Read Bare Knuckle: Vegas Top Guns, Book 5 for Free Online Page A

seeing how I’d interpret it or recreate it.”
    “See? Not a Barbie.”
    She flipped her hair and affected a wide-eyed, eerily blank expression. “Oh no?”
    “Quit. That’s spooky.”
    “I know.” She laughed her way out of the pose. “But you wouldn’t believe how many guys prefer it that way.”
    “Idiots,” he muttered.
    “What was that?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Sure, sugar.” Her expression said she was letting him off the hook.
    The thing was, he used to be one of those idiots. Except for a few of the women he’d photographed where the relationship had remained platonic, he didn’t have the best track record for valuing substance over style. Maybe Trish was an excellent introduction to the radical, smack-upside-the-head concept that he didn’t need to compromise.
    Good to know for when he was ready for a long-term relationship. Until his flight rotation was back up to one hundred percent, and until Carey was clean and sober, Eric didn’t have the energy to devote to what women needed.
    For half a thought, he contemplated offering her a glass of wine. But no, he’d said one round in the bar, and he meant it. The drink would’ve been a delay tactic before confronting the topic of his bedroom and all the psychobabble that would go with it. Aside from trying to be a better person, Eric had tried to be more honest with himself—as direct as his habit when speaking to others. It didn’t always work. In this case, though, he was able to call himself on his bullshit.
    Trish had wandered away, around the right bend that concealed the second half of the loft space. Make or break time. He followed.
    The loft had been an old warehouse, with reinforced beams and brick walls. Eric had painted them white. The only artwork was his own stuff. In the more public half, he’d hung shots of his hometown. Detroit’s beauty was morbidly blunt, but it was there if a guy knew where to look.
    The private half of the loft held his photography equipment on one side and what passed as his bedroom on the other. The bare bed without headboard or footboard worked for him. The walls were adorned with his best photographs—or more like, the photographs that spoke to him. He’d taken more carefully framed, more artfully constructed shots, but these were the ones he liked to study because of the women he’d immortalized in moments of purity.
    Trish stood in front of one. He’d had a great symbiotic relationship with Dolores. He liked to watch and she didn’t want to be touched. He’d never asked why, only took pictures of her astonishing body. His favorite shot of her was the one he’d had enlarged to life size. He’d been behind her as she’d lifted her hand over her head, looking over her shoulder toward the camera.
    He stood next to Trish as she contemplated the picture. “I think it’s her mouth. She has a sad mouth.”
    “Technically she’s smiling.” He worried about Dolores sometimes. She’d left his life as casually as she’d entered it, like a train passing by. Only she’d left a few indelible reminders behind. He hoped her memories held up as well.
    “Was she a sad girl?”
    “Sometimes. Do you recognize it?”
    Her shoulders straightened, which accentuated her breasts. A female dodge and weave. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “Don’t kid a kidder. Do you recognize her sadness?”
    She flashed the same plastic smile she’d aimed at the guys outside her dressing room door. “Pretty girls are never sad.”
    “Screw that.”
    “It’s what the world wants to believe. Boyfriend dumped you? At least you’ll get another. Crashed a car? Someone will buy you one. Lost a job? Who wouldn’t wanna hire a girl as gosh-darn pretty as you?” She stepped closer to the black-and-white print, examining Dolores’s curved neck. “Sometimes the opportunities never come.” Then she whirled toward him and flashed another of those practiced smiles. “So, who looks better?”
    He laughed. “Not answering