Well, as peaceful as it could be. I was on edge wondering Kellan’s next move was going to be.
Dante had come in for a couple of cookies and asked for whatever drink I made for Kellan. He was in and out within five minutes, and I made sure he didn’t take any pictures. They were up to something. They had to be.
I pulled the drain on the sink and started taking apart the espresso machine. This thing was my money maker, but damn if it wasn’t a pain in the ass to clean and take care off.
My head popped up as I heard a chair scrape across the floor. “What in the world?” I whispered. I was the only one here. I had done a walk-through before helping Sage carry her boxes out to her car.
I looked around and held my breath. The noise sounded like it had come from the corner Bess always sat in. Unfortunately, from the counter, I couldn’t see all the way back there. I patted my pocket for my phone and realized I had again left the damn thing at home. “When are you going to start remembering your damn phone, Mol?”
Another chair rattled, and I clutched my hand to my chest. What was going on? I edged over to the cordless phone next to the cash register, and slowly grabbed it from the base. My finger was poised over the nine button when the lights flickered, and I hightailed it out of there.
I quickly dialed nine-one-one, slammed the front door shut behind, and peered into the coffee shop.
What in the ever-loving hell was going on?
**********
Kellan
I peered over the table and saw Molly with her face pressed against the front door, her hand cupped around her face, and her phone pressed to her ear.
“Shit.” I sat back on my knees and sighed. Fuck, all I wanted to do was scare the living shit out of Molly, and then get the hell out of dodge.
Somehow, Molly had left, and now I was stuck in her god damn cafe while she called Lord knows who.
I fired off an SOS text to Roman and prayed to God he came to save me before the cavalry came to rescue Molly.
Five minutes went by, and there was no reply from Roman. I checked my phone one last time and shoved the damn thing back in my pocket when I saw he hadn’t texted back. I looked over the table again and saw flashing red and blue lights. “Mother fucker.” She had called the damn cops.
Decision time: wait her out or come clean.
I watched Molly frantically motion her arms as she talked to the cop and pointed into the cafe. The cop put his hand on his gun and cautiously moved to the front door.
I bowed my head. I didn’t want to end up with a bullet in my ass, so I slowly stood up and held my hands over my head. Molly screamed when she saw me and flung her hand over her mouth. The cop drew his gun, and I knew I was close to being fucked.
“Stay where you are,” the cop yelled. “Put your hands over your head.”
I rolled my eyes and stuck my arms straight up. Did he not see I already had them over my head? “Molly, it’s me, Kellan!”
Molly smashed her face into the glass of the door. “Kellan?” she mumbled through the glass. She fumbled with the lock on the door, and the cop followed her inside.
“Keep your hands up!”
“Molly, can you please call off the cops?” I was annoyed and pissed off that my stupid idea backfired in such a spectacular way.
Molly stopped and put her hands on her hips. “What are you doing in here?”
I looked at the cop. “Can I put my hands down now?”
“Ma’am, do you know this man?”
Molly pursed her lips. “Define know.”
“Molly, for Christ’s sake!”
Molly stomped her foot. “Fine, yes, I know him. He’s not trying to kill me and steal all of the coffee.”
The cop nodded and tucked his gun back into his holster.
I lowered my arms. “Really, steal all of the coffee? You really think someone would do that?”
“Well, what was I supposed to think when shit starts moving, and I’m the only one here?’
Honestly, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “Um…I guess squeal like a little girl, and then I’d jump out, say gotcha and fucking leave.”
“Ma’am, would you like to press charges?”
My eyes moved to the cop. “Seriously?”
He held up his hands. “You say you know her, but she doesn’t seem too happy to see you here.”
“Molly, come on.”
She sighed and waved off the cop. “I know him.”
“Then, why didn’t you know that he was in your coffee shop?”
“Because I put out flyers to all my older customers to go to his karate studio for free classes, but not before he made a fake dating profile sending all these weirdos here for dates.”
The cop scratched his head. “Are you serious right now?”
Molly and I both shrugged. “It sounds a lot crazier when you say it like that.”
“But,” I added. “The whole reason I did that was because Molly is trying to get my karate studio shut down.”
Molly pointed her finger at me and shouted, “Because he’s loud!”
“We’re breathing!”
The cop shook his head and held up his hands. “I’m just going to write this off as a misunderstanding and call it a day. You two obviously have issues, but not any that the police department can help with.” He shook his head again and walked out the front door.
I ran my fingers through my hair. “Boo.”
Molly stalked over to me and stuck a finger in my chest. “You son of a bitch! What were you thinking? You scared the living shit out of me. I thought I was about to die.”
“I know, and then I was supposed to steal all of your coffee.”
“You hide in my cafe, make me call the police, and then you act like an ass.”
I widened my stance and looked down at her. “I didn’t make you call the cops. How was I supposed to know that you would freak out?”
“I’m pretty sure my reaction was typical for a single female all alone who hears shit moving around.”
“It was a chair.”
She pointed her finger in my face. “A chair that should not have been moving.”
