Work sucked.
I probably wasn’t the first person to think of quitting within a few hours of starting a new job, but then again, I also enjoyed getting pounded on a regular basis. So I didn’t have the most typical reactions.
In theory, it wasn’t a bad job. There was some unloading of shipments, some tabulating of inventory. Some dispensing of alcohol. Some listening to drunk fuckers try to hit on my fellow bartenders and laughing as they struck out.
Some watching Mia work with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and my dick as hard as a brick in my pants. Yet again.
In that, my responses were painfully normal.
From the way she was acting toward me, no one would’ve ever guessed we’d had sex the night before. Very good sex. Or that I’d made her come multiple times in my damn tub. I was no expert, but I was pretty sure Mia didn’t stack up multiples on a weekly basis, not from the way she’d reacted. She’d come like a person who hadn’t in a very long time. Explosively.
I’d never forget her wild spasms around my fingers, her hot slickness coating them. Even now I had to curl my hand in a fist to try to dispel the memories.
Today she was ignoring me like we were strangers, despite the faint imprint of my phone number still visible on her inner arm. Her reddened inner arm. I bet she’d scrubbed herself raw trying to get it off.
Even that didn’t improve my mood. I was too pissed off.
She didn’t want a boyfriend. I got that. I’d never been one to search desperately for love myself, so I could handle her hands off routine. As long as we weren’t really hands off. As long as she didn’t think she was going to walk out of there without spending the night with me when I knew she was fighting some big ass brawler chick tomorrow.
But she tried. Oh, she fucking tried.
I got off shift a couple hours before she did. Knowing what she’d try to pull, I wisely waited around the corner from Vinnie’s, certain she’d bypass the front door in hopes of avoiding me. I just hadn’t counted on her taking the back exit instead of the side. The only reason I saw her at all was because she caught a light at the corner and she had her bright green, practically glow-in-the-dark backpack thrown over her shoulder.
I’d never been ditched before. I couldn’t say I enjoyed the feeling.
Jogging up the block, I hung back until just before the light changed. She’d begun to walk when I grabbed her elbow. “Well, hello. Nice to see you again. Lovely evening, isn’t it?”
She didn’t even brace. Nope, her first reaction was a long-suffering sigh. “My sister is at my place, Fox. You can’t come over.”
“Because at what, seventeen, eighteen years old she doesn’t know what sex is, right? That’s what you want me to believe?”
“It’s not appropriate for her to see a guy hanging around. I don’t want her to get the wrong idea.”
I waited until we’d cleared the crosswalk before I snatched hold of her hip and pressed my mouth to the cool line of her jaw. “Like I fucked you against the alley wall last night? That when you were in my tub, you came over and over again while my fingers pumped deep inside of you?”
When she made a noise in her throat, I nipped her neck. I hoped she was aching half as much as I was.
“Is that what you mean?” I pressed.
“About that.” She picked up her pace, walking so fast that her icy breath chugged out like a warning signal.
I didn’t need one. I already knew I wouldn’t like what she had to say. “Yeah?”
“We won’t be doing that again.”
My shoulders hunched and I gathered my fingers into loose fists more from habit than true anger. She was just scared. Just nervous about what was happening between us. I got that, I hadn’t expected this either. But I wasn’t running away, and I wasn’t acting like a jerk.
Yet. I reserved the right to start at any time.
She had issues, ones deeper and darker than I could probably even guess. She’d almost had a breakdown at her sister’s arrival last night, so she obviously she had stuff going on. I wasn’t trying to add additional problems to her life.
Strike that. Apparently I was, since my wanting to spend time with her was a personal affront. Yeah, well, I had a succinct response to that.
“You know what, Mia? Fuck you.” I roared it at the sky. “Just fuck you.”
She didn’t even slow down in her hurried flight up the street. She was walking so fast her thin sneakers barely touched the cold sidewalk. I bet her toes had frozen together.
I didn’t care. Not even a little.