Hold On

Garrett Merrick was all man, not all—cute man.

He was a cop. He was built, muscular but lean. His tough, sinewy frame, which I knew from my time as a waitress, then a stripper, and finally a bartender, concealed the power packed in his build. He wasn’t a hulk, and therefore, you might think you could mess with him when you absolutely could not. I knew this from looking at him. But he’d broken up three bar brawls in my tenure at J&J’s Saloon, so I’d also seen it firsthand.

Further, he was handsome in a smooth way that didn’t quite succeed in hiding the fact that, under the surface, he was not smooth at all. He was rough.

His sense of humor was wicked.

And his personal sense of right and wrong was razor-sharp (if perhaps a little crazy). There wasn’t a lot of gray in the world of Garrett Merrick. There was black and there was white. He had a reputation in that town and I was a bartender in that town, so I knew his reputation. He was a cop for a reason. He was about order and justice. There was just a part of him that was compelled to decide what kind of order there should be and how justice should take place.

He had a good ole boy exterior.

Under that was something else entirely.

I got this. I knew his history. There were several ways to go on with your life after what had happened to his family and none of them were good.

Except the one Merry chose.

So he was not cute.

Not at all.

Until right then.

Sleepy and cute and not even looking a little bit hungover.

“Cher?” he called.

I blinked away my thoughts and muttered, “Sorry, kinda out of it.”

He grinned, the cute took a hike, and a miracle occurred.

I had been completely hungover, freaked out, and uncertain.

Witnessing that cocky grin, I was straight up, full-on turned on.

He knew what he did to me last night. He knew how much I liked it. He also knew I might have participated fully, but he’d dominated the play and he got off, but he got me off spectacularly.

Five times.

My legs shifted and Merry bent closer.

“Rest up,” he murmured. “Get some aspirin in you when you wake up. I’ll call you later.”

I nodded, head sliding on the pillow.

He bent deeper, and I didn’t know whether to brace or turn my head just in case he needed a straight shot to my mouth because he intended to give me a kiss.

I found he was giving me a kiss. A sweet one. Brushing his lips lightly along my cheek, he moved his mouth to my ear.

“Never forget last night, babe. None of it,” he whispered there, then gave me another kiss, touching his mouth to the skin in front of my ear before he finished, “Thank you for that.”

I didn’t know what to make of that. It was sweet, but was it final?

Or was it a beginning?

He pulled his head away but slid his hand from my neck to my jaw, where he used his thumb to sweep the apple of my cheek as he caught my eyes.

Another touch no man had ever given me. A simple maneuver, only his thumb moving, but it still felt like it spoke volumes, every word beauty.

“I’ll call you.”

That said beginning.

Oh God, were Merry and me beginning?

My heart clutched.

“Okay, Merry,” I replied.

He grinned. He winked. My stomach curled in a nervous, excited way I almost didn’t recognize because I hadn’t felt it since I was fifteen years old.

Then he straightened from my bed and walked out of my room.

*

I did not go back to sleep to get rest I desperately needed (considering I had slept about twenty minutes).

I also did not get up to go to the grocery store.

I got up and went to the bathroom.

I brushed my teeth and looked into the mirror, thanking God for the first time that I’d perfected the art of makeup application through my stripper days so that shit would not move unless it was removed. The day before, I’d worked a shift with it on. I’d gotten drunk after that. I’d gotten royally laid after that, and it still looked awesome.