts to the table in question. “What’s wrong with them?”

“The guy’s a sanctimonious prick,” I say wiping down the bar. “He needs to be reminded his shit still stinks in the way only you can.”

A slow smile tugs at her mouth and she takes the drink tray.

“He’s the Tom Collins,” Destiny says. “The chardonnay is for the girl on his right and the Cosmos are for the other two.”

She bats her eyelashes and starts toward the table. “Coming right up,” she says, all breathy and sweet.

Mom turns to me once she’s gone, her frown deepening. “I came out here to remind you to put a note in the drawer if you pull petty cash, Bran.”

I give her a dubious smirk. “Really, Ma? I’ve been doing this for almost a year. Think I’ve got the drill down by now.”

“Well, the drawer came up exactly sixty short last night. So how else do you explain that?”

I feel my brows lift. My drawer’s never off by anything more than a few pennies. “You sure you didn’t pull it for the wine order?”

She scowls at me and crow’s feet crease the corners of her eyes. “I might be old, but I’m not senile yet.”

For her age, I have to say Mom looks pretty damn amazing. She met Dad sometime in the stone ages, when she used to dance at a strip club in San Francisco, and even still, I can see why he picked her out of the crowd. She’s got a deep worry line at the inside corner of her right eyebrow, but otherwise her face is deceptively youthful. The only thing that gives her age away is the skunk stripe that starts on the left side of her forehead and winds through the sea of dark hair pinned onto the back of her head like the first swirl of cream into black coffee.

“I didn’t take any cash, Ma. Seriously.”

She sighs wearily and rubs her eyes. “It’s been a long day. I’ll check the numbers again tomorrow morning when I can think.”

I lean down and give her a peck on the cheek. “’Night, Ma.”

She hooks her elbow around my neck and yanks me in for a hug. “See you tomorrow, baby boy.”

She’s the only one I’d ever let call me baby or honey or any shit like that because, like I said, I’m a little scared of her. I watch her disappear through the kitchen door.

And then it’s just Destiny, waiting for an answer.

I take a deep breath and blow it out slowly as I turn to her. “Listen, Destiny. There’s no question you are fucking amazing, and I had an awesome time the other night…but I feel like you might have gotten the wrong idea about what this is.” I drop the bar rag and splay my hands on the bar between us, holding her gaze. I may be a dick, but I’ve got a moral compass that points in the right general direction most of the time. She deserves to be told straight up. “I’m not the kind of guy that does relationships, and even if I were, you wouldn’t want one with me.”

It’s not like I expect her to whine or beg. I’ve only known her for a week, since Mom hired her for day shifts, but she seems generally more together than that.

What I also don’t expect is a shameless smile to spread over her face as she leans closer. “So, are you saying that pounding me until I see stars is too much of a commitment?”

I blow out a laugh and give my head a slow shake. “This isn’t how I pictured this conversation going.”

She pushes away from the bar and unties her apron. “I’ll be back before closing. Maybe have a drink or two. And when you leave, if you take me with you, you won’t be sorry. If not…” She shrugs. “…no harm, no foul.”

I watch as she disappears through the kitchen door to punch out. Carol drops another drink order on the bar on her way to the kitchen and I go back to work.

The Friday evening crowd picks up and it’s not long before all the tables are full and patrons start lining the bar. I dim the lights—the closest we come to ambiance.

The Sam Hill Saloon has been here since the gold rush, when the town of Oak Crest was established as a mining camp. After they got married, Dad brought Mom out here and bought her this bar to keep her “busy,” since he didn’t want her taking off her clothes for horny men anymore. She got it in the divorce and has run it for the last thirty years, but the truth is, almost nothing here has changed for nearly three quarters of a century. There are pictures on the walls of grimy gold miners lined up at this very bar. Even most of the chunky wooden barstools and tables have survived. At some point, some owner lined the front wall under the windows with three booths, and Mom added a big-screen TV and sound system, but other than that, it looks exactly like the pictures. And there’s the faint stench of stale beer emanating from the floor planking that no amount of bleach will ever get out.

But it’s a landmark, and the only bar in town, so we’re usually busy.

I’m blending a pair of frozen daiquiris with one hand and shaking a martini with the other when out of the corner of my eye, I see a solo blonde slide onto the barstool at the end, near the beer taps. I finish what I’m doing and prepare the tray for Carol to pick up before glancing over and seeing it’s Destiny.

A guy in the middle of the bar makes eye contact and nods at his empty beer mug. I grab it and start filling without really looking up at her. “Didn’t think I’d see you again till closer to closing.”

“Sorry?” she says. “Are you talking to me?”

The voice is off—slightly raspy and a pitch lower than her usual. I look up again and squint at her, wondering if she’s already started drinking. She’s taken her straight hair down from the ponytail she always wears it in and it’s not as long as I remember it from the other night—the only other time I’ve seen it down. There’s also a fading blue stripe cutting through the platinum over her right ear that I’ve never noticed before.

“What can I get you?” I ask her instead of pushing it.

I’m already reaching for the vodka and cranberry to start on a Madras, her drink of choice last week, when she answers, “Rum and Coke.”

“That’s different,” I mutter, shooting her another glance.

She gives me a puzzled look. “Look, I really just wanted to find out if you hire entertainment.”

My face mirrors her puzzlement, I’m sure, as I try to process her statement. “Why?”

She hunches to the side and pulls something up from next to her feet. I see it’s a battered black guitar case when the narrow end peeks over the top of the bar. “Because I need a gig.”

“Didn’t know you played,” I say, pushing her drink across the bar to her.

That baffled look is back as she pulls it toward her and takes a swallow. I can’t help following the curve of her long neck downward toward a pair of large round tits perfectly outlined by her snug, low-cut T-shirt. She is definitely hot, and if we’re on the same page, then I’ve got nothing to feel guilty about. She wants me to fuck her till she screams? I’m perfectly capable of that. She sets her drink down and catches me staring. She cuts me that wicked smile again, causing my cock to stir. I return the smile, sending the innuendo right back at her.

She props her elbows onto the bar and leans forward, giving me a clear look down her shirt. “Considering that we’ve never met before, I don’t find that surprising.”