“It’s the best offer you’re going to get. Do us both a favor and take it.” The huge grin that spread across his face made me think whoever was on the other end of the call had decided to say yes. “Don’t forget, the deal hinges on you taking care of the matter we discussed. Immediately.”
He listened for a moment longer. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”
“A business call at”—I looked over at the Sweetwater Brewery clock on the wall—“almost midnight?”
“I’m not very patient when it comes to something I want.”
I was saved from responding to that loaded statement by the ringing of the phone on the wall behind the bar.
“Club Cache. This is Addilyn. How can I help you?”
“Hey, Addilyn. It’s Bob Stone.” I held back a deep sigh as I waited to hear what the owner wanted. Calls from him generally left me feeling pissed off, like last month when he decided we needed to wear sexy leprechaun outfits for St. Patrick’s Day. The guy was a moron, but I couldn’t complain too much since he hired me on as a bartender when I was only nineteen and had no experience. In that case, his habit of thinking with his little brain worked in my favor. Since then, not so much. “Listen, I’m making some changes to the schedule for the week. And… well… I need you to drop some of your shifts to open space up.”
My shoulders drooped. “How many?” I asked softly, hoping he meant one or two at most.
“All of them, from now through next Sunday.”
“Are you kidding me?” I snapped. “That’s all of my Spring Break, Bob. I picked up several additional shifts. I’m supposed to work every single day between now and then.”
“I know,” he sighed, sounding like I was the one putting him out when he’d just yanked the rug out from under me. “That’s why I’m going to cut you a check for all the hours you were supposed to work plus lost tips.”
My gaze darted around. I was sure he wasn’t being serious since he didn’t even offer us paid sick time. “Is this a trick? Are they filming a reality show here or something?”
“No,” he barked. “I’m trying to do the right thing since this is a last minute change that’s out of your control. But if you want to be a bitch about it, I can fire you instead.”
“Bitch? Who? Me? No way,” I denied as innocently as possible. “I’ll be here with bells on to pick up that check whenever you say.”
Just like that, I suddenly found myself with nine days of freedom on my hands… and I had a hot guy staring at me who I might even want to spend some of it with. Maybe.
3
Dane
Bob Stone was a lucky bastard. If I hadn’t already made him an offer to buy the club, I would have had it shut down after listening to Addilyn’s side of their conversation. I still might, depending on how things went, so maybe he wasn’t quite so lucky as I originally thought. Reneging on a deal with a guy who treated her like that wouldn’t make me lose too much sleep.
On the surface, it seemed crazy, me buying the club because I wanted Addilyn to have free time to spend with me. In reality, it was a calculated risk with very little downside since I already had a buyer lined up. I’d managed to talk my buddy around to the idea of me buying the place instead of him, but I promised to find him the perfect place to invest in as a way to make it up to him. If I decided I didn’t want to own the place, I could easily turn around and sell it to him.
“Whose ass do I need to kick?” I asked when she made her way back to me.
She shook her head and laughed. “Nobody’s.”
“You sure? That conversation made it sound like someone deserves it.”
“Oh, he does,” she sighed. “But he’s my boss, and he’s giving me the week off paid so it’d be cutting off my nose to spite my face if I asked you to do it.”
“A whole week off, huh?”
“More like nine days, actually.”
A lot could happen in nine days, or at least I was banking on it. “Starting when?”
“Right now, even though I still have a couple of hours left on my shift. My boss told me I should leave.” She jerked her chin towards the other woman behind the bar, a brunette who looked to be closer to my age than hers. “I guess he figures that Heather can handle the bar on her own until we close.”
Bob bought himself a little consideration with that idea since I hadn’t specified that I wanted her on leave immediately when I’d made him my offer. But it sure as shit provided me with a golden opportunity since getting Addilyn to do something with me at midnight was bound to be easier than after two o’clock in the morning. “How about you give me my bill, cash out for the night, and let me take you out for a bite to eat?”
She narrowed her eyes at me for a moment before a mischievous glint filled them. “Can I pick the place?”
“Sure.”
“Anywhere I want?”
“Yes,” I agreed, fully expecting her to pick somewhere expensive with the look she was giving me. I learned exactly how wrong my assumption was when we pulled up in front of a fast food place with a front entrance shaped like a little brick house about half an hour later. “Really? I tell you I’ll take you anywhere, and you picked Chick-fil-A?”
“What can I say?” She shrugged her shoulders as she climbed out of my rental car. “I love their chicken nuggets.”
I followed her, sliding her hand into mine and pulling her to my side as we walked towards the glass doors. “Lucky for you, I do too.”
“I think you meant to say it was lucky for you, since you’d be stuck eating here even if you didn’t like it because you already said we could go wherever I wanted,” she laughed, tugging me away from the glass doors and towards a tiny red door on the brick house entrance.
Glancing at the words next to it, I groaned. “Dwarf House is right; I’m going to have to crawl through that door.”
“But you’ll be doing it right behind me, so the view’s bound to be worth it.” She winked at me and wiggled her ass. I followed after her, my eyes glued to her ass as we entered the restaurant.
