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A waiter walks past holding a plate of fluffy chocolate cake topped with shiny frosting and chocolate sprinkles. Autumn’s eyes follow it. Suddenly, my brain wonders how that treat would taste on her tongue, how that rich, sweet frosting would taste so much sweeter from her skin.
Christ, calm down,I internally beg my cock, which has been in a state of need since I laid eyes on her. For all my attempts at being civil and gentlemanly, Autumn brings out an instinct in me I’ve seldom seen before. An animalistic, feral sort of instinct.
“Finish your drink while I go sort the tab,” I tell her, thankful for the denim of my jeans hiding my erection as I stand.
“You paid yesterday!” Autumn says, licking a drop of her chocolatey coffee off her lips. My blood is on fire as I watch the movement of her tongue. Does she know how utterly, insanely, mind-bogglingly stunning she is? I regain my thoughts enough to answer.
“And I’ll pay every time,” I say, giving her a look that meansdon’t argue with me. Of course, she does, and of course, it only makes me like her more. No, this goes beyond merelike.
“You don’t have to?—”
“I’m well aware I don’t haveto,” I say gently, smiling even as I narrow my eyes at her, “But I want to. I want to spoil you fucking rotten, Autumn, in every way you’ll let me. So get used to it, sweetheart.”
Before she can find another line of argument, I slip away towards the counter, adding a slice of that cake to the bill as I pay. Takeout cake box in hand, I turn back to head towards my girl but freeze in my tracks.
Autumn isn’t alone at our table. No, there’s a guy—another waiter judging by his apron—leaning over the space I vacated, saying something I can’t hear from where I stand. But the look on Autumn’s face tells me all I need to know. She’s uncomfortable, and this guy needs to back the fuck away from her before I make him.
I cross the floor in record time, stopping beside Autumn’s chair. I set the cake box down in front of her and rest my hand on the back of her chair while I eye up the man who has gone utterly silent in my presence.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I grind out, any control I had on my instincts earlier long gone in this waiter’s presence. He wasn’t our waiter during lunch, but I vaguely recognize his face from the other times I’ve been here. Given what Autumn said about this being one of her favorite places, I’m willing to bet she does too.
And I already know there’s no forgetting a girl like Autumn, so I’m pretty fucking confident this isn’t the first time this waiter has set his sights on her.
He can’t fucking have her. She’s mine.
The shock slides off the waiter’s face, and he straightens and looks at me. I take him in. He’s maybe an inch or so shorter than me, and in the black t-shirt and apron he wears, it’s clear he’s muscular. Brown hair is cut close to his head and dark eyes light up in recognition as a smile sits on a mouth I’m thinking about punching.
“Oh, hey. You’re that fireman, right?” he asks like this is a civil, casual conversation and not fraught with tension. My hand clenches on the wooden back of Autumn’s chair. “The one who saved that kid from the well!”
Yes, I am, but right nowsavingpeople is the opposite of what I’m thinking about doing. I want to use all my knowledge of first aid that I’ve just refreshed in the drill to figure out how to hurt this man for leering at Autumn the way he was.
“Sorry, man, didn’t realize you were with her,” he says with a shrug.
“I asked you a question,” I growl at him, all my muscles tense.
“What? Oh, I was just chatting to her…”
“Why?” I snap.
The waiter raises his brows. “Pretty girl sitting alone,” he says like it’s obvious. “Thought she could use some company.”
“What did he say to you, sweetheart?” I ask Autumn without taking my eyes off this asshole. I don’t believe for a second his intentions were just to chat, and given the way he reacted when he realized she was with me—apologizing to me instead of her—tells me all I need to know about his character.
“Um…he just…” Autumn glances between us with wide eyes, and I see unease in their deep blue. “He said something about what I was…um…hiding beneath my jumper.”
I see fucking red.
In seconds, I push the guy away from the table, his stumbling steps taking him right up to the front window. His back presses against the glass, and the toes of my boots press against the front of his sneakers. I get in his face, giving him nowhere to go.
“Since your parents obviously failed to teach you basic fucking manners, let me fill you in,” I snarl at him, feeling more animal than man. My hands fist at my sides, muscles shaking with the sheer effort it takes me not to connect my knuckles to his face. “That is no fucking way to speak to a woman.”
“I was only trying to give her a compliment!” the waiter stutters.
“A compliment?” I repeat back to him, my voice laden with all the disgust I feel for him. “You think leering at her and making inappropriate comments like that is a compliment? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Look, I said I was sorry?—”
“To me! I’m not the one who deserves an apology. Make your next moves very fucking carefully because I’m about two seconds away from seeing how thick that glass really is,” I threaten, imagining shoving him straight through the front window he’s against.
