Chapter 6
6
Kit
The thing with Jake is a terrible idea. I need to cancel. Today. I’ll take him into the office and tell him I changed my mind. He’ll have to respect that, right?
Will he, though? Or will he want me to shell out anyway?
Like I’m something he’s owed. Like getting his dick inside me , as he so eloquently put it, is somehow his right now that I’ve agreed to do it. It’s a sordid porn.
And here’s the worst part. The part that’s got me at work way, way earlier than I need to be. The part that made me lose hours of sleep last night because every time I shut my eyes I saw his face, those cool blue eyes taking in details of me that he shouldn’t be able to see through my clothes, my skin. Every time I tried, I’d end up touching myself, first at the idea of how he’d push me up against the wall and take me, rough and mean. Wordless. Just fucking me, no emotion, no connection. I’ve never done that.
He’d use me for his pure pleasure, while I use him for his… seed .
Even that word is somehow right and wrong and horny as hell.
Now I’m obsessed with this thing. Obsessed with his desire, which has inflamed my own, drawn it out into the open, made it real and, in doing so, taken away any semblance of normalcy between the two of us.
So, while I cut lemons and pull a fresh keg out of the back an hour earlier than I normally would, trying to prove that this is just work, picturing him taking what I promised, I have to admit that there’s a piece of me that wants it that way. Hard and unfriendly, like I’ve reneged on some promise and he’s taking the debt out in flesh.
I am in no way prepared, after these hours and hours of thinking and feeling things I’ve successfully suppressed since the man showed up at my bar, to actually see him in the flesh when he walks through the front door, the chimes tinkling merrily behind him.
For a few seconds, I lose my bearings at the sight of him—bigger, even, in real life, than the version my fantasies supplied over and over last night—my knife skids across a lime peel and slices through my thumb.
A small hurt noise chuffs out of me, I reach for a bar towel and it’s not there. The bev nap I finally grab from the stack is immediately soaked through. “Dammit.”
The sting of lemon juice and the sight of all that blood makes me think I’ve messed up and really cut myself. I’m afraid to look. I’ve always been this way, scared that it’ll be worse than it is. Prepared to pretend it’s fine and just running it under water’ll be enough. Slap a bandage on and go back to what I was doing.
“You okay?” Jake’s behind the bar, leaning over me. He’s got a clean bar towel. No idea where he found it. “Let me see.”
I hunch over my hand, but he reaches out and gently pries it away from my middle.
“Come on. I’ve got it. Shut your eyes.”
How does he know I don’t like to look? Even if the darn thing’s cut clean off, as long as I don’t have to see it, I’ll be fine.
“Good.”
When did I obey? I don’t remember closing my eyes.
He takes my hand, edges the paper off and turns it over, then presses the towel against it. It doesn’t hurt all that much and now that I’m taking stock, his presence is forcing more adrenaline through my veins than the actual pain itself.
“Hold this.” He eases the terry cloth into my other hand and stalks off, his footsteps heading toward the kitchen. The creak tells me that the door’s swung in and, a second later, swings back out.
When he comes back up to my side, it’s his warmth I perceive first. The man’s pumping out heat and, with his size, it sort of engulfs me. Lulls me so that when he grabs my hand again and takes the towel off, I’m able to open my eyes and look.
Not at my bleeding hand, but at him. He’s bent over, busy cleaning and wrapping my left index finger. From this close, I’m able to see the whorl of his ear, the growth pattern of his fresh five o’clock shadow, the way his nose looks perfect from the side—long, with a bump—but when caught from the front, it’s slightly bent.
From a fight, I’d bet.
He’s a brawler, he said. Or he was. Maybe whatever he did to wind up in prison also broke his nose.
His proximity sends my body into a fresh tailspin. A dance of a million contradictions. Nipples hard, core soft, wet, everything tight and somehow also swollen. My belly settles into a heavy, liquid ache, while my breathing spins out, quick and erratic.
“Thanks,” I manage to say to the side of his face after a shallow inhale.
Aside from a low grunt, he ignores me and frowns down at what he’s doing, his utter concentration so single-minded, something awfully close to jealousy rears its silly head.
Oh my God. What is wrong with me? Am I truly jealous that he’s paying attention to my hand and not my face? What part of me would I rather he look at, pray tell?
Oh, shut up, Kit. You know exactly what part.
Crap. Crap. I need to stop this. It’s absolutely not what I meant when I decided to try for a baby. I didn’t want this complicated mess of feelings and I certainly did not want it muddling an already complex work situation.