It didn’t take long before we had our meals and were seated at a booth towards the back. The place was more crowded than I expected it to be, but everyone else faded away as we ate and talked.
“What’re you studying at college?”
She leaned back in her seat, her hand frozen above the sauce packet she was about to dip a nugget into. “How did you know I was in school?”
“You’re twenty, and you mentioned being on Spring Break. It wasn’t hard to figure out from there.”
“Oh, yeah,” she mumbled, dipping her nugget lower. “I’m in the hospitality program at Georgia State University. It’s why I got the job at the club; I need four hundred hours of work experience for graduation.”
She couldn’t have come up with a more perfect answer if she’d tried, what with me being a bar owner and all. As we talked, my impossible attraction to her continued to grow. When we were done eating and she yawned, I was disappointed the night was about to end but determined to get her to agree to spend time with me the next day.
“Meet me for lunch tomorrow? Or technically today I guess,” I corrected after a quick glance at the clock on the dash of my rental car as I drove her back to her apartment near campus.
“Sure,” she answered hesitantly. “I guess I could do that since my calendar is suddenly wiped clean.”
“Try not to sound too excited about the idea of spending time with me, why don’t you?”
She burst into a fit of giggles that finally wound down a couple of minutes later when I pulled into the parking lot in front of her building. “Thanks for dinner and the ride home.”
“You’re welcome.” I climbed out of the car and shook my head when I found her shutting the door as I made it over to her side. I crowded her against it, resting my hands on the edge of the car’s roof to box her in. Her bright blue eyes widened in surprise. “That’s twice now where you haven’t waited for me to open your door.”
&nb
sp; “I can open them myself.”
“I know you can, but you don’t need to when you’re with me.”
“Umm, okay,” she agreed, her voice whisper soft. “But you don’t have to.”
I leaned closer, my mouth only a couple of inches from hers. “It makes me happy to be able to do things for you.”
“Oh.” Her sigh was a puff of air against my lips.
I lifted one hand away from the car to stroke up her neck and around to her jaw so I could tilt her head up. Her eyes drifted shut, and her lips parted. They were plump and pink, practically begging for my kiss. I wasn’t about to resist the temptation, not when it meant denying her as well. I started off slowly, barely touching my lips to hers.
That soft touch was enough for me to quickly want more. As I licked my tongue across her bottom lip, I tilted her head further back and slanted mine to the side. Her lips parted more, and I slipped my tongue into her mouth. Her taste was sweet and oh-so addicting. I could have spent the hours until sunrise standing there kissing her, but the sound of a catcall coming from behind us forced me to break contact.
“Shit,” I groaned, tearing my mouth away from hers. I was pissed off at the interruption, but I had nobody but myself to blame for kissing her like that in the middle of a parking lot. Blowing out a frustrated breath, I stepped away from her. “I guess I’d better get you up to your apartment.”
She nodded, a dazed look in her eyes. Taking her hand in mine, I let her lead me into the building and up to the sixth floor. When we stepped off the elevator, the sound of loud, thumping music filled the hall. Addilyn’s pace slowed as we neared a door towards the end of the corridor, and the noise grew louder with every step I took.
“Please tell me this isn’t your apartment.”
“Crap,” she mumbled, letting her head drop against the door. “My roommate’s plans must have changed. She was supposed to drive down to Daytona Beach for the week with her boyfriend, but I’ve been hearing rumors about him around campus. If she’s still here, throwing a party like this? I’m going to guess the gossip was true, and he’s now her ex.”
“Come back to my hotel with me.”
“I shouldn’t,” she sighed as she twisted the knob and pushed the door open. She took two steps forward before she abruptly stopped and gasped. Looking over her shoulder, I caught sight of three people in the living room. The girl was stripped bare and spread out between two guys. One was fucking into her with brutal thrusts while the other was feeding his cock down her throat. I yanked Addilyn back into the hallway and slammed the door shut.
“You’re coming to my hotel with me.” Her lips parted, but I didn’t give her the opportunity to speak, on the off chance she was planning to argue with me. “I’m not asking, Addilyn. I’m telling.”
4
Addilyn
Even though I was standing in the living room area of Dane’s suite, I found it hard to believe that I ended up in his hotel room the same night I met him. I spotted a King sized bed through the open door and almost hyperventilated.
It was a first for me, in more ways than one. Not only had I never gone out with a guy from the bar, but I’d also never gone to a hotel with a guy before—regardless of how I’d met him. Not even after prom.
A series of strange events over the night had led me to Dane’s hotel room, and I couldn’t even bring myself to regret it. Not yet, anyway. Not with the way I’d reacted to him the moment he’d walked into the bar. And certainly not with the hot-as-heck look he was sending my way. Or the way my heart fluttered when he’d been so protective of me back at my apartment.
“I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t been with me tonight.”
He stalked over to the mini bar and yanked a couple of airplane sized bottles of vodka from the fridge. He poured them over ice into two glasses and handed one to me before tossing his back in basically one gulp. He gave mine a pointed look when he was done, so I took a sip from it.
