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This isnotin the script, but I shoot him a wobbly smile. “I’m okay, just woozy. I’ll be fine in a second.”
The pencil drops. And for a big man, Kingston can move in a flash, because the next moment he’shere, looming over me. Callused hands brace my shoulders.
“You’re dizzy?” he asks.
WellnowI sure am. But I bite my lip and shake my head, because even though Kingston Holt is scary as hell, this is the best job I’ve ever had, and I don’t want to mess that up. He runs a tight ship, and I don’t want him to ever think me a slacker.
“I’m good. I’m fine.”
Kingston grunts and leans down, peering closely into my eyes. He clearly doesn’t believe me, and with him this close… I forget to breathe.
He smells like spice and sweat and cedar wood.Freshsweat, and oh lord, why does that make me want to lick his neck?
This man is dangerous, like my Mama said. Rumor has it he did time once as a young man—and not for a nonviolent crime. Besides, he’s at least a decade older than me, maybe even pushing two, and he makes me look like a puny little matchstick girl next to his massive body. He could crush my shoulders with a single squeeze of his fingers.
“Sit down for a minute,” the boss says, and it’s not a suggestion. Like everything from him, it’s a command. He drags a stool over and steers me to it, plopping me down so abruptly I grab his forearms for balance.
We freeze.
Kingston drops his gaze slowly, so slowly, staring at my hands on his bare skin. They look so pale and fragile against his inked, corded muscles.
“Sorry.” I snatch my hands back like he burned me, but it’s too late. This is all wrong. All out of our usual routine, and as my boss straightens up again to his full height, my cheeks burn with embarrassment. “S-sorry. I’ll finish up with the tables and everything in just a second.”
Kingston grunts. He watches me for another long moment, scratches the stubble on his chin, then finally,finally, turns away.
Kicking my heels against the legs of my stool, I feel like the world’s biggest melon. All this fuss for a little head rush. But I know better than to hop up too soon, even with my head clearing fast, not when the boss ordered me here. He’s the king of this castle.
So I scrub my damp palms down my jeans and stare dry-eyed around the bar. The bare brick walls, the dark floorboards, the wooden rafters in the ceilings—it’s all more familiar than my bedroom back home at this point.
It looks smaller, somehow, with the crowds all gone. You’d never believe we fit half the town in here every Saturday night.
Oh, folks are scared of Kingston Holt, but that doesn’t stop them coming here to drink and gawk. Personally, I think they like the taste of danger; the little thrill that comes from drinking in a dangerous man’s bar.
Hey, it’s not like I can judge. Being around my broody boss gives me the same shivers as when I was a little girl, seeing a tiger for the first time in the zoo.
He’s powerful. Magnetic. So primal, even in that button-down shirt.
“Feelin’ better?”
Heart jolting, I lurch up off my stool. “Yep! Uh-huh. Way better.”
This man will never catch me slacking on the job. I want to work here until I go gray, like Arabella and Mindy who work the lunchtime shifts. This place is the best, even when I go home at night with sore feet and sticky hair.
“Go easy,” is all Kingston says, frowning as I magic up the cloth and cleaning spray.
“I will,” I promise, and then I have to start at the table in the farthest corner and face the wall, because I can’t bear for him to see me blushing like this.
Mama fusses over me nonstop when I visit her at home, but it’s different when Kingston does it. It’s not annoying.
It’s delicious.
And I won’t let it go to my head, I swear, but for tonight…
I’m giddy.
Two
Kingston
