by K. R. Haynes
“You forgot to put the damn meat order in. What the hell am I meant to serve the customers if there’s no blasted meat, Mary J?”
“What do you mean no meat? I put the order in, I swear I did.”
“You couldn’t have, Mary J. Otherwise I would have a fridge full of meat to cook for our customers and not a fridge threadbare of the iron goodness.”
“I don’t understand, I remember personally faxing it through the other day. Have you tried calling our supplier to see if there is some kind of delay with our order before you came barging in here?” Mary J knew her tone was sounding more exasperated the further the conversation went. But, hell it just didn’t add up. They had never had an issue with their meat supplier up until now.
Her temper rose sharply when she heard the chef yell back at her, “Of course the fuck I haven’t that’s your job.” Then he turned and stormed out of her office just as quickly as he had entered it. Fine, if Jerry didn’t want to call them then she would, and find out what the hell was up with their order. She would also persuade them into making an emergency delivery while she was at it too. The cost of the freight would be expensive. However, she had no other choice and her boss would hopefully understand. That was if he bothered to show up. The owner of the pub, who was also her boss, spent more time away from the pub than he did in it. It was going to be one of those days today, she could just feel it.
Later that evening, when she finally managed to drag herself away from the pub and head on home, Mary J was beyond exhausted. She was thankful the pub had been quiet enough to allow her to finish up earlier than expected. Plonking her tired ass down onto the sofa with a bottle of beer in one hand and the television remote in the other, she switched on her favourite medical drama and settled in for an evening slumming it in front of the telly.
She usually missed out on watching most of the good stuff on the telly these days with her job at the pub taking up most of her time in the evening. She missed those nights where she could just slum it in front of the telly. And she really missed those occasional nights she had spent cuddled up close to a warm, hard, male body too. Her ex had never permitted her to cosy up to him on those rare nights they had both been home, but her first lover had and she had enjoyed that closeness being nestled in his arms. It had her mind wondering what it would be like to cuddle up close to Mick on the sofa while watching some cheesy-ass action flick. Would he allow her to do it? Would he hold her and caress her gently as they relaxed in each other’s arms?
Just thinking about Mick had memories of her brief encounter with him in the hospital chapel that happened just over a month ago stirring in her mind. Both her and Mick had been taking turns in keeping Chloe company in the hospital ward where Randall lay in a medically induced coma from the life-threatening injuries he had suffered from after a failed bomb disengagement. At the time it had been one of the most straining times in her life that Mary J could recall. The despair emanating from her best friend from the fear she could lose her lover was hard to deal with at the time. Mary J hadn’t known what to say or to do for her. She had tried to put herself in her friend’s shoes in an effort to get a better understanding of what Chloe needed from her. In the end, she came to the conclusion that all Chloe needed was for her to be there for her, to offer support and reassurance.
One night while comforting Chloe in Randall’s room, Mary J found she needed something to boost her own flagging spirits. So she had wandered the halls of the hospital for a while as Chloe dozed by Randall’s bedside. Her wandering had her ending up at the hospital chapel. It had been deserted at the time. The doors were still open even at the late hour she stumbled across it. There were even candles still alight from the previous visitors and they filled the small room with a soft golden glow.
Some people would call it fate that had her ending up at the chapel that night. Others would say it was god’s will. Whatever it was, Mary J had ended up there that night. She wasn’t at all a religious person, but that didn’t stop her from walking into that chapel or taking a seat on one of the back pews. Clasping her hands together in her lap and closing her eyes, she quietly prayed for Randall to make a full recovery from his injuries so he could continue on loving and living his life with Chloe and the future they had been building together.
Moments later when she reopened her eyes and looked around she was a little startled to find Mick sitting soberly beside her. She hadn’t heard him enter the chapel or even take a seat beside her. Her gaze found his through the subtle glow of the candlelight. A tear had broken free from her eyes and slowly slid its way down her cheek at the sight of seeing her own pain and despair reflected in his eyes. Her heart clenched when Mick had reached out and gently swept away the wetness from her cheek with a work-roughened fingertip while keeping his eyes fused to hers. His tender touch caused another tear to leak free then another and before she knew it Mary J found herself enveloped in his strong arms as she wept quietly, nestled securely in his embrace.
Once her tears had dried up he had dipped his head and encased her lips with his in a kiss so sensual and so soft she had moaned against his onslaught and the unexpected tenderness he showed her. It hadn’t been a rough or demanding kiss like she had expected from him. Instead it had been a soft brush of lips upon lips. It had made her knees weak and she was thankful at the time that she had been sitting down when he had kissed her. His tongue had tasted the corners of her mouth briefly, but never delved inside when her lips parted for his invasion. Then he pulled away, ending their kiss all too soon.
Thinking back on that one brief moment now, Mary J knew that had to be the main reason why Mick had been keeping his distance from her lately. She didn’t want his distance anymore. What she wanted was him close to her side and in her bed at night, holding her to him. To be embraced by his warmth and his fierce passion was what she needed from him. That, plus a whole lot more. What she didn’t need from him was having him making every effort to stay away from her.
