Page 23 of A Wreck, You Make Me (Bad Boys of Bardstown #3)

“Thought it was a coffee shop, so how bad could it be,” he murmurs, as if analyzing and concluding things in his head.

“I mean, you probably need independence. You can’t just be mine.

I’ve got a sister, I know. And I’m all for that, trust me.

And even though this isn’t a career choice, something we’ll also chat about, and my job is temporary anyway, I thought coffee shop was doable.

But I don’t think I like the idea of you getting coffee for every motherfucker out there. ”

I’m speechless. I’m completely speechless right now.

“Not to mention,” he keeps going in the same tone, “that asshole you went on a date with works here too. He’s your boss.

I don’t know if I like the idea of you working under him.

Especially when we both know that he literally wants you there.

He’s already used his position of authority to his advantage once. ”

“He has not. I wanted to go?—”

“So yeah, no,” he finishes on a long breath, “I don’t think I like the idea of you serving all the assholes of Bardstown. Except when the asshole is me.”

Slowly, I unfurl my fingers from the edge of the counter. I put my hands on the glass, my fingers splayed wide, and lean forward. I have to crane my neck up to look into his eyes, but I’m okay with that. As long as he can read every emotion going through my eyes.

“I have a lot of things to say to you,” I begin.

“I’m going to list them in bullet points, okay?

So I don’t forget anything. Number one: I don’t care whether you like me working here or not.

Or anywhere, for that matter. You don’t get to decide that for me.

So I’ll be keeping both my jobs. Number two: I don’t want your job.

I don’t want anything from you. I don’t even think why you’d,” I search for the correct term before settling on, “consider me for the position but no, thank you. And number three, this one’s quite possibly the most important point of all: please stop.

Stop whatever it is you’re doing. Stop coming into my work.

Stop crashing my dates. Stop demanding naked lap dances from me.

Just stop, okay? Stop . Lose my number and leave. ”

His features are just as impassive as they were when I started my tirade, making me wonder if he heard anything I said. A second later I don’t have to because I know; he didn’t. Because he decrees, “You either quit your job at the strip club in the next seven days, or I’ll have you fired.”

“What?”

“From both jobs. And your occasional catering gig too.”

“You—”

“And trust me when I say, no one will touch you in this town once I make it known you’re my girl or they’ll have me to answer to.”

My cheeks are burning with anger. “What are you, the mafia?”

“And the royalty. I can make your life very difficult in this town, if I want to.”

“This is blackmail .”

“It’s what I’ll do if you don’t agree to be mine by the end of the week.”

“Do you think this is funny? Do you?—”

His demeanor shifts then, grows intense and angry as he dips his face and growls, “No, I don’t.

I don’t think it’s funny that ever since I saw you at that goddamn strip club, prancing around in your frilly little skirts and your fuck-me heels, looking like a piece of candy that every man in that joint wants to eat, I can’t stop wanting to beat the shit out of the first person I see.

It’s not funny how furious it makes me to watch you in that hellhole, with men salivating after you like dogs.

Especially when your asshole boss is one of them.

By the way, what the fuck is it about you and your bosses, huh?

Why in the fuck do they think they can get a piece of you?

And I know you don’t like it either. I know you don’t like that job.

You don’t dress like other girls. You don’t flirt with men like other girls.

Or even if you do, you make sure to keep a distance and it makes me want to burn that place down. So no, it’s not funny.”

Then, leaning further down, “But you wanna know the least funny thing? It’s that six hours and forty-three minutes ago, give or take a few minutes, I had you in my lap.

I had you exactly where I wanted you, exactly where I’ve been thinking about putting you, in the goddamn cage of my arms so you can’t run from me, but instead of doing something about it, I let you go.

Instead of playing with you like I wanted to, all I did was play with your panties like a fumbling fucking teenager in the back seat of his first car.

Imagine me, the toxic asshole with very little patience, acting like a goddamn gentleman.

But I did it. I did it because I thought to myself, she’s young; she’s new; she doesn’t know how fucking filthy I can be.

I’m already close to choking her out so I should start slow.

I should try to be a little nicer to her.

It’ll be hard but hey, for her, I’ll give it a try.

