Hurts So Good (2 page)

The rest of the band was now backing him up, but Andrea tuned them out, second fiddles all to this man's stunning gift. She put down her pen, sensing that she, and the rapt audience who swayed to his beat from the edge of their chairs, were being humored by a condescending artist. A master musician who allowed them to listen as long as they respected his intimate dialogue with his instrument, didn't cramp his style, and paid the bills.

Without exception, all acquiesced. Neil Grey, with a past as infamous as it was famous, was hot, even hotter than when he'd reached the top before hitting rock bottom.

* * *

"My, what a colorful background you have, Ms. Post. At the ripe old age of twenty-five you have a helluva track record in the odd-job department, but no experience tending bar." A few minutes after the last set of the night, Neil was in his office at the back of the bar, tapping the application on the big old desk he felt a kinship with. Nicked up, shoved around, but obstinately standing despite the wear and tear. "Lookin' to expand your resume to include making cocktails, garnishes, and dealing with drunks?"

"I'm a fast learner, Mr. Grey. And I want the job." When he continued to scrutinize her application, she added quickly, "I'll even work the first week for free. If you're not completely satisfied with my services, you can tell me to leave. You have everything to gain and nothing to lose by taking a chance on me."

She looked as sincere as she sounded. Sure, sister, he thought, where'd you come from, some off-off Broadway show? No one gave away something for nothing, and those services she was talking about likely had some strings attached.

"That a fact?" he drawled. Neil laced his fingers behind his head and pursed the lips he'd noticed her staring at throughout the performance. Hers were so soft and full that he just might offer to pay her for a few hours of heavy smooching once he got to the bottom of her game. Kissing matches, one of his favorite exercises.

"Tell me,
chere,
you really here for the open position behind my bar, or did you have some other 'open position' in mind? Maybe we can strike a deal on one if not the other."

She sat straighter in her chair, and the cat-green eyes that had been focused on his mouth snapped up to his.

"I beg your pardon?" Her face turned a lively shade. But he couldn't tell if this "pet groomer, pizza maker, disk jockey" was excited or shocked. Either way, she was a dish, and he liked listening to her clean, supple voice.

"Are you a groupie?"

"A groupie!" Her jaw dropped, revealing slightly spaced front teeth. Maybe she wasn't a groupie. Maybe she was one of those nice gals Lou always said were around somewhere. Only the way Neil figured it, they were after something too. Stuff like respect and commitment and saving his unsavable soul.

"A groupie," she repeated, pinning him with a glare. "What ever gave you
that
idea?"

"The way you've been looking at me. It's... familiar." Her blush was becoming. Kind of cute. And such a rare sight, he wanted her to do it some more before he tossed her out. "And I seen—
saw
you in the audience several times this week. You left the same way you came—alone—so I take it you aren't a hooker prowling the French Quarter for a trick."

"Absolutely not," she gasped. "And since when was it a crime to enjoy one's own company?"

"Not a crime, but a foxy woman doing the local hot spots by herself and dressed to kill—by the way, that snappy purple jumpsuit is just your color,
chere—
struck me as peculiar."

She suddenly stood, gripped the edge of his desk, and stared down at him with an icy look that could've put out a New Orleans heat wave. She was something to behold, with red hair, red lips, and even redder cheeks. Flame. His favorite color. Damn.

"Mr. Grey, let's get this straight. Just because I'm a fan who admittedly owns every record you've ever cut, and just because one reason I'd like to work here is so I can get in without paying your hefty cover charge, that doesn't mean I would ever consider it a privilege to sleep with a stranger who obviously has an ego to match his outrageous presumptions."

Neil mentally added "spitfire mama with a Webster" to her resume. Squelching laughter, he motioned her back to her seat and faked a chagrined expression.

"Sorry if I jumped to the wrong conclusion, but I had to make sure. Shades of Grey ain't no dive—" Damn, he'd slipped again, sounding like the poor boy he'd been before learning the proper talk that went with his highfalutin station in life. "What I mean is, this is a respectable establishment, and I have every intention of keeping it that way. This place is more than a nightclub to me. It's..."

He paused. Why was he trying to explain himself, and why was she no longer piqued but leaning forward as if hungry for a tidbit of juicy gossip? Hadn't he learned to keep his mouth shut and
never
to trust a woman with a confidence? Whether it was a free ticket to a concert or a free lunch, otherwise known as alimony, these gold diggers always wanted something, always looked out for number one.
Women.
Didn't trust them farther than he could spit.

Neil slipped a well-worn flask from his back pocket and took a swallow.

"It's tasty," he pronounced. "Better than a bad woman on a good day." Smacking his lips, he waited for her to sniff in disgust and slam out of the office.

"I'm sure that's an educated assessment," she said in a bored voice. "Getting back to your opening for a bartender..."

While she got down to business, he got down to the fact that she looked like a woman who fixed her hair so a man could mess it up, a woman who kissed back as good as she got. Just the kind a man could take home to Mama, then make it with in the backseat. Sure would be fun to find out if she was for sure.

All the more reason to get her out of there before he could do something stupid and give her the job. But he couldn't toss her out on her shapely butt because he was attracted,
real
attracted, so Neil decided to give her an incentive to scram.

"And furthermore, Mr. Grey—"

"Like to play darts?" he cut in.

"Darts? They're all right, I guess, but I'm better at pool. Why? Are you setting up a game area in the bar?"

"The game's here,
chere,"
he said, tapping his desk with a finger. "Meanest game in town, and I'm the reigning champ. Care for a demo?" Neil pulled the rubber band off his short ponytail. Taking aim, he let the elastic fly.

Andrea jumped as the rubber band whizzed past her ear.

"Bull's-eye," he whispered with a satisfied smirk as he looked at his target.

She glanced over her shoulder.

