And a scene is not what I need.

When she’s a few feet from where Pauly and I are sitting, I stand up with purpose, the chair grating against the tile floor, and I begin to walk right past her. She flashes her hand out and grabs my biceps in a move I’m not real thrilled with.

“We’re gonna settle this here and now, Pulitzer,” she says, her voice low enough that only I can hear her.

“There’s nothing to settle.” I raise my eyebrows at her before looking over my shoulder to Pauly. “You know where to find me if you need me.” With that, I shrug my arm out of her grasp and walk out of the room. She mutters my name followed by a curse, and a part of me loves that I’m just as frustrating to her as she is to me.

The door sticks at the rooftop, but I welcome the chance to exert a little physical force to shove it open since it’s either up here or the gym right now, and I’m sore from pushing myself too hard yesterday. What I’d give to go for a run. Feet hitting the ground as my eyes take in the world around me, but I’m a long ass way from San Diego and my favorite beach run along Highway 101.

Instead, I take the tarp off the mattress and take up residence in my spot just in time to watch the sun start to fall from the horizon. It slips ever so slowly as I try to ignore the nagging voices in my head telling me I’m being an ass. It’s so damn easy to be an asshole with her, though, because I don’t think I’ve ever met a more frustrating woman. Or a more beautiful one.

And that is saying a lot.

The scrape of the door to the rooftop jars me from my thoughts. I’m up and looking toward it in an instant. Goddamn it. The fucking woman is invading my every thought, and now she’s in the one private space I have here.

“Go away.” Those two words are all I have for her as I sit back down and try to ignore her. Her footsteps draw closer, but I shake my head, close my eyes, and then lean back on the wall behind me. I can guess she’s standing in front of me, giving me a nasty look when the scraping sound of her boots stops. “Just once I’d appreciate it if you’d follow directions.”

Her laugh falls deep and rich around me. “Wow. I was right.”

“Good for you.” When she doesn’t answer, I can’t help my curiosity. “Right about what?”

“How far that stick’s shoved up your ass.”

Then I hear the clink of glass against glass, and my eyes flash open. She’s standing in front of me, her body framed by the sunset’s colors blazing across the sky, with a bottle of Fireball and a glass in one hand while the other is at her hip.

She’s looking for a reaction, and I refuse to give her one. “It only seems to be there around you.” I shrug. “What can I say? You bring out the best in me.” I finally meet her gaze on the last word, and damn it to hell, she has this cute little smirk on her face like she knows my game.

“Here’s how we’re going to play this, Pulitzer,” Beaux says as she kneels down on the mattress beside me, glass still clinking like a cowbell in a warning that she’s here to stay. “I’m going to ask you a question, and if you refuse to answer it, you take a shot. Then my turn.”

I slide a glance in her direction and see that she’s leaning over, cleavage on display, as her proposition takes up real estate in my mind. Kind of ballsy on her end, and I like that. “We only get to ask the question once, right?” I need to make sure the rules of this game are clear before I agree, because in my line of thinking, she’ll ask the questions she wants to know the most first, I can take the shot, and by the time I’m drunk and a little looser in my responses, the most pertinent ones will be off the table.

Plus, I make a living asking questions and then re-asking them in a completely different way after they’ve been evaded. This shouldn’t be a problem for me.

“Agreed.” She finally sits with her back against the wall with a sound of satisfaction. “You can go first, since I’m sure your ego’s going to need nursing once I drink you under the table.”

I snort. The amusement in her tone told me she knows there’s not a chance in hell of that happening, but I respect that she can talk a good game.

“Thanks for the mulligan. What to ask… what to ask…” I make a production of coming up with something. “Where were you coming from that morning I met you in the stairwell?”

That’s most definitely not the question I had planned on asking, and it sure as hell isn’t any of my business, but the whole idea of her being with somebody else is driving me crazy. I stare at the night beyond us as the city begins to come alive, not wanting to see the look on her face and whether my question has surprised her. But the clink of the bottle’s neck against the glass gives me the only answer I need.

She clears her throat from the sting of the straight whiskey and blows out an audible breath. “Your turn. What really happened to Stella?”

Knew that one was coming. I reach over and take the bottle from her without so much as a word and toss back the shot, welcoming the burn.

“Beaux versus BJ. Which one and why?”

“I used BJ for work. It was easier to get my foot in the door if people thought I was a guy. Show them my portfolio via a Web site, reel them in, then meet them in person. It’s ass backward, but when you’re up against the good ’ol boys club, sometimes you have to do what it takes. Beaux is the real me.” Her voice softens, causing me to turn my head and watch her in the waning light. When she averts her gaze immediately, I’m intrigued. “Very few people get to know Beaux.”

Something about the way she says the last sentence tells me there’s more to the story.

“Beaux.” I murmur her name, and for the first time she doesn’t reject it coming off my lips. A part of me warms from the thought while the rest of me listens to those damn alarm bells ringing again. “Why do—,” I start to ask, but she immediately reaches up and puts her finger against my lips. Her touch causes my body to stand to attention, my instincts warring with that first shot beginning to hum through my bloodstream.

“Be warned. Asking a follow-up question out of turn earns you another shot.” She moves her finger away just in time for me to speak.

