Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Please don’t let him recognize my voice. “Um…yeah. Sorry. One of those days. What can I get you?”
This has to be a coincidence. No way can he know who I am. He’s here for some fucking pizza, and I need to chill out. Everything will be fine.
“What would you suggest?” Cherry asks.
“Pizza?”
He chuckles. “Funny guy. Toppings, I mean.”
“You’re the one eating it,” falls from my mouth, which isn’t very smart. Talking shit to someone who has no fear with a gun in his face, and also, I’d like to keep this job, but what the fuck. It’s pizza. How hard is it to choose?
“Well, that wasn’t very nice, was it?” He’s watching me, this deep, penetrating gaze I swear is almost like he’s touching me. I’ve seen and done a lot. I’m not scared of much, and I’m not scared of him, but I sense the danger in him. I sensed it that night I robbed him…and I like it.
“Are you going to ask to speak to my manager?”
“No. I deal with issues on my own. Are you going to be an issue…” I tense again as his words trail off, but then he adds, “Or can I order pizza? I’m starving.”
I clear my throat. “Yeah. I’m a simple guy. I like pepperoni.”
“Pepperoni it is. For here. A medium. And a Coke.”
I ring up his order, hoping he’ll pay with a card and I can see his name, but he pulls out cash instead. Our fingers brush when he hands it over, his stare still firmly locked on to mine, before he smiles again. I tremble—again, not from fear, though the wildness of this man rolls off him in waves. Curiosity, I guess, interest, and acknowledgment of the power sizzling beneath his skin, that’s what gets to me, this tingling shock traveling from where our skin meets and making me feel…funny.
I hand him one of the numbers to place on his table. He watches me but doesn’t move, then takes it, winks, and strolls over to a booth. He slides in and looks at me again.
What. The. Fuck.
He can’t know. How the fuck would he know?
I put the order in with the kitchen staff. It’s killing me not to ask if they know who he is, but somehow, I feel like he would know, and I don’t want to give him that pleasure.
With my back to him, I continue folding boxes. I feel him watching me, the hairs on the back of my neck rising, and honestly, it’s not the first time I’ve felt that way the past couple of days. More than once, I could have sworn someone was watching me. Did Jagger find us? I would think he’d sent Cherry if I hadn’t met him by randomly jacking him.
When the kitchen calls out his number, I pick up the pizza and head over to his table. “Here you go.”
“Thanks.” He looks at my nametag. “Shai.” He says my name correctly. A lot of people pronounce it Shae rather than like shy.
His gaze runs the length of my body. Jesus, maybe he’s simply flirting with me.
“Well, now I feel at a disadvantage because you know my name and I don’t know yours.” Two can play this game.
“Rory,” he replies. “We have a mutual friend, actually—Ollie. His boyfriend is like a brother to me.”
My spine stiffens. That’s what this is about? Ollie? It confirms my suspicions about his boyfriend. If he’s the kind of guy who sends his friend to try and scare me because I’ve had some friendly conversations with his boyfriend, Ollie needs to run and not look back. I know men like this, who think of other people as their possessions, because my father is one of them. He never cared how many people my mom fucked as long as he was making money off her, but if she dared even talk to someone he didn’t want her to associate with, he would make her pay.
“I don’t want your friend’s man, if that’s what you think.”
“Brother,” he corrects.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes. And brother isn’t even a strong enough word for what he is to me. And did I say you want him? I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, Shai. I’m just saying hi because we have a mutual friend.”
“Yeah, sure. That’s not what it seems like. From where I’m sitting, Cillian is jealous, maybe afraid he can’t hold on to Ollie, so he sent you to deal with it for him. Ollie deserves someone better, if you ask me.”
I swear the temperature in the restaurant amps up. Rory doesn’t move. Hell, I’m not sure he’s even breathing, but the pure rage rolling off him is hard to miss. It takes everything inside me not to take a step back, but I refuse to let him intimidate me.