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The week since my Prince Albert had kissed the back of Ariana De Luca’s throat had sent me spiraling to control my sex drive.
Like I was back to my preteen days, where all the action I’d gotten happened between the pages of a Playboy magazine or consisted of feeling a girl up in the back of the boarding school gym.
The gush of women Gio tossed my way didn’t stop flowing, but if anything, my already non-existent interest lessened.
I could have had her. I’d been buried deep inside her. But when I fucked her, truly fucked her, it wouldn’t be with a time constraint and her reservations looming over our heads.
What happened last week didn’t count. You didn’t eat the appetizer and call it dinner. What I wanted—what I needed—was to savor each taste of the main course and stay for dessert.
I wanted Ariana, and perhaps it’d happen.
She worked later than the rest of the crew, staying odd hours while all the lazy assholes left her to do most of the closing work. Her bonus at the end of the month would reflect her extra hours and effort, straight out of the paychecks of everyone else on her shift.
That also meant I could count on her to be out there right now—to tease, prod, and poke until she snapped, and we tumbled to the floor and hate-fucked our attraction out of our systems.
Then, I could move on, hire someone new, and gather some more distance between Ariana and Tessie, who grew increasingly attached to her by the second.
Hell, I’d rip Everett away from Elsa had he not already gotten attached to the witch.
I grabbed a few manila files to look at when I got home, secured my desktop, double checked that I had nothing laying around, and locked my office door on the way out.
In the bar, I’d expected to find Ariana wiping down the tables or lifting the chairs.
They had been cleaned, yes. But Ariana hadn’t left.
She sat at the bar, nursing an open bottle of vodka between her dainty palms. And not one of the small bottles. A bottle too big for her petite hands to fully grip.
A great chunk was missing from the bottle, more than someone her size should be drinking. She had her eyes closed, her head facing the ceiling as she hummed a melancholic melody that made me want to play along with my piano keys.
Instead, I approached her, set my stack of folders beside me on the bar top, and nodded to the bottle, though she had her eyes closed and couldn’t see me.
“That’s coming out of your paycheck.”
She peeked an eye open. “Are you always such an—”
“Asshole? Have you ever read a book with the same line over and over? It gets boring.” I didn’t relent as she closed her eyes and drew in a chest-shattering sigh. “Come on, De Luca. You can be more original than that.”
“I don’t want to be.”
“Okay. Care to explain why you’ve drunk your way through”—I eyed the four-thousand-a-piece bottle of Diva vodka—“a grand of vodka?”
She swiped a lock of hair away from her face, like the single strand was the source of her anger.
“It’s my deathiversary.”
I opened my mouth to ask her what the hell that meant, but she continued, more forthcoming than she’d normally be, thanks to the vodka.
I’d let her speak, because her secrets bothered me. I wanted to untangle them all until I reached the center where only she existed.
Fuck, these weren’t thoughts I should be having.
She set the bottle down on the counter and traced its rim with the tip of her finger. “My mom died today.”
Shit.
“Ari—”
“For once in your damn life, just let me speak.”