“When I think about what could have happened to you if you’d walked into that scene with nowhere else to go.” His voice was a low growl, as though the words were torn from his throat. “It makes me want to drive back over there and beat the shit out of your roommate and her lovers.”
I moved towards him, setting my glass down as I ran one hand up and down his spine hoping to soothe him. “Nothing would have actually happened to me. It would have just been awkward, walking past them to get to my room.”
“You can’t know that for sure,” he snapped. “Who knows where the hell she picked up those guys and what kind of shit they’re into.”
I hadn’t recognized either of them, although I hadn’t looked too closely either. Not after I realized exactly what I was witnessing. But considering the fact that my roommate had still planned on heading down to Florida with her boyfriend as I was leaving for the bar—and he wasn’t either of those guys— she couldn’t have known them very well. Certainly not well enough to invite them back to our place for some double penetration on our couch.
I didn’t mention any of that to Dane, though. He looked like he was close to going ballistic already. The last thing I needed to do was give him a reason to do what he’d threatened.
“Thank you,” I whispered, taking another step closer.
“Fuck, Addilyn. You don’t have anything to thank me for.”
“You’re wrong,” I disagreed. “Thank you for being such a good sport about dinner. For being a gentleman and insisting that you’re going to open my doors for me. For walking me up to my apartment instead of dropping me off in the parking lot. For getting me out of there as quickly as possible. For giving a damn about me, even though we only met tonight.”
As I rattled off all the reasons I was glad to have met him tonight, he turned towards me and pulled me into his arms. “What if what I want to do next is the opposite of being a gentleman, especially since we just met?”
I only had the craziness of the night to blame for the leap of faith I took. “Maybe I’ll be just as thankful for the ungentlemanly side of you. We’ll never know unless you let your inner scoundrel out,” I trailed off.
“Scoundrel, huh?” The anger bled from his hazel eyes as they filled with humor.
“Yeah,” I laughed, wrinkling my nose. “It was either that or cad. I couldn’t think of a more modern word for it. I blame the English lit class I took last semester.”
“It doesn’t matter what you call it. If you want me to unleash that side of myself, you’ve got it.”
Warning bells should have been ringing so loudly inside my head that the whole floor of the hotel could hear them, but there was a sense of rightness instead. Like this was exactly where I was supposed to be, and absolutely the right person I was supposed to be with at such a pivotal moment in my life. “Yes, that’s what I want, Dane.”
He took me on my word, picking me up and tossing me over his shoulder as he stalked into the other room of his suite. He kicked the door shut and gently dropped me onto the mattress. In the short amount of time it took me to get my bearings, he’d already gotten his shoes off and was slipping out of the shirt he’d somehow managed to unbutton. Taking my cue from him, I kicked off my shoes but didn’t get any further before he climbed onto the bed with me.
“Let me,” he whispered against my neck, his breath hot against my skin. His fingers drifted down my sides, raising goosebumps along their path. When he reached the hem, he tugged my shirt up and over my head, lifting my arms right along with it. With my shirt gone, he settled my arms around his neck while he made quick work of my bra.
I didn’t feel shy or self-conscious, not with the way he stared at me with such blatant hunger in his eyes. His fingertips glided over my arms, across my neck and then down to my breasts. He slid his palms underneath them, hefting them upwards as he lowered his head down. At the first swipe of his tongue against one of my nipples, my back arched and lifted my breasts even higher. He tugged my nipple between his teeth, and my panties went from damp to soak
ing wet. I squirmed beneath him, as a needy little moan crept up my throat.
My reaction seemed to shatter his control. He groaned against my skin, sucking my breast as far into his mouth as he could get it. Then it felt as though his lips were everywhere, licking and sucking his way all over my body. Everywhere his mouth went, his hands followed—squeezing and caressing. When he reached my jeans, he swiftly unbuttoned them and worked the zipper down to draw them off my legs. As soon as they were off, he pressed my thighs apart. Lost in the feelings he was drawing out of my body; I didn’t resist. I just wanted more, and fast.
“You’re so fucking gorgeous, Addilyn,” he rasped. He brushed his lips over mine in a gentle kiss as I felt his fingers tug my panties down my legs. He lifted away from me, and his eyes scanned my body. A low growl rumbled in his chest, and he started pulling off the rest of his own clothes.
I watched, fascinated by each inch he bared to me. I wanted to trail my fingers over the muscles in his arms and lick every ridge of his six-pack abs. But every thought was wiped from my brain when he dropped his pants on the floor and leaned forward to cover my pussy with his mouth. I couldn’t focus on anything else as he flicked his tongue across my clit. It felt too good, driving me to the edge of an orgasm at warp speed. I reached down, burying my fingers in his hair as I lifted my hips up to his mouth.
He chuckled, his breath hot against me, as he continued to swirl around my sensitive clit. With his gaze locked on mine and a few more flicks of his talented tongue, I went flying. There wasn’t any other word to describe the intense pleasure of the most incredible orgasm of my life. The first one I’d ever had from anything other than my own hand or the small bullet vibrator I kept in my bedside table. Those orgasms felt good, but this one left me shattered.
Sex, Vows & Babies_Mixed Into Love Page 2