Page 17 of Swallow Your Fear
As to be expected, the diner was slow. A couple was seated in the far corner by the window, and our usual customer sat at the bar. Outside, fog clouded the streets, making visibility poor enough that you could barely see the road through the glass. Though it was midday, the street lights were on in an unsuccessful attempt to lighten the stagnant gray clouds. All the lampposts did was create an eerie glow through the mist, the light not touching the ground.
McKenna popped her bubblegum next to me as I stood lost in thought behind the counter, thinking of what I did in front of Booker yesterday. He’d barely looked at me and popped a vibrator on my clit and I came undone. I didn’t think I’d been so turned on before in my life, and it was all due to the way his gaze devoured me.
His eyes held control in a way I’d never seen before, and images of him wearing the half skeleton mask flashed in my mind. Even covering himself, he commanded a room. Hell, he could probably order an entire town around hiddenbehind that mask, and they’d not think twice about obeying.
And when he’d told me not to come…my body had no choice but to heed his demand. Then, when I’d gone up to my room, I’d tested his name on my lips and came again just to the memory of his eyes alone. The way he had this much power over me so soon after meeting him was dangerous, if not reckless.
Chase never had that effect on me. He was all dark blonde hair, blue eyes, and well-manicured hands. Booker was rough in every aspect of the word. With his voice, the set of his brows, the way he held himself. When he’d slipped that vibrator over my clit, he knew exactly where to set it, and the knowledge that he knew his way around a woman like that—well, the thought alone built heat between my legs where I stood, causing me to adjust my stance in order to hide the thoughts that were swirling through my mind.
“You’re not at the motel anymore, then, right?” McKenna asked, twirling her finger around the end of her blonde ponytail.
I’d told her the gist of what transpired over the last seventy-two hours, but with a few interruptions, I’d left some details out. “Nope.”
She wagged her eyebrows at me, a hip propped against the silver edge of the counter. “So you’re saying you’re inhisroom, then.”
My mouth popped open as I fought my body’s natural reaction to blush. “No fucking way.”
She set a hand on the speckled counter. “I saw them! The one you said…”
She searched her memory for his name, so I filled in the blank. “Booker.”
“Booker!” She slapped her hand on the flat surface. “And his friend. They were cute! It wouldn’t bethatbad to land in bed with at least one of them.”
I grabbed a rag from behind the bar, along with a spray bottle filled with anti-bacterial solution. “It would be bad.”
I spritzed the counter, then wiped in circular motions.
A gasp escaped McKenna’s mouth and I cringed.
“You already slept with him!” she blurted.
I widened my eyes, shooting her a look that screamedshut up. “I did not,” I whisper-shouted back.
Doug, one of our regulars, adjusted his newspaper, not bothering to look at the two of us where we gossiped not three feet from him. “She definitely did.”
McKenna pointed a finger his way. “See. Even he can tell.”
I kept scrubbing, like that’d make her stop talking about it. It wouldn’t. McKenna would keep nagging me until she knew the full truth, and even then, she’d want to know more.
I stepped closer to her, mumbling, “Okay. Fine. He made me…you know.”
Her chewing jaw ceased for a moment as she thought on that. “He made you orgasm?!”
The whole fucking diner turned our way.
Doug, the poor sap that he was, peered over the paper, his reading glasses low on his nose.
I grabbed McKenna’s arm, pulling her through the swinging door to the kitchen. I whirled on her. “You can’t just announce that!”
But she didn’t care. Not with that beaming smile spreading her lips wider than I’d ever seen before. “Was he good?”
“We didn’t sleep together,” I said in a hushed, hurried tone.
“Wait, so he went down on you?”
I shook my head, but before I could answer her, a pissed off voice yelled from the front, “Where the fuck is Brynne Hansley?”
Our eyes widened as we moved to peer through the circular window. Instantly, I knew it wasn’t Booker or Chase. Whoever it was, they were pissed, and if I had to guess by the use of my name, that anger was aimed towards me.