Hearing her phone buzzing in the kitchen, Mary J quickly rose from the sofa and switched off the telly before dashing into the kitchen to answer it. After saying “hello” twice, all that came back to her was a male breathing heavily down the phone line. Feeling a little creeped out by it, she slammed the receiver back down, effectively disconnecting the call, and yanked the phone’s cord from the wall. Turning away from the now unplugged phone, she headed out of the kitchen and down the hall to her bedroom. Stripping out of her clothing, she slipped into her cold, empty bed and let sleep come to her and hoped that her dreams were filled with a tall, dominating male who looked very much like a certain Bomb Squad officer, Mick Huon.
Chapter Four
Mick strolled through the pub’s front entrance and made his way over to the front bar. He almost groaned loudly when his eyes fell on Lucy’s silhouette sitting up at the bar. Goddamn it, she was the last person he wanted to see tonight, especially after a long day down at the station. He knew he had to be polite to her though. He couldn’t exactly ignore her. That would only make the situation more awkward than it needed to be. Noticing Mary J’s absence from behind the bar, Mick figured he’d better get this meet and greet over with, then he could get on with the real reason for showing up here tonight.
As he made his way over to where Lucy sat, she turned on her stool to face him. Her lips instantly curved up into a flirtatious smile when she set her eyes on him. Just the sight of it had Mick groaning inwardly. He tried to hide his discomfort from her when he leaned in and brushed a polite kiss to the side of her cheek and offered up a terse hello to her, before hitting Christian up for a beer.
“Well, hello to you too, sexy. Care to join me for a drink?”
Mick amicably declined Lucy’s offer and picked up his beer and took a long swallow. Placing the beer back down he turned his attention back to the barman, while Lucy strolled off to look for another playmate for the evening. “Hey, mate, is Mary J on tonight?”
“Yeah, she’s out the back in her offic
e doing paperwork.” Mick watched as Christian reached over and took out a couple bottles of beer from the small fridge near him and popped the tops off and placed them down in front of him. Mick raised an eyebrow up at the barman in a silent question. “She needs to be disturbed,” Christian advised him then. “She has been out there for hours now and probably hasn’t taken break either. Give her one of these and she might be more accepting at having you out there with her.”
Downing the rest of the beer from his glass, Mick picked up the two bottles of beer after thanking Christian for the free drinks and strolled off in the direction of the rear offices where Mary J was lying low. He smirked to himself now knowing that his feisty barmaid was a beer-drinking woman. One thing he loved the most was a woman who could enjoy the cooling amber liquid like himself at the end of a hard day’s work.
Coming to a complete stop outside her office door, Mick could hear Mary J muttering and cussing to herself from behind the closed door. Reaching out he lightly tapped on the door with the back of his hand and groaned at hearing her terse “enter.” Turning the knob and opening the door to step inside, he couldn’t stop the sly smirk from forming at his lips. Oh, this was going to be a fun experience because she already sounded mildly pissed off and when she set her sights on him, no doubt her pissed-off attitude would only inflate higher and higher.
Closing the door quietly behind him with his booted foot, Mick stood there for a minute drinking in the sight of her hard at work on the computer. Her posture looked tense as she frowned down at something on the computer screen. Her long coppery-red curls flowed wildly around her shoulders and softened some of the tension he could feel emanating off of her. When she glanced up at him, he winced when she narrowed her eyes at him angrily. Oh yeah, she was in one hell of a feisty little mood tonight all right.
Stepping up closer to the desk, he held out one of the beers in his hand for her to take. “Here, I brought a peace offering in for you.”
The muscles in his jaw twitched at seeing one of her neatly manicured eyebrows rise up as she answered him. “And why would you need a peace offering to see me, Mick?”
“You know damn well why, Mary J. Now here, take this will you and be done with it.”
The look on her face told him he had just said the absolute wrong thing to her. Shit.
“Be done with it? And what exactly should I be done with, Mick?”
“Like I said, you know damn well why.” He growled at her and couldn’t help doing it either.
He nearly laughed at her though when she snatched the bottle of beer from his hand and took a large sip of it before answering him. “No, I don’t know, so why don’t you enlighten me. I’m all ears.” Her no-nonsense voice made his dick lengthen in reaction to hearing it.
“Do I really need to spell it out to you, sugar?”
“Yes.”
He groaned at the sight of the small knowing smirk curving at her lips, the same lips he was desperate to taste again. That one night in the hospital chapel where he first kissed her had been too short lived for him to have a decent taste of her, and only left him craving more of her sweet taste on him.
“Fine, you win all right. I’ve come here to apologise to you.” Mick held up his hand when she tried to butt in. “I shouldn’t have shown up the other night with my date.”
“No, you probably shouldn’t have. But then again, you have every right to be dating, Mick.” She surprised him with that answer and then shocked him even further when she added on quietly, “Do you regret what happened between us that night in the chapel? Is that why you flaunted your date in front me the other night?”
