Hearts Aflame Collection: 4-Book Bundle by Melissa F. Hart Page B

his bar. Jeff finally put down
the mug and looked into the light green eyes of the big bear of a
man, “It’s been one hell of a week.” He sighed.
    Brad nodded, “I know what you mean.” At
Jeff’s raised eyebrows he shrugged, “My barman ran off with one of
the hosts.”
    “You mean hostess?” Jeff corrected
automatically.
    But Brad shook his head with a wry smile,
“Host.”
    “So why did they feel the need to run
off?”
    “The barman was dating one of my waitresses
and she caught them at it.”
    Jeff shook his head in amusement. One of the
reasons he loved coming to the Clover Leaf was the constant drama;
there was always something going on. He nodded as Brad excused
himself to serve another customer. Turning his gaze around the bar,
his eyes caught sight of rich chestnut hair held up into a bun. He
felt his manhood stir and was grateful for the slacks he was
wearing which disguised how hot and bothered he was beginning to
feel. There was something about Lisa Smith that made him react in
the most primal manner. It had been that way since the first day he
laid eyes on her.
    “Found your companion yet?” Brad was back and
was leaning over the counter with a half-smile on his face.
    Jeff shrugged, “Not yet.” He never left a bar
without a companion for the night; someone to warm his bed and make
him forget for a few hours, all that was wrong in his life.
    Brad nodded towards where Lisa stood smiling
at a customer, “Tried her yet?”
    Jeff chuckled bitterly, “Why would I put
myself through that? The woman is as prickly as they come and has
permanence stamped all over her.” He deliberately took his eyes off
her slender form and focused on a voluptuous blonde who had just
made herself comfortable on the stool beside him. She batted her
heavy eyelashes at him and he smiled at her in return before
turning to Brad, “There are far less painful options.”
    Brad flashed him one of his rare smiles and
shook his head, “Well, sometimes the prickly ones are the tastier
ones. Don’t give up yet, today might be your lucky day.” He teased
as he moved away to serve a customer.
    Jeff looked over to where he had last seen
Lisa and felt a jolt go through him when he caught her staring at
him. So she was not as immune as she liked to act. He filed that
fact away as well as the cryptic comment Brad had made and turned
his megawatt smile on the blonde who had crossed her legs and was
leaning towards him and proceeded to flirt with her. But for some
reason, his heart was not in it.

    Chapter Two

    Lisa watched as Jeff Masterson flirted with
the blonde Venus beside him and a mad plan began to formulate in
her mind. Her desirability as a woman had taken a direct hit when
she’d seen Harry with Shawn. It would have been bad enough if he’d
left her for a woman but she couldn’t help thinking if she was so
bad in the sack that she’d scared him off women for life. She knew
it was silly to think that way, but the pain gnawed at her and she
decided that she needed to lay that fear to rest. And who better to
aid her than Jeff Masterson, the serial one-night-stand man.
    She had seen the way he’d looked at her with
such heat that she’d immediately felt goose bumps raise on her
forearms. There was no doubt she felt a pull towards the man; has
felt it the first time she’d seen him close to a year ago when
she’d first started working at the Clover Leaf. But she’d been with
Harry then and had felt guilty for the way her nipples had hardened
whenever Jeff’s hot gaze had glanced over her; and so she’d been
nasty to him when he had tried asking her out. Not like she
regretted that in anyway, the man was a chronic one-night-stander
and his reputation definitely preceded him.
    According to Sandra who had worked at the
Clover Leaf for several years, Jeff Masterson never repeated walked
into a bar, picked up a woman for the night and never repeated a
night with the same woman. In fact, she was beginning to think