I’m understaffed. Perpetually working to find decent people, despite good pay and benefits and great tips for the front of house.
But prices are rising and the cost of running a business has gone through the roof and then you’ve got employees coming back to try to steal from you like Keith last night, not to mention an ex who’s prowling around like the vultures squatting the huge tree in my backyard, and after a while, being the sole owner of a place like this becomes too much of a cross to bear and you wonder if having a baby’s even feasible in today’s market and?—
“Simmer down. I’m almost done.”
Simmer down? What? Is he kidding?
I open my mouth to tear him a new one when I feel the bounce of my leg. I’m grinding my teeth, too, and squirming, perched on the fridge that I don’t even recall sitting on. My muttered, Sorry goes unnoticed, or unacknowledged. And now I feel like a child. Worked up and chastised and small .
I open my mouth to tell him something, like maybe I don’t want to do this whole extra-curricular project, after all, because it’s put me on edge and made me question things I don’t usually doubt. It’s also kept me from getting a good night’s sleep and—look!—now I’m cutting myself behind my bar. Because of one stupid decision, I’ve lost every ounce of cool I ever possessed and I can’t survive this way. Not with him being so close every day. Not with my body so out of my control. What about after we do it? What about then? Can I just expect all this tension to dissipate or will it get worse?
I’m worried it’s the latter. And there’s no way I can handle the latter. Not with the crisp tightness at my neck and how high my shoulders have gone. I’ll never survive this. I’ll put my back out and have to close the restaurant and then it’ll all go downhill from there.
I’ve just opened my mouth to tell him it’s off, when a firm hand sets mine down and pats my knee before he steps away.
“Done.” He doesn’t move farther before looking down at me. This close, I can’t meet his eyes so I take the coward’s route and examine the neat job he’s done on my hand. Bandage and finger protector, both tightly in place. “Be back to normal in a couple days.”
I nod, still not looking up.
“Got my tests done today.”
My few languorous parts go wild, hitting turbo-speed in a fraction of a second. “Good. Good.” I twist, intending to slide off the bar fridge and get some space between us, but he’s still too close, boxing me in up here. Getting trapped by his significant bulk sends a fresh blast of hormones through my body, so charged that it’s impossible to tell where intimidation ends and excitement begins. Or if they’re even separate at all.
“Could you move?” I ask, sounding not nearly the boss I meant to be. “Please?”
“Yeah.” He sniffs and stands there for another handful of seconds, then backs up another step.
I’m about to edge my way down and past him when he leans in again and speaks right into my ear. “Thought about you all night, Kit. The way your sweet little mouth opens when you’re surprised. The way your eyes get all dark when I’m close like this. Did you think about me?” I breathe shakily through the pause. Still and utterly lost. “You think about how it’ll feel, the two of us?”
I want to shake my head, but it would be a lie. And lying right now seems worse than anything, although I’ve got no godly notion why. Instead, I don’t reply at all. Just sit here, staring straight ahead, over his wide shoulder, at the small piece of wall I’ve been trying to decide whether to wallpaper or leave black.
I’ll be embarrassed later when I think of the way my hands tremble and my exhalations come out all choppy. I’ll be mortified when I remember the clearly visible goosebumps that take over my bare shoulders when he says, “Decided not to let myself come until I’m deep inside you, Kit.” I shut my eyes, hard, and suppress a moan. “My balls are so fucking heavy right now after the night I had, thinking about that ass of yours. So ready to blow.” Oh, God. I’m so aroused that if I squeeze my thighs just a little, I might actually orgasm and that’s not something that comes spontaneously in my experience. Or at all most of the time. “Figured I’d save it all up—every goddamn drop—for your little pussy, Kit. You good with that? It’s what you need, right?”
I nod and then, though it doesn’t even start to capture what I need in this moment, I turn and whisper into his ear: “Yes.” And then, because I’m apparently not done shocking myself, I say, “I want that.”
He lets out a breath and swallows, both sounds way too human for the man who’s gone and turned my whole life upside down. “Good.” Another exhale, this one warm against the side of my face. “I’ll have the results in three days.”
With that, he steps back, turns, and walks away, leaving me with nothing but the repetitive squeak of the kitchen door swinging in and out for its usual five beats, and a body that’s never once been this turned on.
It’s all I can do not to storm into the kitchen and tell him to forget about the test results, follow me into the office and take care of things right now, because I’m more ready than I’ve ever been.
I didn’t survive this far by letting my impulses lead me, though. And I won’t start now.
But the rest of the night’s going to be hell on my overcharged libido.