The rubber band hung from a dart that was stuck in the cleavage of a life-size pinup displayed between glossies of Dizzy Gillespie and Al Hirt. The dart in question was one of many decorating various body parts of a glamorous woman Andrea recognized as his ex-wife.

Andrea cleared her throat and took a deep breath.

"Good shot," she said, managing a smile.

"Lots of practice." He cut his eyes back to hers, and she commanded herself to ignore the sweat beading her brow. When she didn't comment, he dug into the top desk drawer and proffered a dart. "Double or nothing says you can't zap the navel."

"I'd rather finish the interview, if you don't mind."

"I mind. Take the dart," he ordered. "Zap the navel, get the job. Miss, and you're out of here. It's how I hire all of my people. Proprietor's prerogative."

He was actually serious! If there was a fine line between genius and madness, he had to be straddling that fine. Was this man capable of smashing cameras and smacking his fist into reporters' faces? She didn't doubt that and more.

But that and more had all been covered by the tabloids with glee. Andrea didn't want to copy other journalists and dig around Neil's ample dirt. As a professional, she had to find a new angle.

As a woman, she already found him unnerving. She was careful to maintain her distance with most men, but even with the desk between them, Neil invaded her body space.

"The dart? Or the door?" His gaze lingered on her bosom. She felt uncomfortably warm from his visual caress, which seemed more intimate than any she'd ever dealt with. When she crossed her arms, he slid his gaze to her face. And winked!

Her palms sweaty, she grabbed the dart he twirled.

"Good choice," he said with approval. "Never did like quitters. You may now take four steps forward. Not big ones, mind you, 'cause that's cheating, and I never could stand cheats any more than quitters."

What was riding on her performance caused her knees to knock and her hand to shake while she took four paces forward. If she didn't zap a navel, it would be good-bye to a
Rolling Stone
byline. She'd be singing the blues as just another unsyndicated columnist who racked up the occasional magazine sale. Decent credentials, but nothing spectacular. Of course, considering the job she'd done on her application, she could try her hand at fiction.

"Is this okay?" she asked, her body tensing as anxiety pressed in and the cause of it moved nearer.

"Just right." His voice was raspy, like worn sandpaper polishing raw wood. Her stomach lurched when he stopped scant inches behind her. His breath skimmed the top of her head, and her scalp prickled. He was so close, she could smell him.

The clean scent of his cologne mingled with the muskiness of cooled sweat and a whiff of brandy. His fondness for booze, she'd learned in the course of the excruciating interview, wasn't just rumor. And neither was his hostility toward his ex-wife. Now that Andrea was only ten feet away from the poster and could see the pin-sized holes all over it, she decided the couple's public brawls hadn't been sensationalized spats after all.

"Ready..."

His fingers circled her wrist. She felt an uneasy lick of awareness as he drew her arm back and their elbows touched. Andrea stiffened. His short laugh wasn't a pleasant sound.

"Aim..."

Dear Lord, was she actually so desperate to prove she was a winner that she would willingly humor this man and delve into his obviously unstable psyche? She was.

"Fire!"

The dart sailed from her grip, and she silently pleaded for it to hit the navel. As if in slow motion she watched the point dip, then stab the ex-Mrs. Grey's crotch.

"Damn," Andrea groaned. "Let me have another try. Please? I'll get her navel if it's the last thing I do."

Even if it took her all night and then some, she would. Giving up wasn't an option, never had been—and especially not now.

She turned, expecting anything but his snicker as he continued to stare at the dart.

"Good sports who aren't quitters or cheats get extra points." He was slow to release his hold on her wrist, but once he did, he scowled at his fingertips. And then at her.

"I call the shots, and you pour them, okay?" he said.

"Then I get the job?"

"Minimum-wage-and-a-half plus tips—if you're as fast a learner as you say you are. Generous man that I am, I'll give you a week—with pay—to prove you're worth the risk."

Tempted as she was to take his offer and make a quick exit, Andrea seized the opportunity to explore his reasoning.

"Since I have no experience, and I did miss, I can't help but wonder why? You're known for a lot of things, Mr. Grey, but generosity isn't one of them."

"No one knows me, and especially not you," he said flatly. When she met his squint with a level stare, he fished a cigarette from his pocket along with a matchbook. He hitched a heel, struck a match against it, and lit the cigarette dangling from his lips.

She held her breath as he took several drags, then studied the rings he set afloat. With his strangely haunted eyes focused on something other than her, she shifted her attention to his hawklike face, which sported a two-day growth of salt-and-pepper beard. It matched the hair that was too long for her liking but somehow suited him. Brushed straight back from his prominent forehead, it fell straight to his chin and framed slightly hollow cheeks. He didn't look thirty-four. His reputation for hard living was etched into crow's-feet and a creased brow.

He was a tall man. Big-boned, she thought, but couldn't be sure with his black baggy trousers and red suspenders strapped over an oversized crisp white shirt.

"I still don't understand why you're willing to hire me," she persisted, despite her urge to escape. Was lunacy contagious? she wondered. Could be, because she'd have to be as crazy as he to be drawn to the animal magnetism he wore like a pair of throw-away jeans.

He took a lazy drag, and she half expected him to blow the smoke into her face. But he blew it through his nostrils, reminding her of a fire-breathing dragon. A very sexy dragon, one a woman might take to bed but never home to her parents.

She claimed a forfeit on both options.

"Why? It's like this, Andrea—and that's Neil to you, now that you're on the payroll—you're hired because you're nice to look at and assertive without being bitchy. Qualities I put more store in than the ability to slosh hard stuff into a glass and top it off with a cherry. Cherries, yum, my favorite fruit. Red. Delicious. Succulent and sweet, until you bite into the pit and break a tooth." He snapped his teeth together twice, revealing a chipped front tooth.