“Hi,” I say.
“When did you start?” Shelby says.
“Cassie’s filling in,” Cash says. “Nerdy bookkeeper by day, hot waitress by night.”
“Like a superhero,” Shelby says.
“If you need a sexy sidekick,” Cash says, “let me know.”
“Why? Do you know someone?” I say.
Shelby laughs again, and reaches across Cash to take my hand in hers, not to shake it this time, but just hold onto it, like she’s welcoming me. “Cassie, I have a feeling we’re going to be friends.” The warmth of Shelby, Avery, and Ruby’s smiles makes my chest swell a little, like my heart has filled up with something wonderful. It’s been a while since I had girlfriends—really, even since before I left the U.S. Sebastian and I met here in Atlanta, and I fell for him fast and hard. I guess, looking back, it was infatuation, though I thought at the time it was love, but he quickly became my focus, and between him and work, I kind of let my girlfriends go.
Never again. In one night I may have made more friends here than I did in two years in England. And I’ve learned the hard way how important they can be.
“Cassie,” Ryder says as he approaches, and the sound of my name in his mouth launches little tingles of excitement throughout my body. “Did you quit while I wasn’t looking?”
I cock my head and smile, touching my tongue to my top lip. “Oh, Ryder, you know that’s not possible,” I say. “You’re always looking at me.”
He juts his chin forward, examining me, but before he can respond, Shelby says, “Give her a break, Ryde. We’re just getting to know each other.”
“Well, Cassie needs to get to know some other tables’ orders so we make a little money tonight,” he says. “Jackson can’t pick up everyone’s bill, you know.”
Shelby fishes into her clutch. “Here you go, Cassie,” she says, handing me a hundred dollar bill. “I’ll pay for this round. And keep the change.”
I do the math. Even with tax, their bill isn’t even forty dollars. “Shelby, that’s too much.”
“Believe me,” she says. “Working with these guys, you’ll earn it.”
I hold the bill up to Ryder. “Like what you see?” I say as I put it in my front jeans pocket, my tank top rising up slightly, baring the top of my hip, his eyes on my naked skin.
I can feel them follow me even as I head back onto the floor, and just as I’m about to introduce myself to a table full of good-looking, noisy guys crammed into a booth together, I feel a hand on my waist and warm breath in my ear. “My office. Now,” Ryder whispers, his voice cutting through the din of the bar like a warm knife through a soft peach.
“I thought you wanted me to take orders,” I say, adrenaline surging through me.
“I do,” he says. “Mine.” He holds my wrist as he leads me through the crowd, to the hallway past the bar, into his office.
CASSIE
CH. 10
With the door shut, the office is dark, but the blinds are open a little, enough to let in some light from the street outside, light that outlines Ryder’s tall, sturdy body standing in front of me. I lean back on my hands against the front of the desk. “My customers are probably parched,” I say.
“They’ll survive.” He puts his hands on top of mine, letting the weight of his body fall into me.
I look up at him, my heart pounding against my chest like a fist at the nearness of him, at the sensation of him restraining me. “I’m just trying to do as I was told,” I say. “You said we were here to work.”
“I’m the boss,” he says, “You’re here to do whatever I want whenever I want.” His mouth brushes my neck as he speaks, making every muscle in my body weaken.
“And what do you want right now?”
“You,” he says. “To shut.” His lips skim down my neck, across my collarbone. “The fuck up.”
“Such language,” I say. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
He raises his face to mine. “I kiss everything with this mouth.”
In the dim light, I watch as he draws his lips, slightly open but not puckered, in exploration along the tops of my breasts raised up and out of my tank top. His mouth moves up my arm, my shoulder. Overcome with the need to touch his soft, thick hair as it gently tickles my skin, I try to lift my hands from under his, but he presses his weight more firmly on me, circling my wrists in his fingers.
His lips crush into mine, our tongues stroking against each other as he pushes his body into me, and I can feel his hardness through his jeans pressing against the warmth between my legs as I spread them to either side of his.