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Ihaven’t slept, which is why I find myself tucked into a corner booth at Salt and Breeze the moment they open. A server, not my Skye, brings me coffee, and I settle in to begin my wait.
At first, the plan had been to surprise her, maybe with roses or something of the sort, but the more I tossed and turned last night the more I thought about the hesitation in her voice when she talked about her asshole manager. Saying I have a temper is an understatement, and just thinking about Skye being manipulated makes my blood boil in my veins. The animal part of me wants to steal her away, lock her in my villa and keep her there forever, lavishing her with gifts and anything else she could ever desire. In turn, she would carry my children, and we would be happy, far from anyone that would ever dream of putting their hands on my woman.
That animal part isn’t the only troublesome aspect of my personality, either. Raoul Damiano, oldest and most ruthless of the Damiano boys, expert marksman and killer of men, wants to just gut the manager like a pig and leave it at that. The world would be a better place without creeps of his nature, and killing him might be the first good deed I’ve ever done.
In a rare choice, I’m once again dressed down, this time because I just couldn’t imagine putting a suit on after so many hours of fraught insomnia. This choice serves me well when Skye walks in, and I make the split-second decision to pull the hood of my sweater over my head so I can watch her in anonymity. It isn’t that I want to hide from her, just that the opportunity to observe her like this is irresistible. I want to know everything about her…I crave any knowledge about her life that I can get. I want to hold those little facts like tiny jewels that no one will ever know but me.
Her presence changes the mood of the place immediately, her coworkers smiling and greeting her gladly. Skye looks around a few times, as if she’s nervous about seeing someone, but once it becomes clear it’s just her and a few other morning staff members, she relaxes. With her blond hair pulled up on the top of her head, I enjoy the sight of the long line of her neck and the few errant curls that escape to float about her face. I want to tuck them behind her ears, or, more urgently, bury my hand in those curls to hold her head in place while I ravish her mouth.
Wearing the same uniform, shorts and white shirt that the rest of the staff is wearing, Skye still manages to stand out. It’s easy for me to watch her between mouthfuls of hot coffee, memorizing her natural, unconscious movements and the way she carries herself. For only being eighteen, she seems sure of herself and confident in the way she has chosen to live her life, and that makes me even more attracted to her.
Last night, after getting back home after our time at the Palmetrum, I had no choice but to go to the shower and jerk myself off, one hand braced on the stone shower wall and the other wrapped around my painfully hard cock. I could taste her still, hear the little sounds she made when I dipped my tongue into her mouth, causing me to come in record time, white ropes of my spend covering my fist. It was only a momentary reprieve, because even afterwards, I was still hard. Nothing will completely sate me until I’m able to sink into Skye’s body for the first time and make her mine.
The server taking care of me stops by, but she quickly picks up on the fact that I’m watching Skye. She seems cautious at first, rightfully protective of her young coworker, but when I close out my check and tell her to just keep the change but not stop the refills, tipping her enough to make her eyes nearly bug out of her head, she no longer seems to mind where I focus my attention.
Now that I’m fully unbothered, I return to watching Skye, and therefore miss when the front door of the place opens and another man walks in. In sloppy business casual, with thinning hair and a weasel face, the man makes his way to one of the terminals and appears to clock in. The difference in his dress, and his age, makes it readily obvious that this must be Paul, the creep. I do a double take when this fact clicks together, and I can feel my temper already starting to rise. One hand skims my waistband, but of course, there is no pistol there. That’s my old life, this Raoul isn’t constantly carrying a firearm. Though now, I might want to rethink picking that habit back up. Even a garrote would be welcome.
It doesn’t take him long to zero in on my Skye, and when she sees him, her inner lightness visibly dims, shoulders slumping and head lowering.
Ah, well. I don’t like that one fucking bit.
Still, I keep myself anonymous, waiting for the bastard to give me any opportunity to take him out. I have to clench my fists as I watch him verbally scold her for something, but it gets worse when she nods, downtrodden. Paul’s expression changes from annoyed to satisfied, and he pats her on the back as if to comfort her.
I’m ready to launch myself out of my seat and tear his head off his shoulders, or at least break his nose with my fist, just because he’s touching her, but seeing Skye stiffen and her little shiver of disgust, my vision goes red. She hates this, but he’s in a position of power over her, so she just takes it, probably afraid to lose her paycheck. Paul continues to pat her back and talk to her with his head lowered, the words too quiet for me to hear, but then he makes the biggest mistake of his sad, pathetic life. Paul’s hand drifts from between Skye’s shoulder blades, to her lower back, and finally, cupping one asscheek in his slimy hand.
Everything happens at once, then, and I’m holding on to control by a thread. By control, I mean the self-control I have to exert not to strangle him here and now, because I already have him by the collar of his shirt, holding the little weasel up until his feet dangle.
Skye lets out a cry of surprise, and the spare number of other people in the restaurant gasps. I give Paul a little shake, savoring the terror in his eyes.
“You’re lucky I don’t kill you right here and now, you little fucker,” I growl. “If you ever eventhinkabout touching my woman again, I’ll rip your balls off and feed them to you, do you understand?”
“Who the fu—” Paul tries to say, but I just shake him harder. In the background, I can distantly hear Skye telling me to stop and pulling at my sleeve, but I can’t let myself be distracted.
“I said,do you understand?”
Struggling for breath, Paul can’t get another word out, and just nods instead. I drop him unceremoniously, and he crumples on the ground like used tissue paper. I observe him for a second, weighing my options, before bringing down my fist on the side of his head as he tries to stand. This time, he falls like a sack of flour, dead weight. I briefly wonder if I’ve gone too far with this pathetic little man, my body used to fighting other strong warrior-types, but his chest still rises and falls as he unconsciously sucks in air through his open mouth. Good. Exactly what I wanted.
Now that Paul is sufficiently dealt with, the ringing in my ears that helps me drown out anything else during an altercation dissipates, and Skye’s panic hits me hard.
“What have you done!?” she cries, her voice high and thready, before covering her mouth with her hands in shock. Looking from the man on the ground and then back to me, tears fill her eyes. Not ones of sadness, but ones of uncertainty, and maybe fear.
“Skye,” I start, reaching out for her, trying and failing to shut out the chaos now going on around us as people yelp or pull out their phones, either to record or make calls. Fuck, that’s bad news. I don’t need my face plastered across social media with some bogus headline. Skye jerks away from me, almost buzzing with anxiety.
“Don’t touch me,” she breathes, quietly enough that only I can hear.
This pisses me off, no matter how much I want to comfort her. “You can tell me that, but you can’t tell this asshole to stop groping you?”
Skye sputters, something about needing to keep her job, but my attention is drawn by the first camera click coming from some cellphone. Making the only call I feel is available to me right now, I jerk my hood back up, grab Skye by the upper arm firmly, and start to steer her out of Salt and Breeze.
She fights me…some, at least, but I chalk it up to the adrenaline that is more than likely pumping through her veins. There’s a good chance this is the first bit of violence my little Skye has ever seen with her own two eyes, when for me it’s unremarkable at best. Paul was still breathing, which made him one of my luckier victims.
“Settle,Tesorina. It was a necessary evil.”
“You’re crazy!” she hisses, but she’s already starting to wind down, only giving it the most nominal effort to pull her arm out of my grip.
“Yes, that was never in question. But unless you want to have to see me do a lot worse than that, we need to get out of here before someone slaps my face all over social media.”
“Why?”
