Page 60 of Duty

He could be a coward and run, or he could stay put and wait for her to finish with work for the night. She still had a few hours left to go before the bar would close, but that didn’t matter. A huge part of her wanted Andino to stay—to let her give him that opportunity to correct her misconceptions and the conclusions she had come to about him because he didn’t offer her anything else.

She wanted him to stay.

“Stay,” she told him again.

Andino only nodded.

Haven left the bar.

• • •

“Yep, no worries, I have the rest handled,” Haven said, waving Jackson out the door. “One last sweep of the floor, and locking up. That’s it.”

“If you’re—”

“I’m sure.”

Usually, Haven wouldn’t be so quick to refuse help when one of her employees offered to stay late, but she really just needed five minutes alone to breathe after a night like tonight. Once Jackson was fully out the door, Haven locked it behind him, and then closed the large, steel door behind it before pulling the deadbolts on that, too. She’d go out the back way later.

Passing by the tables, Haven snatched up a crumbled piece of paper on one of the tables, and shoved it into her back pocket. One last sweep of the floors to make sure the place was all picked up, and she was good to go.

On one of the raised platforms—the one with the middle pole—Haven saw a hair tie on the floor. Likely from one of the dancers. It wasn’t unusual for them to lose something small when they were dancing. Jewelry was most common, but they almost always found it and picked it up before getting off the stage.

Hoisting herself up onto the stage to grab the hair tie, Haven felt his eyes on her the moment she stood up straight again. Of course, she hadn’t forgotten that he was there—watching her all night from afar.

How could she forget?

She felt him when he watched her. His presence was a tangible fucking thing to her—real and vibrant and terrifying. Yet, not in a bad way. It didn’t matter how busy she had gotten with work because she still knew Andino was there somewhere watching her in the background.

Never failed.

“Are you going to do a little dance for me up there?”

Haven leaned a hip against the gleaming, silver pole as she turned to find Andino sitting on the bar. He nursed a lowball glass of something—she couldn’t tell what kind of liquor it was from thirty feet away.

But fuck him.

Because damn he looked good sitting there like that—tie undone, his hair slicked back like he’d been running his fingers through it, and those sleeves rolled up to show off his strong arms. Despite the busy night, and the fact he’d jumped in to help her and the other employees, he didn’t look any fucking worse for wear.

Cool.

Calm.

Collected.

That was Andino.

“Do you want me to dance for you?” she asked.

Andino tipped his head to the side, and grinned sinfully. “Well, there isn’t any music.”

Haven wet her bottom lip, and slid her palm along the cold metal of the pole before she did a quick spin on the stage. She’d put on ballet flats since she was going to be on her damn feet all night, but that just made it easier for her to lift off the ground, do a flip on the pole mid-spin, hook her leg around the metal, and then hang suspended upside down with only her knee and calf keeping her steady.

She peered at Andino, aware of just how close her head was to the floor, and knowing that if she even let go of the hold she had on the pole by a fraction, she would crash. And crash hard.

“I’m sorry,” she said, smiling as she ran her fingers through her loose hanging hair, “you thought I needed music to dance?”

Andino’s husky chuckles as he pushed off the bar and landed soundlessly to his feet made her fucking stomach clench. With every step he took closer to the stage, a blazing heat started to travel over her entire body. Deep in her bones, and raging through her sinew. Thickening her blood, and making her nerves snap.