Page 2 of Hold Him Like Gravity

Sometimes, she would say some shit that reminded me of the female capos I worked with. I once heard her threaten to put a man’s hand through a meat grinder, then make him a sandwich with it, and make him eat it. He’d grabbed her ass with that hand, so he had it coming.

But I liked the sass.

More than I probably should, given that I was her boss.

“Fuck yeah, it is,” I said, nodding, just wanting to get a rise out of her.

If anyone was hanging out in my alley, they’d get their asses handed to ‘em and they knew it. It was safe enough for her to be out there.

“I worked at an all-night bodega in the Bronx before this,” she told me, chin lifting defiantly. “Nothing in that alley could scare me.”

“Maybe not, but I’m pretty sure we don’t got a step stool out there to help you reach the dumpster,” I said, getting a little laugh out of her.

“That’s… fair. But I’m pretty sure I shouldn’t be having my boss do my job for me.”

“Pretty sure you should listen to your boss when he tells you to do something,” I shot back as I got to my feet and made my way across the room. “Go home, Kick. It’s late.”

Up close, the blueberry scent was almost overwhelming. I was so distracted by that that I almost missed the way her eyelids went heavier and her lips parted at the sound of her name on my lips.

Fuck.

Yeah, I didn’t need my only female employee having the hots for me. No matter how much I wanted to drag her into my office, shut the door, bend her over the desk, yank down her pants, and…

Damnit.

Nope.

Couldn’t even let my mind go there. It was an HR nightmare.

True, I was HR in this case. But still.

“Alright,” she agreed, giving me a tight nod and scurrying back a few feet, leaving her blueberry scent in her wake as she moved out of the back room, into the shop, and, I assumed, out the front door.

“Eye-fucking the employees, Rico?” a voice asked, making me turn to find one of those female capos I’d been thinking about standing there.

Saff was younger than a lot of us, but had the ambition and balls to make her seem older. You wouldn’t know by looking at her that she went toe-to-toe with some of the nastiest men on the planet and won.

She was short as fuck with these comically small feet, a deceptively delicate-looking heart-shaped face with big light brown eyes, freckles, and a Cupid’s bow mouth. The only things giving all that soft and sweet an edge were her nose ring and the fact that she had electric blue hair. She had it pulled back in fucking bubble braids right then. Likely pulled back so it didn’t get all bloodied like her knuckles and the corner of her shirt.

“Someone catcall you again?” I asked, looking her over.

“Someone didn’t have my money. Again,” she said, rolling her eyes.

We all had issues over the years with fuckers trying to stiff us. But Saff got more than her fair share. Likely because of her aforementioned smallness.

Those guys learned real quick, though, that Saff had an almost psychotic kind of anger. With a goddamn hair trigger.

“Something that needs to be looked into?”

“I can handle my own shit,” Saff said, chin jutting out.

“Know that. But last time there was a trend of people not paying, it turned out it was something serious.”

“It’s not like that. Apparently, he owed his baby mama, like, thousands in back child support. But he’d been working off the books so nothing could get garnished.”

“Real fucking prince.”

“Yeah, I know,” Saff said, shaking her head. “But that woman knew his game, broke into his place, and stole his cash. I may or may not have beat the shit out of him for myselfandher. Hisdeadbeat ass can work five jobs for all I care to start paying what he owes her and us. I gave him a week. And a face so ugly that he won’t be knocking anyone else up for a while.”

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