Page 14 of Stealing Blinds

“Sure,” she says with a syrupy sweetness as she digs in the pocket of her apron for it.

“Oh, look at that.” I twirl it through my fingers like a baton. “I already have it.”

She giggles, her eyes wide in awe of the simple trick. “How did you do that?”

“If I revealed my secret, I’d have to ”—I let that hang for a second while I click the pen open—“learn a new trick.”

She probably assumed I was going to say something about killing her there, but that’s a little too on the nose.

Tessa harumphs, but I don’t pay her any attention. I write a note on a napkin.

When it comes to crème brûlée or “crème brûlée,” I am a man who always delivers. At our next coincidence, I’d be honored to offer both. Or just dinner, if you’d prefer.

Folding the napkin, I pass it to the waitress. “Can you send this with crème brûlée to the beautiful brunette in the gray sweater and leggings, sitting at the bar?”

Her shoulders deflate as she blooms a brittle smile. “Of course.”

After she walks away, Ryker mutters, “Fucking hell,” rubbing his hand across his mouth as the rest of the table laughs.

“What?” Even as I ask for clarification, I keep one eye on Sylvie, who is making small talk with her too-old-for-her date and his friends.

Tessa leans in, her voice low. “That waitress thought you were giving her your number.”

I glance at the server area, where our waitress—a cute young redhead—is punching in my order. “Why would she think that?”

Mercy pins her lips with subtle disapproval. “You took her pen, and you said her name.”

“I needed the pen, and she’s wearing a name tag for a reason.”

“You have a look, and your whole aura is flirty,” she counters with the same scary maternal scowl she gives Remy when he misbehaves.

I wave that off with a wry smirk. “I can’t be held accountable for minding my own business and still being irresistible. That’s not on me.”

Ryker coughs a dry chuckle. “I’m sure it’s taxing.”

“That’s not really the point,” Zara chimes in. “The question is, why didn’t you notice?”

“Or”—Maddox jumps on that, a little too zealous—“more importantly, why are you over here? Did you crash and burn with your little bandit?”

My little bandit. I considered the same moniker until I figured out her name.

Mercy hums into her iced tea. “I don’t think he did. She thought Cash was giving the waitress his number too.”

At first, that’s concerning because Sylvie is undoubtedly searching for anything to support her preconceived notion of me, but then I realize that means she displayed some sort of feeling about it.

At the thought of her being jealous, my lungs detach from my body. “Did she?”

Mercy responds, but it fades to the background as the waitress drops off the dessert and note. I track every shift in Sylvie’s expression as she reads it and does her damnedest to smother the giddiness staining her cheeks. If it wasn’t obvious before, it is now; the attraction isn’t one-sided. She doesn’t acknowledge me though. She tucks the note into her purse, which sends an uncanny sense of thrill shooting through my veins because she kept a damn napkin.

I’m losing my mind.

But my insanity is inescapable when she digs into the dessert with her spoon, closes her mouth around it like a goddamn wet dream, and savors that bite with fluttering eyelids for a good fifteen seconds. Like it truly is giving her an orgasm. Then she curls her lips in mocking amusement, tilts her head to side-eye me, and winks.

Fuck me. She’s the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen.

Maddox’s smart-ass baritone severs the moment. “Is the plan to eye-fuck her while she’s on a date?”

Axel knocks on the table, studying me and the object of my internal drooling for a beat. “That’s valid. Is she with him or not?”