I make my way over to the bar, weaving around the bodies swaying messily to the music on the dance floor.
“Jack and coke, please,” I say, offering the exact amount of cash.
The feeling of the cold alcohol hitting my warm stomach makes me shiver. Or maybe it has nothing to do with the alcohol at all. Maybe it has everything to do with the man sitting at the end of the bar, his sight set on me like a fucking sniper. I may as well have a red dot pointing at my chest.
The harsh lights of the dance floor accentuate the sharp lines of his beautiful face. And his hair, as dark as night, is tied back in a low ponytail that snakes down his black suit. He looks out of place in a suit, yet something about him belongs here. Almost as if the room and everyone and everything in it moves around him.
My senses kick back in, and my breath momentarily leaves my body as I register the intensity with which he’s lookingat me. Everything and everyone fades into nothingness until we’re the only two people in the room.
How can one look be so intense?
He smirks, brings his glass up to take a sip of his drink, his full lips parting around the rim of the tumbler. The feeling starts to come back into my body. I’m too hot, my clothes feel like they’re suffocating me, and my pussy… my fucking pussy is throbbing.
This is bad.
I leave my drink half-full and dart across the bar towards the bathroom, but I can’t resist glancing back one last time. A small sense of relief washes over me when I see that he’s no longer looking at me but talking to the bartender instead.
Standing in front of the mirror, I take in my reflection. My cheeks are flushed, sweat coats my chest, and my eyes are filled with something I haven’t seen in a long time… lust.
Taking a deep breath, I splash some cold water on my wrists, immediately feeling relieved at the sensation. I squeeze my thighs together in a poor attempt to alleviate the sensation building there.
“You are strong, you are capable, and you are a bad bitch,” I tell my reflection, only half believing the words.
I check my phone, relieved to see that my Uber is only a few minutes away. I make my way out of the bathroom, my adrenaline spiking slightly at the thought of encountering him again. But when I glance at the bar to the spot where he was sat to find it empty, bitter disappointment fills my stomach.
It was just a look, I think to myself.
So why did it feel like something more?
Two
Kat
Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode
My hands are steady as I pour the steamed milk into the cup of espresso, as I make what seems like the millionth pumpkin latte of the day. Who even drinks this stuff? It’s more dessert than coffee.
“Make them Instagrammable,” Kaycee, our manager, had said the day they gave us our training. Harper and I rolled our eyes at that comment, but we quickly figured out they were right—we were busier than ever at The Ground, and peoplewereactually posting their lattes to Instagram, which meant we were making no less than a hundred pumpkin latte arts a day. We can’t really complain when our tip jar is practically bursting at the seams.
The Ground wasn’t really built with a huge amount of customers in mind. There are five small tables scattered around the small room, and two bars facing the window. But thanks to Kaycee’s obsession with trending on social media, we’re easily pulling in triple our capacity at least once a day. I don’t know who they fucked to get the fire marshal off our backs, but my wallet is thankful.
I’m not rich—not by a long shot. But I have enough in my account that letters with big red ‘overdue’ stamps on them have stopped coming to my door. I can now afford to buy a few itemsof fresh produce a week, though part of me misses my dollar store ramen diet. There was something so comforting about not having to decide what to cook every evening.
I finish the final touches on my pumpkin latte and hand the coffee to the customer with a smile, careful not to spill any down the sides or Kaycee will be all over me like a rash. He looks at it with appraisal for a few moments before muttering a thanks and dropping a dollar into the tip jar.
One dollar down, four hundred thousand to go before I can buy my house, I think hopelessly as I grab the last ticket.
I breathe a small sigh of relief when I see it’s a banana smoothie. I feel like I can breathe a little as my mind wanders, my free hand toying with the gold necklace resting against my chest as I pile bananas and peanut butter into the blender.
Who the fuck was that man last night? Did he want to fuck me or kill me? DidIwant to fuck him or run for my life? My automatic response should be to run, right? Then why was my pussy so drenched that even after two orgasms when I got home, it wasn’t enough? I still couldn’t get my mind off him or the way he looked at me. What does it say about me that I’m not sure if a guy wants to kill me, and I get off thinking about him?
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone look at me with lust, but I don’t remember it being that fucking intense. He looked at me in the way a lion looks at an antelope, and I basically rolled over and showed him my belly. There was something primal there; there’s no denying that. But it was different. When you think of a man as a predator, you think of someone following you down a dark alley. Hunter and prey. But he didn’t. He didn’t reach for me. He didn’t corner me. He didn’t do anything at all.
And the worst part?
I ran away like the fucking prey that I was.
I’ll unpack that one later, I think to myself as I set the smoothie on the counter.
