Page 82 of The Reading

“Baby,” I muttered as my lips found their way to her neck, my thumb rubbing her lower lip. “Fuck.”

“Carter…” she mewled.

“What, baby?” I asked right before taking some of that tender skin between my teeth. Alessa was leaving this room marked, and I didn’t give afuck what anyone said about it. As juvenile or territorial as it might make me seem, she was going to serve motherfuckers tonight with my mark on her neck, letting everyone know that she was spoken for, even if she didn’t realize it yet.

“Carter...I…oh, God…”

When I was done with my handiwork, my lips went back to owning hers, and it was easy to see that Alessa was all in when she immediately started kissing me back again.

I wasn’t sure how long I had her pressed up against the door, but the unexpected knock felt like a bucket of cold water on what we’d been doing. Dropping my forehead on hers, we were both panting, the second knock the final nail in the coffin.

“Carter?”

I recognized one of my servers immediately. “Yeah, Hailey?”

“We need you out here,” she said through the door. “Darwin is already on one.” Darwin Trent was a regular customer of ours.

“I’ll be right there,” I promised. Then I looked into Alessa’s eyes. “We good?”

She gave me a shaky nod. “Yeah…yeah, we’re good.”

I stepped back, then reached around her to grab the doorknob. “I’ll see you at midnight.”

Chapter 4

Carter~

After taking care of Darwin, it’d been clear that we were getting packed sooner than I had expected. Not sure what had everyone out so early, but it was clear that people were eager to get their New Year’s Eve going.

So, instead of going back into my office to violate Alessa some more, I had gone into full manager mode, making sure that everything was running smoothly. No matter how much I wanted to lock myself away in my office with Alessa, New Year’s Eve in a bar was no joke.

Even though I was doing my best to keep an eye out on everything, my eyes kept tracking Alessa. She worked as both a bartender and a server, but tonight, I’d had her scheduled as a server, and I was regretting that now. She was so petite that she kept getting lost in the crowd, and I was worrying about her in a way that I hadn’t before that kiss.

“Hey, Boss?”

I turned to see Winston, one of my barbacks, making his way towards me. “What’s up?” I asked as soon as he was standing next to me.

“Look, I don’t want to overstep or presume-”

“Just spit it out, Winston,” I sighed. “There’s nothing that surprises me anymore.”

He gave me a terse nod. “Since Alessa didn’t have that hickey on her neck untilaftershe came out of your office earlier, I thought that you might want to know that one of her tables is giving her a hard time.” I could immediately feel my back straightening. “Nothing too rowdy yet, but one guy isn’t taking no for an answer.”

“How do you know?”

“I overheard her telling Leila that she might have to have me or Gary take over the table. When Leila asked her why, that’s when she told her.”

“Thanks for the heads up,” I told him, already turning away from him to go find Alessa.

Glancing at the watch on my wrist, I could see that it was already a few minutes until midnight, so the rowdiness wasn’t surprising me. If everyone did believe in the midnight kiss thing, then I could see some drunken idiot making a move on my servers. I also knew that Alessa could take care of herself, but there was just something about men that made us aggressive when another swinging dick was getting too close to what was ours, and Alessa was definitely mine now.

When I finally spotted her, she was serving drinks to a table of six, two women and four men. It was easy to see who was coupled up and who was single, and the guy closest to Alessa was definitely acting like he was single. I could see it in his body language and in the way that he was looking at her.

Making my way over, I greeted the table. “Having fun?”

“Oh, definitely,” the pretty redhead said over the music. “This place is great.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it,” I lied. “Happy New Year and be careful.”

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