Nothing was better than a lip-gloss kiss—sweet, silky, made for savoring.

Jake Lassiter picked up his beer and drew on the froth, imagining another kind of cream slipping between his lips while he stared at the woman’s shiny pout. She didn’t seem to realize anyone stared as she slicked her lips with a clear lube, tucked a stray blonde curl behind her ear and closed the mirrored compact. Or maybe she did and the performance was just a tease.

“Dayum, bro. Gotta have me some of that,” Daniel Parker murmured.

Jake shot him a glare, just to check, and sure enough, his best buddy was staring at the same honey-haired beauty. “I call dibs.”

Danny scowled, humor gleaming in his dark brown eyes. “Can’t call dibs. I saw her first. I watched her come in the door while you were paying for the drinks.”

“Oh yeah? What color is her hair?” Jake asked, leaning toward the bar to cut off Danny’s view.

“Who gives a damn? Did you see her ass?”

Jake snorted, annoyed they were talking like two never-been-laid teenagers, but that’s what usually happened after a long week when both of them were too worn out to rub a single brain cell between them.

That either had been able to lift bleary eyes past their beers said a lot for the woman’s appeal. She shone like a beacon in the badly lit bar.

“Why not let the lady make her own choice?” Danny drawled.

“Like she’d come near either one of us,” he muttered, his gaze sweeping the expensive cut of her navy suit, the sleek fall of her chin-length hair and understated makeup. She wore “class” like he did a pair of well-washed jeans—comfortably.

Still, it had been her expression that had snagged his attention. Something soft and wistful shone in her large, dark eyes. She wished she was anywhere but here.

“Speak for yourself,” Danny said in his usual imperturbable fashion. “I showered at the station before I left. I mean it, man. Let’s ask her which of us she’d rather have.”

Jake shook his head, fighting a smile. Even when he was being an ass, his buddy’s rakish grin made him laugh. He prepared to shove away from the bar. “How ‘bout I just invite her over for a drink? She looks like she might like the company.”

Danny leaned past him and grimaced. “Hate to break it to you, but I don’t think she’ll go for it. She’s got a boyfriend sliding right in.”

Jake’s head swiveled her way, just in time to see a suit with a flashy tie bend to kiss her cheek then take the seat beside hers. “Tall and pasty-faced” sat and stretched his arm across the back of the woman’s chair.

A sudden flash of anger stiffened Jake’s shoulders. He had never seen the lady before five minutes ago but he felt as if he’d already staked a claim.

“He’s making damn sure the rest of us know she’s taken,” Danny muttered.

Jake sighed and angled his body toward his friend, ready to finish the beer and call it a night. “It’s just as well. I’m beat.”

Danny’s glance remained fixed on the table behind Jake then slowly narrowed. “Not so fast. I don’t think she’s that into pretty boy.”

Jake didn’t want to look, preferred to forget his impossible attraction, but he turned and watched the woman lean away from the arm draped behind her. Her eyebrows lowered and those bowed lips tightened in irritation.

“Boyfriend” moved closer, ignoring the not-so-subtle clues, and tucked his face into the corner of her neck to nibble.

She shrugged, trying to escape, and her voice raised just enough for Jake to hear the tone but not the words.

“Think she needs rescuing?” Jake asked softly.

“Think he’ll listen? Or are you ready for a fight?”

Hell yeah he was. Jake clapped his cowboy hat on his head and rose slowly, fisting his hands. “Watch my back.”

“Like I’m gonna let you be the white hat?”

“Bro, I’m wearin’ it.”

Danny grinned. He lifted his beer and emptied it then slammed it on the table and followed.

Jake sauntered toward the pizza-pie-shaped table and halted in front of the couple, hooking his hands on his hips. The motion stretched his firehouse t-shirt across a chest he knew commanded more than a few stares.

The woman saw him first, her brown eyes widening as they trailed up his body to his face. “Boyfriend”, however, hadn’t a clue how close he was to dusting the floor with his expensive suit.

Danny cleared his throat.

Jake lifted his chin and captured the woman’s gaze. “Baby, I thought I told you I don’t like it when you tease me.”

Boyfriend muttered and jerked back his head, taking in Jake and Danny in a single annoyed glance. “Beat it.”

Jake ignored him, turning his attention to the woman. “What do you say, sweetheart?”

Her lips quirked. “Honey, Malcolm, here, doesn’t take no for an answer.”

A scrape sounded beside him and Danny set a chair backward at the tiny table and straddled it. Malcolm gave him a killing glare, but Danny ignored him, reaching for the bowl of peanuts at the center of the table and grabbing a fistful, which he held above his face and dropped into his open mouth in a steady stream.

“Guess the table’s gonna get crowded,” Jake murmured. “Name’s Jake, since you asked,” he said thrusting his hand in front of Malcolm’s face.

Malcolm’s narrowed glance looked at Jake’s hand, and then he angled his body toward the woman. “How about we blow this place?” he said, a trace of a pansy-assed British accent in his voice.

“I don’t think so,” she said evenly. “I only agreed to meet you because you said you wanted to talk about the proposal. I chose this place to kill two birds.” Her gaze rose to Jake’s again.

He nodded imperceptibly, and smiled at Malcolm. “We have a date.”

“The two of you have a date with her?” he said, his tone disbelieving.

Danny coughed and held up his hand. Finally, he cleared his throat. “I think you get the drift, buddy. The lady’s ours.”

Malcolm’s mouth curled in disgust. “I knew you were a firecracker, but I had no idea. It’s a little crowded for me, love.” He straightened his tie, glanced around the darkly lit bar and stood, not looking back once while he sauntered toward a lone woman seated at the bar.

“Thanks, I think,” the woman said, wrinkling her nose. “Now my reputation’s going to be in shreds. Not that that’s a bad thing,” she muttered under her breath. “And I can’t say I’m not glad to get him off me.”

Jake liked her easy humor, liked her husky, whiskey-laced voice even better. “Do you really think anyone will believe a word from that slimeball?” Jake said, settling into Malcolm’s vacated seat.

“Guess not,” she said, eyeing him then Danny. She took a deep breath. “Can I buy you both a drink since you rescued me? I can’t leave just yet. We’ll have to make this look good.”

“We’d be much obliged,” Danny said, grinning. “You’ve already met Jake, and I’m Danny.”

“Camille.” She cleared her throat and signaled to the waitress.

Jake and Danny shared a charged glance, and Jake knew exactly what was poking around Danny’s mind. The lady hadn’t looked all that shocked when “boyfriend” concluded she was dating the two of them. But if that was what enticed her to spend a little time with them, he’d bite back his natural urge to corral her all for himself.

Up close, the woman was even more attractive, if a little older than he’d originally thought, with pale, creamy skin and a small dent on the underside of her jaw. He liked the stubborn tilt and the little groove underneath her round jaw and imagined rubbing his tongue and anything else she’d like along the sexy notch.

“Malcolm’s still staring,” she murmured, turning her head and pointing with her finger hidden in her hair.

From the bar, Malcolm’s malevolent gaze was trained on the trio.

“Maybe he doesn’t believe you’re really with us. Why don’t we remove his doubts?” Danny said, his dark brown eyebrows giving a devilish waggle.

Her lush lips pursed as she considered, and Jake felt his body tighten.

“What do you have in mind?”