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I cut her off with booming laughter, her sassiness too much for me to handle. I don’t even care when several of the other patrons turn to see what the noise is all about.
“Goddamn, you’re funny as well as beautiful,” I say. “Really, though. I want to know your thoughts.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Because if I’m going to open a restaurant one day, I deserve to know how my head chef thinks.”
“Haha,” she says, rolling her eyes as she takes a sip from her cloudy glassed stein. “You’re so not funny.”
“Where’s the joke?” I say with passion. “I’ve got the money to open a restaurant and a genius of a chef sitting here in front of me. Why wouldn’t I take the opportunity to grill her a little.”
“No pun intended?” she offers.
I smirk, her zest for life infectious, making me want to carry her away someplace private.
Later.
If she’s ready.
My balls ache and throb at the thought.
Fucking hell, I hope she’s ready soon.
“How long have you wanted to open a restaurant?” she asks.
“Well, let’s see, when did we meet?” I laugh.
She shakes her head, pouting, cheeks flaming that shade of crimson that constantly have me all kinds of revved up.
“I hope you’re kidding. You can’t just give me a restaurant.”
We’ll see.
“Okay, forget the whole restaurant thing for now. What do you think?”
She shrugs, causing those round plump breasts to jiggle alluringly. “It’s a nice menu, although, I don’t know, it does seem a little long.” She begins to leaf through the pages, and a moment later she bites her lip. “And some of these German dishes, they could do with some translations at the side. I hate when restaurants do that like we’re all supposed to be multilingual or we’re not allowed to eat here. I hate … snobbery, I guess. Growing up in the home—Whoah, okay, sorry.”
“What?” I say, glancing around.
“No, I’m sorry for what I was about to do. Bring the mood down. Big time.”
I shake my head, smoothing my hand over her cheek and brushing some of her wild hair behind her ear. “You don’t have to apologize to me. Ever. I thought I made that clear. What were you going to say?”
“I guess that I just developed this whole anti-snobbery thing in the orphanage, you know. It was horrible, the constant paranoia of people looking down on me. And now I’ve got even more paranoia because he’s back and—”
She bites down, fighting off a wave of sadness that plucks a combative chord inside of me.
Finn Marston.
That bastard better leave town before I cross paths with him.
For his sake.
“I don’t want to think about that now,” she sighs. “What the heck is wrong with me? I’m ruining this.”
“You’re not,” I say firmly. “Because this isn’t a performance. You’re a gorgeously complicated and unique human being, Millie, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
“I’m complicated?” she says, sassiness firing beneath her evident emotional turbulence. “You’re the one who’s tricked the whole town into thinking you’re this brute who won’t even say a simple good morning. You’re the one who’s convinced everyone that you’re an asshole.”
“I am an asshole,” I tell her. “Just not with you. Or maybe I’m just less of one with you. I’m just so goddamn glad that fate led Lava to me that night. Otherwise, I never would’ve laid eyes on you.”
“I never believed in fate,” she murmurs. “If I did, I’d have to attribute all the bad stuff in my life to it, too, right? But since we met …”
“Things have changed,” I rumble.
“Yeah,” she says, flashing me a soul trembling look. “They have.”
We hold each other’s gaze for a long time, moments that feel like they could stretch on endlessly, weave and warp and develop a universe of their own, a place that consists of only Millie, her eyes, her blooming cheeks, her bravery and her insecurity and all the little things that make her who she is.
That sounds like the best place in the goddamn world.
“Are we involved in a staring contest I wasn’t warned about?” she laughs.
I smirk, my whole world lighting up beneath the fuel of her laughing voice. There’s something goddamn magical about it, that she could make me laugh, make me smile, make me more than a husk who’s trained to fight and kill and lift weights and never – ever – feel anything more than focus for the task at hand.
But with her, I don’t care about the task at hand. I want to ignore it. I want to make a secret land beneath the sheets with her and disappear forever.
She’s mine.
Mine.
And I’m never letting go.
“Markus?” Millie murmurs. “Helloooo? Are you in there?”
“Yes,” I say, voice deep and gravelly. “I’m here.”
“It looked like you floated off someplace. What were you thinking about?”
“I can’t say,” I tell her, an animal tremor in my voice. “It’ll sound … like something a man like me shouldn’t say.”