“You’re changing the rules on me now that we’ve already started? I have a feeling you don’t play very fair.”

A smile plays at the corner of her mouth momentarily, and it takes a whole helluva lot for me to tear my eyes from those lips of hers. “There’s no such thing as playing fair. Besides, playing dirty is a whole lot more fun,” she murmurs, the suggestion in her voice as clear as damn day. “So what does your wife think about all of this?”

Her question takes me completely off guard and has me sputtering out a laugh. I swear she just mentioned playing dirty to throw me off track. “What in the fuck are you talking about?” There’s nothing I can do but shake my head and stare at her like she’s lost her damn mind.

She shrugs innocently enough. “It’s the quickest way to know the truth. I thought maybe the stick up your ass was because you were feeling guilty about your wife back home, and so I just figured I’d ask… but now I have to keep trying to figure out why it’s there.”

“Gotta love a woman who’s straight to the point,” I murmur. “Let me be clear. There is no spouse at home.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Or girlfriend,” I add on, and immediately question why I felt the need to clarify that point as well when she didn’t ask.

“You and Stella weren’t…” Her voice trails off as she leaves the question open-ended.

“Once upon a time… but no, we weren’t. Not for as long as I can remember,” I answer her, but that last night we spent up here on the rooftop flashes through my mind. The kiss. The promise. The once-in-a-lifetime.

And for just a moment I get caught up in the memory before I realize she threw me off my game. “Uh-uh. Don’t think I didn’t catch that you just asked me a question twice.” I go to reach for the bottle, and she swats my hand away.

“In your dreams. You didn’t answer the first question, so if I have to drink, then you have to too! Your call or your turn.”

I just narrow my eyes and hold her stare, weighing my options and the shot ratio between us. “Rule breaker.”

“Sometimes it’s worth the risk,” she says, the air electrifying with sexual tension. The silence stretches between us, her eyes darting down to my lips and then back up to my eyes. “Your turn,” she whispers.

My body suddenly becomes very attuned to the proximity of hers along with that addictive scent of her perfume that calls on my libido. The memory of her lying out on my bed before me, tits jostling as we connected, hair like a wave of seduction, mouth parted on a moan, hijacks my thoughts. It causes my next question to die on my lips, and the one I tell myself I don’t even care about comes out before I can stop it. “That first night… in my room —”

“I’ll stop you right there and just save myself the embarrassment of answering whatever your question is.” She takes the shot, and my mind spins with the possibilities of what she thought I was going to ask her. Over what question was so bad that she wants to avoid it.

If this shit keeps up, I have a feeling I’m going to be carrying her down to her room, because she won’t be walking.

She shakes her head subtly to try and clear the alcohol that I’m sure is starting to warm her up some. “Why do you blame yourself for Stella’s death?”

Her question smothers the air around me. It’s a question I’ve asked myself a million times but one no one has said aloud before. And now that it’s out there, hanging like a flag in the breeze, I hear the ludicrousness in it… but I still don’t want to answer it.

“In case you missed it the first time you asked, what happened to Stella’s off-limits.” The steel in my voice is hard to miss. “Ask again.”

I hear the stutter in her breath as she exhales into the silence. “Why were you being so nice to me today? I mean… why’d you take me to the range?”

“Because regardless of what you think, chivalry isn’t dead, and I look out for those who are with me. Besides, that ass of yours is too fine to see something happen to it.”

I hear her breath catch again, and a riotous ache settles deep down inside me at knowing that a simple comment like that affects her so easily. And I don’t want to feel like this or to know my simple remark has that effect on her, so I stumble along to find a new question for her.

“Where are you from? What’s your story?”

“Ha! That’s two questions. Drink up, baby!” she shouts into the night as I cringe, realizing my mistake the minute the second question was out of my mouth. Beaux pours a shot of liquid and hands it over. I toss back the drink, and she immediately takes the glass from me and pours one for herself. This time she hisses when she downs it.

“Wait, you’re not answering the question?” I’m a little surprised since the question was so innocent in nature, no hidden agenda other than getting to understand her background better.

“And there’s another question!” She laughs. “Before you know it, Tanner Thomas, you are going to be putty in my hands.”

“I see how you are. Trying to win this little game by default.” I laugh. And it feels so good to laugh after all of the shit over the past few months. It feels even better to have someone next to me even if I’m not supposed to like her. When she reaches for the bottle and I shift it away from her at the same time so that she falls partially on top of me, it jolts me back to reality.

And makes me so very conscious of the heat of her body against mine, the scent of her shampoo as she moves her hair out of her face and angles her face up to meet my eyes. Her breath hitches and fingers grip tighter over mine on the neck of the bottle at our sides. Everything about her is like a high-definition television all of a sudden, so damn perfect you want to touch but know it’s not real.

“Your turn,” she murmurs, her whiskey-scented breath feathering over my lips. “Why’d you kiss me today?”

I stare at her, my free hand itching to touch her, drag her beneath me, and lose myself in every goddamn contradiction she has to offer – but I know that would only complicate things even further. But it seems that lately everything about my life has become complicated… so why should I care if I add one more thing to the mix?