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My whole body jerks around to where Simon’s walking through from the kitchen, staring down at his notepad, tapping his pen against the page.
“I think we’re good to go through there.” When he glances up, the happy instantly flees his face. “What happened?”
I swallow and turn back to the open doors. “There was…”
Nothing. There’s nobody there. I know I promised not to frown anymore but I do. I totally do. Unease heavy in my belly, I move to the doors to take a better look. Nothing. “I thought I saw someone.” I scan the garden and the beach, littered with a handful of people beyond it. “I just… I think I need to add more garden lights to my list.” I wet my lips and force a smile.
Mylo promised me that the guy from last night was nothing to worry about, which means he’s still nothing to worry about today. This is the same stretch of beach as the Surf Shack. He’s probably just a wandering tourist intrigued by the lights. Exactly the kind of tourist I’ll need when we eventually get open. My heart slows back to normal as I turn back to Simon. “What do you think of Intrigue Restaurant?” I throw out at his concerned frown.
“I think I now understand why you looked so troubled. That’s your worst yet, sweetness.” The pinch to his lips screamssorry not sorry.“Let’s get you and your intrigued little mind home.”
My laugh evaporates the last of my unease, and I swipe closed my cell and slide it back into my pocket. “Help me lock up and we’re out.”
Half an hour later, I’m sitting cross legged on the sofa scrolling the delivery status of the silverware on my cell. It should have been here yesterday.Tomorrow. It now says tomorrow. I lean to the side to put a question mark next to it on my to-do list. Crockery and glassware are already here. One of the ever-growing piles of boxes by my front door. Drinks order has been made.Tick, tick.Simon’s dealing with the food suppliers.Tick.I lift my latest list of potential names from beneath my to-do list.
The Secret Garden
Colored stones Restaurant
Zi’s Place
Rivas Restaurant
Intrigue Restaurant
Why is it so hard to decide on a goddamn name? I bounce my pen off my knee and stare at the pitiful number of options I’ve come up with. I can’t get the advertising set up or the menus printed until I decide.
Banging on the door drags my head up from its useless staring. I swipe my cell open to check the time. Almost midnight. It can only be Mylo.
“It’s open, come in,” I yell surveying the chaos of my planning lists, my faded out black Beach Hut T-shirt and green fluffy socks, and the empty glass and plate on the coffee table, nerves I hate that I feel tickling up the back of my neck.
I blink up at Mylo when he strides through the door, dropping his backpack by the pile of boxes there. “You survived your first day!”
“Yup.” He rolls his shoulders and smiles at me, hair pulled back in its usual knot, nose and cheeks slightly pink from the sun. “It was a good day.”
My lips part, to ask why he’s so late. I press them together before the question can escape.
His black T-shirt is stretched across his massive chest, loose board shorts cutting off at thick calf muscles. My heart stutters like it did the very first time he walked into the Beach Hut, but there’s something else there now too, something a tiny bit bruised and slightly tarnished from last night. He apologized. I accepted. “Did you love it?” I ask instead of the million other questions rattling around my head.They don’t matter. I have his now.
“I did.” Something in the set to his brow makes me wonder if he feels it too, this new awkwardness wrapping us. He crosses the room and lowers his big body down to sit on the coffee table in front of me. “I missed you though.” That steely gray gaze of his scans my face.
And the knot that’s been wrapped around my insides since this morning loosens. “I missed you too.”
“In that case…” His tawny eyebrows raise, and he drags his bottom lip through his teeth before leaning forward and planting his fists either side of me on the sofa. “Clothes off, Mackenzie.”
“Excuse me?” I clamp my bottom lip between my teeth to stop my surprised laugh from escaping. His face is millimeters from mine, his body hovering in all its massiveness over me, a playfulness I never thought he possessed sparking in his eyes.
“You heard me.” He dips his head and kisses the corner of my mouth. “It’s been too long…” He holds my stare, then dips to kiss the other side of my mouth “Since…” He presses his mouth to mine, his tongue tickling my top lip just enough to have my skin goose pimpling and my nipples hardening against the soft cotton of my T-shirt. “I’ve watched you come around my cock.”
I nearly choke on my tongue. Jesus, what? Mylo’s voice on its own is the most perfect blend of gritty smoothness I’ve ever heard, but Mylo’s voice over dirty words? It completely, and I mean completely scrubs away every single other thought and doubt and care in my head. No easy feat.
“Too much?” He pulls back ever so slightly to take in my face, but the smile still tickling the corner of his lips gives him away, the real Mylo. The man before the cancer, and the nightmares is coming back and I am here for it.
I lift up off the sofa and nip his chin before grabbing the hem of my T-shirt and dragging it over my head. “Do your worst, Big Guy.”
THIRTY
Kenzi