“But no good deed goes unpunished, does it? Not with you. Because all I did was touch you a little bit, grazed your wet panties a few times. Maybe circled your clit once, and you lit up for me like I’d been petting you for hours.

Like I’d been pampering that pussy, paying special attention to it for days on end and you couldn’t take it anymore.

You were fully primed and so you had no choice but to gush for me.

Drip on my fingers like you really were my ripe little strawberry, just waiting for me to toy with you.

So now I’m stuck, aren’t I? I’m goddamn motherfucking stuck trying to chase after that little taste you gave me, binging on strawberries all night, hoping that I’ll find one that tastes exactly like your pussy.

So again, no. None of this is fucking funny.

So you will quit that fucking job and agree to be mine or I’ll make you quit both and take you anyway.

And honestly, I almost wish you choose the harder way because I’m not a fan of this job either. In any case, you’ve got seven days.”

His words, all of them, growled and bordering on tortured, sit heavy in my belly. Like instead of saying them to me, he fed them into my veins. He fed his words into my pulpy, messy heart and all I can say is, “I d-don’t taste like strawberries.”

“What?”

“If anything, I taste a little musky and tart and?—”

“Are you really fucking describing to me what you taste like in this goddamn motherfucking café with all these people around us?” He leans closer. “Because if so, then everyone here is going to get a hell of a show along with their morning coffee.”

My eyes go wide and my belly spasms really hard at that. I know I should let this go but I can’t so I stay on the topic. “Is that why you smell like strawberries? B-because you’ve been eating them all night?”

His nostrils flare. “Yeah.”

I claw my fingers on the glass. “This is not the first time you’ve done that, though, have you? Binged on strawberries like that.”

“No.”

I lick my lips. “Right. Because you… You always smell like strawberries.”

He notices my action before correcting me, “If by always you mean this past year, then yes.”

“Because that’s how long you’ve known me,” I conclude.

“Yeah.”

“And I’m a strawberry.”

“ My strawberry,” he corrects again.

I swallow, my heart thudding and thudding in my chest. My mind racing a million miles a second with all these thoughts and questions and God, things I can’t even name.

So I focus on small things first. “I never said George bothered me.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“I never said I hated my job either.”

“Again, you didn’t have to.”

Right, because he’s a mind reader. Well, not a mind reader, my mind reader. Then, “Is that why you remembered my favorite heels? Because y-you remember things about me.”

He grits his teeth as if he doesn’t want to answer me, but then he does. “I remember what you wore the first time I fucking saw you, so yeah.”

“What did I wear the first time you saw me?”

He doesn’t want to answer this question either, but I don’t feel bad about it.

I feel bad about myself. About all the things he just told me that now I have to contend myself with.

Then, gritting his teeth once again, he says, “A green t-shirt and a pair of shorts.” He waits a moment before he continues, “You had a purple band in your hair and a pair of sneakers. Same color.”

“Purple is my favorite color,” I tell him because why not? The world is all upside down right now anyway.

“I’m aware of that.”

“You’re aware of a lot of things.”

His eyes flick back and forth between mine. “Apparently.”

“But you…” I give myself another few seconds before I can ask the real question.

Then, I burst out, my heart racing, my head spinning, “You don’t even like me.

You find me annoying. You think I’m pathetic and desperate and a schoolgirl and your little sister’s best friend who has this stupid little crush on you and?—”

“I do,” he states.

My heart clenches. “So then?—”

“Because every time you came around, for some insane fucking reason, I couldn’t stop watching you.

I couldn’t stop staring at your red hair and your sparkly skin.

And I hated it.” He moves his jaw back and forth, as if remembering all those times.

“I hated that I wanted to fucking count the freckles on your face instead of paying attention to my girlfriend. I hated that everything about you, your smile, your laughter, your voice, the little purple things you always seemed to have on, the way you watched me not-so-secretly, took up all the space in my head instead of the girl I should’ve been thinking about.

So yeah, you are annoying because you’ve been my goddamn distraction since the moment I saw you when you shouldn’t have been. ”

“Distraction,” I repeat, the thing he so desperately needs right about now.

That’s me. That’s always been me.