Page 39 of Rut Bar

That’s a good sign, right?

I save my documents and shut down my computer. Dan secures the building and walks the staff out to their cars in case the disgruntled alpha comes back. “Want me to walk you out, Miss Vee?” he asks.

“No, but thanks, Dan. You go home to your mates. Anthony and I are… going to do inventory.”

He grunts and looks at Jamie, who’s seated at the bar and drinking what looks like lemonade.

“Jamie volunteered to help… count bottles,” I supply. The excuse is weak, but Dan doesn’t talk much, let alone ask questions. Before I met his mates at the one-year anniversary party and saw him interact with them, I didn’t know he knew words that weren’t monosyllabic. I didn’t hire him for his elocution, after all.

My bouncer grunts again and leaves, and I do a last sweep to make sure there are no stragglers. Once I’m sure it’s empty, I sit on the padded stool next to Jamie and try to look unaffected, but my heart is beating against my ribs like a bird battering its wings against its cage. I can’t help but feel like I’ve made a deal with a devil.

“Well?” I ask, arching a brow. May as well get this over with.

“Have a drink.” Anthony slides another piña colada over to me, and all I can think about is how I didn’t hear him use the blender.

“Another one?” I ask, frowning, but I’m already reaching for it before actively thinking about it. My mouth waters as I look at the condensation sliding down the curved glass. There’s a wedge of pineapple balanced on the rim. It looks delicious as fuck.

“You were right. We’ll talk about boundaries while you relax,” Anthony says. “It’s been a crazy day and you’ve more than earned it.”

Oh. That’s actually sweet of him.“Sure.” I swivel the straw and wrap my lips around it and suck, nearly groaning with the first splash of pineapple and coconut and chipped ice on my tongue. “Seriously, what do you put in these? Crack?”

“No.” He grins and throws a bar towel over his shoulder, then crosses his arms over his chest. “Absolutely no illegal drugs in it. But I’m glad you like it. It’s Jamie’s special recipe, actually.”

“It is?” I swivel on my stool to observe the alpha dancer whose cheeks are pink. His eyes are glued to my lips, where they wrap around the straw. “This is your recipe? It’s fantastic. You should work on the daily drink specials with Anthony. What else can you make?”

“Uhhh…” Jamie scratches the side of his face. “I don’t remember the names.”

He doesn’t remember the names of his own cocktail mixes? “Umm… okay.”

“Blue Hawaiian. That’s tomorrow’s drink,” Anthony says. “Now, let’s talk about limits.”

“Fine.” I get ready for my usual speech, the one I give to all the alphas I pick from Heat Buddy whenever I need one. “I prefer to top, but on the rare occasions when I switch, I enjoy spanking, clamps, flogging, and light pain. Nothing heavy and zero bondage. No permanent marks or body modifications.”

He nods. “So choking, hair pulling, and calling you my pretty cum slut are all fine?”

I shrug one shoulder and stir my drink with the straw. “Yeah.” Words don’t bother me. It’s actions that matter.

“We already established you don’t mind a bit of rough handling. Jamie and I have a free use situation going on. Can I wake you up with my cock in you?”

If I decide to let them help me with my heat, that’s the least of my concerns. When I’m in a bout of heat delirium, I won’t care. “Sure. But don’t take that to mean you can do anything you want all the time. Work and play are separate. When it comes to work, I’m still your boss.”

He’s still for a moment, then he nods. “Fine by me.”

“And we need to talk about this public sex kink of yours.”

“Oh yeah?” He arches a brow and leans his elbows on the bar top.

“Yeah.”

Reaching over his prep station, I flick a finger and nudge one of his tiny mason jars toward him to annoy him. He likes to experiment with his own herb and fruit-infused liquors before he makes big batches for the bar. This one has blueberries in it. It smells like paint stripper to me, but he insists they’re classy and he needs them for his top-shelf gin cocktails. He hates it when anyone else touches them.

“If you take it too far, I’ll castrate you and wear your balls in this jar like it’s a necklace.”

Anthony lines them up again. “You’re gonna need a bigger jar,” he says, noncommittal.

I laugh, and then the crinkling of the skin around his eyes as he smiles makes me feel things I’m not comfortable naming. “So is this all you wanted to do with your carte blanche card? Talk?” My pelvis tightens with anticipation.

He fiddles with the berry jar until it’s perfectly in place and wipes his station clean. “Yes.”

---