“Now wait just a damn minute there, sweetness, before you go accusing me of doing wrong by you. For one thing, I never intentionally flaunted my date in front of you and I’ve just apologised for it, so far as I’m concerned it’s history. Secondly, I don’t regret a damn thing when it comes to you or even when I’m with you.” Oh shit, did he just say that out loud? A quick glance at Mary J and Mick knew he had. The shocked look on her face was clearly evident from hearing his untimely admission. He would be the first to admit that he had just screwed this whole evening up by having a slip-of-the-tongue moment. Fuck.
Scrubbing a hand roughly through his hair, Mick raised his gaze to hers and forced the words that he needed to say to her out of his damnable mouth. “I’m going about this all the wrong way. Look, Mary J, I just came here tonight to apologise to you for the way I acted the other night. That’s all.”
Disappointment flashed in her eyes for a moment and Mick wanted to kick his own ass for putting it there. He really did suck at apologising to her and his efforts at trying to woo her sucked even more. Christ, he was going to need to do some serious grovelling to fix the mistakes he had made with her, so they could both move past this and move on to the more pleasurable activities he had in mind for them.
But seeing Mary J cross her arms over her chest as she moved from behind her desk to stand in front of him only increased his need to see her submit to him. Christ, even his dick was getting on board at seeing her little act of defiance. His cock was throbbing like a son of a bitch, all because it wanted out of his jeans so it could dive straight into her luscious heat.
Right then, Mick could hardly wait for the day when he could strip her naked and tie her spread eagle to his bed, so he could give her so much damn pleasure she would be begging him for release time and time again. However, instead of acting on those erotic urges of his, he settled for something more romantic by tucking an errant curl behind her ear. Her eyes were simmering with heated lust when she gazed up at him through lowered lashes. Slowly and tenderly, he brushed the back of his knuckles down her cheek and smiled to himself at hearing her soft intake of breath.
Staring deeply into her eyes, he leaned down so his lips were almost touching hers and then whispered to her, “I’ll never regret anything when it comes to you, sugar. I care for you too much to ever regret a single thing.” Mick then turned his head slightly and pressed a delicate kiss to her cheek, before straightening back up. He then turned away from her and walked out the room leaving her staring after him.
Mick kept on walking down the hall and headed towards the front doors of the pub so he could jump into his truck and head on home. He came to a complete stop though when he saw Lucy Walker staggering in the same direction he was headed in and grimaced. He knew he had only two options then, one of them was to be a bastard and walk straight past her without assisting her, or pick option two and help her outside and take her home himself. He chose the latter of the two and for once luck was on his side, as Lucy refused his offer of a lift, saying she had picked up some hot stud for the night and he was taking her back to his place for an all-night romp-a-thon. Okay so that was more information than he really needed to know. So he just dismissed it and linked her arm through his and escorted her outside to the dark SUV waiting for her. He didn’t bother to help her into it, figuring she wouldn’t want his inference, not with her “hot stud” being there and at the ready. So he turned away from her and beat feet back to his truck.
On the drive back to his place, every thought that raced through his one-track mind was of Mary J. He had visions of putting his achingly hard cock to good use, by stripping her nude and spreading her out on her desk and fucking them both to completion or even laying her out on the bar, spreading her thighs wide so he could feast on the treat that was her pussy. He could spend hours lapping up her hot, silky syrup as she came for him over and over again. Nonetheless, no good could come from him acting on those fantasies of his. He needed to cool his heels for a day or two and allow her time to accept his apology. One day though, he would make at least one of those fantasies of his a reality, just not tonight.
He had absolutely no intention of letting her push him to one side either. She was his, it just hadn’t happened yet. Soon though he would make her his in every way a man and a Dom could. Plus, after tonight, he was pretty certain he was getting past the whole a
ge-gap thing. It still bothered him that he had feelings for a woman almost ten years his junior. Mary J deserved a man more around her own age group, not some old-timer almost a decade older than herself. Hell, she deserved to be cherished and loved by a man who could offer her everything she could ever possibly need or want. The question was, could he be that man she needed him to be? God, he hoped so. He would go to the ends of the earth to make it happen too.
He wasn’t a fool by any means. Mick was fully aware Mary J still wanted him. He could see it in the depths of her sea-green eyes and sensed it in the way her breathing hitched when his lips had been oh so close to hers. She wanted him to take her lips with his, and that so wasn’t happening, not yet. Nope, first she had to forgive him for being an ass, twice, and he was pretty certain she had done that the moment his lips had lingered near hers. Secondly, he needed her to believe in him. He wanted her to understand that he didn’t just want her in his life. He needed her in it. He didn’t want any other woman and he only wanted her.
So for now he would leave her panting and breathless and in want for something only he could provide her with. Then when the time was right, that feisty barmaid wouldn’t know what hit her when she ended up naked and bound to his bed for him to pleasure that delectable body of hers.
Mary J Sinclair was his and no one would stand in his way of him claiming her heart and conquering his desire to be with her so completely.
Chapter Five
“So, Mick apologised to you then? Gee, that was big of him,” Chloe muttered to her while stabbing a fork into her salad.
“Yeah I know right? I just don’t know what to do with it now though. God, I’m so confused when it comes to him, sweetie. I don’t know if I should be coming or going when it comes to that man, I swear,” Mary J confessed to Chloe.