I smiled. Like most college-age girls, Eva enjoyed flirting with the opposite sex. Dancing the night away at Northern Aggression would be right up her alley—even if big brother Owen would be watching her every move.

“Care if I join you?” Owen asked.

I shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Grayson unbuttoned his jacket and settled on the opposite side of the booth so he was sitting across from me. He signaled one of the waiters and ordered an expensive scotch. I requested another gin on the rocks, with a twist of lime this time. Maybe that would cut the bitter taste in my mouth.

Our drinks came back, and I took a healthy pull off mine. Nope, still bitter. I sighed and rubbed my index finger down the side of the glass, leaving a trail in the condensation that had already formed there.

“Something the matter?” Grayson asked, taking a sip of his scotch.

I shrugged again. “Just not in the mood to party tonight, I suppose.”

Owen stared at me with his violet eyes. “Perhaps you and I could go somewhere else. Make our own party.”

“Let me guess where that party would end… your bedroom?”

Grayson smiled. “Actually, I was thinking the nearest hotel myself. Why drive that far?”

“Back to wanting to sleep with me again?”

Grayson’s smile widened. “I figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a shot.”

I snorted. For some strange reason, Owen Grayson had taken a shine to me. Sure, I’d saved his sister from getting fried extra crispy by a Fire elemental. Sure, I was an attractive woman. But I just couldn’t understand why the businessman was so interested. More than half the women here tonight were hotter, skinnier, younger, and had bigger breasts than I did. Any one of them would have been thrilled to be Grayson’s entertainment for the evening. Hell, just for an hour.

More importantly, I wasn’t quite sure whether his dogged interest was genuine. Trust didn’t come easily to me, which is why I suspected Owen Grayson had some ulterior motive for wanting to get up close and personal with my nether regions besides the obvious one of simply getting his jolly on.

But mostly, I wasn’t sure how I felt about him. With his black hair and violet eyes, Grayson was definitely attractive, in a rough, sexy way. But that sort of thing had never much mattered to me. Over the years, I’d had my share of ill-fated flings with the boys at the community college where I took so many classes. Even a grad student and a professor or two. I could do Owen Grayson tonight and forget about him tomorrow as easily as I could wash blood out of my hair. Actually, the blood would be more of a challenge.