He was too nice, too soft, and too easy. He kept telling me how pretty I was, how nice my body was, and kept saying he couldn’t believe how lucky he was that I had picked him out of all the other hipsters and locals that frequented the Bar.

He was lucky.

I didn’t know his name, couldn’t recall the color of his eyes if I wasn’t looking at him directly, and every time he opened his mouth to give me another compliment I wanted to scream at him to be quiet. He sounded like he was from the Midwest, not like he was from another country that I would never see. He was all wrong, and I hated Nassir even more for making it feel that way.

I liked sex. Liked the way it made me feel, and often the things it could get me. I never shied away from taking what I wanted and fulfilling my own needs and desires, but as this too cute and too simple boy moved his hands up my chest and started to fumble with my very expensive bra, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to block out the wrongness of this anymore. His hesitation annoyed me. His blundering hands frustrated me, and no matter how hot his body was or how fun his kisses were, there was no getting around that he wasn’t who I wanted. Frankly, he couldn’t handle me, even this watered-down version of me, so there was no way he could give the real me anything close to what I really wanted or needed.

That was Nassir’s fault.

Damn him for showing up and reminding me about everything I left behind. I longed to hate him. He tainted everything, and now his stupid handsome face was all I could see while this guy pawed at my boobs like they were a matched set of stress-relieving balls. Granted they were as fake as a three-dollar bill, but they were still sensitive and deserved to be appreciated for the work of art they were. Now that things were heating up, the guy had lost some of his finesse and was getting grabby and anxious. I hated desperation in a man. It reminded me too much of the lonely guys that used to come into Spanky’s looking for a cheap thrill. He wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want him here, so there was no need to rush . . . only now, with gleaming bronze-colored eyes taunting me, I was no longer in the mood.

With a sigh I put both my hands on his chest and felt his muscles tense as I pushed him off of me. I scooted out from under him and scrambled to the other end of the couch. I was glad I hadn’t taken the cop up on her offer to set me up with one of her friends. I was about to kick this guy out with a serious case of blue balls and that wasn’t something most men in my experience easily overlooked. I didn’t need the cop on my case about that like she was on it about the gash I was still sporting in my forehead from the attack in the parking lot. The redhead saw too much.

Instead I went to the bar that her boyfriend owned part of and picked up the first cute guy that seemed like he could give me what I wanted. I thought I was after sex. I thought I needed to take a guy home to prove to myself that I was in Denver to stay, and getting some kind of social life back was part of that. I thought I needed to prove to myself that it didn’t matter if Nassir wanted me, because so did other guys, and other guys were always a better choice than my devil. Any guy was . . . at least that’s what I thought until this very moment.

I shoved my hand through my newly styled and freshly colored hair and looked at the horny guy who was mumbling my name in obvious confusion. I should have known when I gave in to the temptation of the fancy underwear that more of my old self was going to start knocking against the bars I had caged her in. First it was the bra and panties, followed by actually wearing makeup to work. Then it was a totally revamped hairstyle, which I told myself was simply to cover up the nasty scratch that was still above my eyebrow. It was a lie. I cut my boring locks into a drastically short bob that was significantly longer on one side than the other so that my hair partially covered my eye when it hung in my face. I dyed the sharp new do a fire-engine red so that it was bold and bright, totally eye-catching in a different way than my old stripper hair had been, but just as vampy and sexy.

After the hair, there was no way I could justify wearing those ugly-ass nonslip shoes to work anymore, and even though I almost fell and broke my backside in the kitchen every time I walked in to pick up an order, I was back to wearing four-inch heels that cost more than the rent on my apartment. The changes hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“I need you to go.” Funny, I had said almost the exact same thing to Nassir a week ago. The look this guy gave me was nothing like the soul-stripping, heart-crushing one those predatory eyes had leveled at me. This guy looked puzzled and then panicked.

“Did I do something wrong?” I think his voice actually squeaked and it made me cringe. I sighed again and straightened my clothes while I leaned over to grab his shirt off the floor.

I tossed it at him. “No, but I’m not into this anymore.” I sounded just as cold and callous as the man I needed to forget, and that made my skin pull tight.

Wide eyes stared at me like I had lost my mind, so I got to my feet and moved toward the door. “I’m sorry. I know I practically guaranteed you a piece of ass, but this isn’t working for me.” He was what wasn’t working for me and he never would because he was the wrong guy.

He pulled his shirt on and messed up his already tousled hair. God, he looked so innocent, so clean, and so uncomplicated. My heart twisted and my stomach pulled. He looked boring and basic. I wanted to slap Nassir across the face for pulling my blinders off and making me see everything that surrounded me here in Denver without the rose-colored glasses I had been wearing since I landed here months ago.

“Um . . . okay.” He got to his feet and reached for the hoodie I had pulled off of him in a rush. “I really hope I didn’t do anything wrong. You seemed into it.”

I tucked the longer chunk of hair that covered my face behind my ear so I could look him in the eye.

“I was into it, but now I’m not. I really am sorry.”

His brow furrowed and his nostrils flared. “You’re a goddamn cocktease is what you are.”

I couldn’t stop the laugh that snapped out before I could bite it back. “You have no fucking idea.” I had made a fortune off of being a tease. I was the best at making promises to men I never intended to keep. Kind of like my promise that I was never going back home. I shivered at the thought.

He gave me a scathing look as he swept past me out the door. “And that scar on your shoulder is ugly as fuck.”

Man, he even made leaving him hanging uncomplicated. With his last words, any kind of guilt I might’ve been feeling fled as I slammed the door shut behind him.