As Bad As Can Be Read Online Free PDF Page A

access to the cold room in the cellar.
    She passed the dishwasher filled with glassware and opened the door to the basement. It wasn’t that her mystery man was so fabulous, she thought as she snapped on the light and clattered down the stairs. It had simply been too long since she’d had a lover, that was all. Taking a lover had just become too much of a bother. For some reason, no matter how often they said a physical relationship was fine, once she started sleeping with a guy, sex wasn’t enough. Suddenly they’d be pushing for more, wanting to get into her head, which was simply not an option. For Mallory, the barriers were high and solid and nonnegotiable. In her world, anything more than sex was impossible. Once you got beyond sex, you ran the risk of giving the other person power over you. The years of watching her father drown his pain in drink were all the proof she needed of that.
    The trio of bare bulbs that dangled from the ceiling of the cellar did little to banish the shadows. Along the far wall, the stack of silver kegs gleamed dully. Behind her was the door to the cold room, where the kegs that fed the taps upstairs were kept.
    She opened the door to the cold room and stepped inside with an involuntary shiver. Temperatures that were perfect for keeping beer icy cold weren’t quite comfortable if you were hanging out in a miniskirt and thong. The sealed door thudded shut behind her. Even though she knew it had an inside release, it always gave her the willies to be stuck inside what was essentially a walk-in refrigerator. The faster she finished this job, the better, she thought, staring at the neat row of kegs with vacuum lines snaking up through the ceiling. At least they kept a couple of spares in the cold room for easy access. Pulling the tap off the old kegwith swift efficiency, she rolled the new keg into place and hooked it up.
    Shivering, Mallory stepped outside and stared at the wall of kegs. Now for the ugly part—wrestling a new keg into the cold room. It was her strict policy that anyone who changed out a keg always put a new one in. You never knew how much beer you were going to go through in a night, and nothing pissed customers off more than warm beer. She kicked her heels off and cursed as her bare feet hit the chilly floor.
    Then a noise behind her had her whirling with a gasp.

3
    I T WAS HIM .
    Adrenaline surged through her, mixed with little bolts of desire. “What are you doing here?”
    He studied her. “I thought you might need some help. Kegs aren’t exactly light.”
    â€œCustomers aren’t allowed in the back. We’re not insured for it.”
    â€œI’ll be careful not to drop the keg on my foot, then,” he said, with a grin hovering around the corners of his mouth.
    That utterly delectable mouth.
    She looked until she realized she was staring, then relented. “Well, if you want to help, I need two kegs from the stacks on the left. I can roll them, I just can’t lift them down.”
    He crossed to the tiers of kegs and brought two of them to the floor with approximately the same amount of effort she’d expend on a bottle of whiskey.
    â€œGuess you keep up your gym membership,” she said, struggling not to be impressed.
    â€œOr something,” he said, grabbing one of the kegs and carrying it in the cold room.
    Mallory took the other, tipping it onto an edge and rolling it along. The grating sound it made was magnified in the close quarters of the refrigerator, then he took it off of her hands.
    â€œJust stack them on that side wall,” she directed. “That’ll give us enough for the rest of the night, I think.”
    Back out in the storage room, she looked up at him, studying the hard planes of his face. She was tall for a woman; it wasn’t often that a man met, let alone bested her height. “Thanks for coming down to help.”
    â€œNo problem.” The bare overhead lights threw