Page 40 of Dmitri

Brat. God, what I wouldn’t give to bend her over my knee and spank her ass until it was cherry red right now. Then I’d make her —

“Welcome to Maggie’s. I’m Rory and I’ll be serving you today. What drinks can I start you off with?”

Daelyn breaks our staring match first and fake smiles at our server. “I’ll take a black coffee and an orange juice, please.”

“No problem. And for you?”

“Water.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back with those, then I’ll take your order.” Rory spins around and walks off.

I keep my attention on Daelyn. “Do you know what you want?”

She swallows hard, then plucks the menu back up. “Nothing has a price.”

My heart squeezes. I remember when I always had to math out what I could afford to eat each day. I don’t like that Daelyn’s doing it now.

“This is my treat. Order anything you want.”

She doesn’t look happy with my offer. Jesus Christ, I’m trying to be a good guy here and she’s making it extremely difficult. Between her sleeping pills, leaving the door unsecured so I could break back in, her tears during the bike ride, and now asking me about murder, I’m overwhelmed with the number of red flags red flagging.

A sensible man would walk away immediately.

Too bad I’m not sensible.

I run on intuition and there’s a delusional part of me that keeps whispering she’s in danger and that I should help her. Time to lighten up a little and see if I can salvage this dismal date.

“What do you do for a living, Daelyn?”

Her eyes dart around the menu. “I’m a medical coder.”

I knew that already but can’t tell her that. It’s nice to know she told the truth, though.

“What do you do? I mean, besides beat the shit out of people in fight rings at night in the middle of nowhere.”

“I’m in security.”

She rests the menu on the table. “Really?”

“Lie for a lie, truth for a truth.” I nod. “Yeah, really.”

She eyes me up and down. “I can totally see it.”

“Here you go.” Rory sets our drinks down and pulls out her tablet. “Do you know what you’d like to order?”

I tip my head at Daelyn, letting her go first.

“I’ll have the shrimp and grits with a side of home fries, and an order of the hushpuppies, please.”

Damn. A woman with a big appetite is a hell of a turn on.

“You got it. And for you, Sir?”

“Steak hash, hold the onions.”

“Alright, that’ll be out shortly.”

Once Rory leaves, I dive right into another question. “Do you have a roommate?”

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