“Move your finger out of my face.”
She clenched her teeth together. “Why should I?”
“Because I asked you to.”
His eyes flashed. “You didn’t ask, you told me.”
“Molly. Last chance,” I growled.
She shook her head and kept her finger in my face. “You can’t tell me what to do.”
I grabbed her shoulders, spun her around, and pinned her against the wall. I pressed my body fully against her and grabbed her arm that was smashed in between us. I reached for her other wrist and held her arms over her head. “No, but I can make you do what I want you to do.”
She twisted against my hold, but couldn’t budge. “You don’t play fair.” Her eyes flared with anger, and she shuffled her feet, trying to get her leg wedged between mine.
“And neither do you.” Her body moved against me, and I couldn’t fight the fact that she felt damn good.
“How is that so? I didn’t do a damn thing to you.”
I tightened the grip on her hands and leaned down. “Keep moving like that, and you’ll see real quick what you’re doing to me.” She bucked her hips into me, and all thought of being pissed off at her fled.
“Does everything have to be a game and go your way?” she hissed.
I ran a hand down her arm and along her side. Her breathing hitched. “It’s always nice when it does,” I whispered in her ear.
Her head tilted to me, my lips brushing against her skin. “Wow,” she muttered.
“I think you and I can come to a truce, Molly.”
She hummed absently and squirmed against me. “Truce?”
Molly was just as affected as I was being this close to her. I never noticed the swell of her breasts—which were pressed against me—or how she had curves under that damn apron she wore all of the time. Her dark brown
hair was pulled back like it always was, but small pieces had escaped her ponytail, framing her face. She smelled like coffee and tropical fruit. How that was possible, I didn’t know, but I knew every time I smelled coffee from now on, I was going to think of her. “I’m good with a truce. You call off the meeting, and I’ll stop with all the bullshit.”
Her body stiffened against me, and I could feel her mood change. She bucked her hips against me, and I knew she was pissed. I released her arms and stepped back. Her skin was flushed, and her breathing was heavy. “So, that’s what you’re going to do now?”
What was she talking about? This was far from a plan. This was me feeling her against me and wanting to know what she would really feel like under me. “Molly, I don—”
She swiped her hand in the air. “No. Don’t you ‘Molly’ me in that sexy voice.” She tried running her fingers through her hair but ran into the ponytail. “I can’t believe I didn’t see this coming. I should have known that this was coming.”
“What was coming?”
She frantically motioned back and forth between us. “You thinking that you could seduce me into giving you whatever you wanted.”
That wasn’t even what I had been thinking. My only plan was to scare her and then get ready for class. “You’re wrong.”
She shook her head. “I’m not wrong, and I can’t believe I was that stupid. You had me for like ten seconds, Kellan. Totally had me.” She pushed me out of the way and stomped over to the counter. She reached under it, grabbed a huge sleeve of cups, and started slamming them onto the counter.
“Molly, you’re not stupid.” Shit, she was probably one of the smartest chicks I knew. Molly could run circles around the girls I usually hooked up with. Wait, why was I comparing Molly to the girls I hooked up with? Molly wasn’t in that category. She was just the annoying coffee chick next door. I watched as she finished stacking the cups next to the coffee machine. Well, she was now the pissed off and annoying coffee chick next door.
“I’m onto you, Kellan.”
I walked to the opposite side of the counter from her. I decided it was probably for the best not to be so close to her for the time being. Before I could open my mouth, she was laying into me.
“This is war now, Kellan. To think that you could use your smoking hot looks and charm to get me to just roll over for you was low, but I should have seen it coming.” She shook her head. “So, now you get war. Java Spot and Powerhouse at war, and there can be only one winner.”
Now she was just talking crazy. Her ponytail was slowly falling down as she grabbed another stack of cups and angrily set them on the counter. I didn’t have a clue what to say.
I caught a glimpse of the clock she had sitting next to the cash register and knew I wasn’t going to be able to stay. Class started in half an hour, and Dante and I were the only ones there today. “I think you need to calm down, Molly. Whatever you are thinking is wrong. Way wrong.”
She shook her head. “Don’t you patronize me, Kellan. Run back over to your little karate studio and yuck it up with your friends on how you almost got the poor, pathetic barista to fall for you.” She threw an empty paper cup at me and stomped over to the sink. She turned the water on high and glared at me.
“That isn’t what I’m going to do, Molly. Although, I do need to leave, but that’s because I have a class to teach.”
Molly grabbed a remote from next to the phone and held it up to the ceiling. The radio she had quietly playing became a loud commercial as she turned it up. “Have a nice class, Kellan,” she shouted, dismissing me. She turned her back to me and watched the water pour into the sink.
I tried one last time to talk to her but the commercial had ended, and a loud, indie rock song had started playing. I threw my hands up in the air and knew talking to her right now was pointless. She wasn’t going to believe me no matter what I tried to say. “I’ll talk to you later, Molly,” I yelled.
She didn’t turn around but flipped me off.
I walked out and sighed. What in the actual fuck just happened?
One minute, I was scaring the shit out of Molly, then I was ready to kiss her, and now she’s pissed off at me, and I had no idea what to do.
I headed back to the studio, and Dante was sitting behind the front desk waiting for me. “You bring back some cookies?”
I rolled my eyes and headed to the bathroom. “No. Get your own damn cookies.” I slammed the bathroom door shut and leaned against the sink. I hung my head and tried to get a grip on what I was going to do.
Molly had looked hurt when she thought I wanted to seduce her and that fucking stung. I knew I wasn’t the greatest human being on Earth, but I wasn’t a scumbag.
Had I seduced girls before? Oh yeah. Had I seduced them to get something I wanted before? No. The fact that she thought I was capable of being that big of a douchebag sucked.
When she had put her finger in my face and given me attitude, something had changed. I noticed her body, the way her nose crinkled when she was pissed, and how her fingers looked like just the right size to curl around my dick and make me cum all over her hand. “Jesus Christ,” I cursed.
When had Molly turned into someone I wanted in my bed?
I looked in the mirror, trying to find the guy I had been before I went over to the cafe, because the guy staring back at me right now was completely different.
I wanted her to cancel the meeting, but now I also wanted her. I couldn’t have the two at the same time.
I was royally fucked.
**********
Molly
“Are you sure this is a good idea?”
It had been a week since I had called the cops on Kellan, and I hadn’t seen him since. That was about to change. “Yes.” It was the only idea I had at the moment. Well, that wasn’t exactly correct. I had thought of water balloon bombing him, but that was my repressed thirteen-year-old coming out.
I packed the last of the cookies into the box and closed the lid. Sage took the box and loaded it onto our cart. “I don’t know if they can handle twenty-five kids hopped up on cookies for their lessons.”
They probably couldn’t. That was why it was a brilliant idea. “It’s customer appreciation day, Sage. He can’t blame me for giving away free cookies to everyone to celebrate my anniversary.”
Sage laughed. “And what anniversary was this again?”
I counted in my head. “My five year and ten month anniversary.” Give or take a few days.
“You have officially lost it. I knew it was only a matter of time all of those sleepless nights thinking up new coffee drinks were going to catch up with you.”
I glanced around the cafe and put my hands on the cart. Bess had agreed to man the counter for me while Sage and I handed out the cookies in front of the karate studio. I was hoping this was going to take fifteen minutes tops, and I would be safely tucked back in the cafe away from Kellan. “I haven’t lost it. I just declared war, and now, I need to follow through.” I had been on edge all week waiting for Kellan to do something, but all has been quiet. Now, I was going to make the next move before he did.
I wheeled the cart behind me, around the building, and parked it directly in front of Kellan’s door. “Did you see them?” I asked.
“No, I was afraid to look in the windows. Did you see them ?”
I shook my head and tugged my apron down. “No. I didn’t want to chicken out.”
“Then why are we doing this, Molly?”
“Because you weren’t there, Sage. You didn’t see what he tried to do to get his way.”
Sage bumped me with her shoulder. “Molly, you need to calm down. I know what he did sucked, but you need to get over it.”
I couldn’t get over the fact he thought he could just pin me against the wall, make me think he actually wanted me, and then have me agree to call off the meeting. No way, no how. I was not going to be duped like that. “It’s war, Sage.”
She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. �
�You do know they are going to come out here as soon as they figure out what we’re doing, right?”
They could come out here. I didn’t care.
Cars started pulling up to the front of the building, and I knew it was go time. “All right, it’s show time, Sage. Big smiles, and hand out these cookies.”
Kids came running up to us, and I happily gave them two cookies each, explaining that they had two hands, and they might as well have a cookie for each. We explained to the parents about the customer appreciation day, and Sage gave them each a small vanilla latte. “Holy crap, there are a ton of kids,” Sage mumbled as I grabbed the last tray of cookies.
There were a ton of kids, and that just made me even happier. A room full of kids all hopped up on sugar was the perfect revenge Kellan deserved.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
My back straightened at Kellan’s voice, but I didn’t turn around. Another wave of kids came towards us, and I loudly explained my theory of two hands deserved two cookies.
“Have a good day,” I called as the last kids scurried by with their parents following behind.
“Molly,” Kellan called.
I set the empty tray on the bottom of my cart and turned around.
My eyes raked over his body and took in his baggy white pants, black belt, black, fancy karate top, and the scowl on his face.
Kellan was hot.
Kellan was pissed.
Mission accomplished.
“Yes?” I said sweetly. I clasped my hands in front of me and smiled up at Kellan.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
I motioned to my cart. “Oh, this?” I asked. “I was just showing some good ol’ appreciation to some of your students.”
“Why?” he growled.
“Because they come into the shop sometimes, and since today is customer appreciation day, I figured I would sneak over here quick and let them know how much I appreciated them.”
He crossed his arms over his chest, and I swear I could see smoke rolling out of his ears. “Molly.”
Dropkick My Heart: Powerhouse M.A. Series Page 8