“No!” She laughs and looks up. “No, it’s fine. I mean, trust me, I’d rather be working almost literally anywhere else. I mean, I like cinnamon buns and all, but—”
“But who wants them in this heat, right?”
“Exactly!” She giggles. “And I could do without the pissed off tourists,” she adds with an adorable fucking little scowl.
“Heard that,” I grin.
“It’s just a summer thing,” she shrugs. “I mean working here. It’s just until I go to school in the fall.”
“College?”
“Yeah.”
Thank fucking God.
“I’m not sure what for yet, though. All I know is, it’s time to do my own thing.”
There’s a ding of a bell, and her face falls with her shoulders. I glance past her to see a scowling tourist dinging the “ring for service” bell on the counter.
“Miss!”
“My own thing or serve more fucking melting cinnamon buns to bitches like that,” she spits.
Instantly, I chuckle, but her whole face goes red. Her eyes go wide and she covers her mouth with a hand like she’s just said the worst curse in the world.
“Oh my God! That was—”
“Miss!”
“Accurate,” I grin.
She smiles back, blushing. She turns, then glances at me once again. Then she whips her long blonde hair back from her face and marches back to the take-out window. I grunt and stoop down to finish up the AC, but there’s a few last bits to reconnect that I missed with my first pass.
I groan, sweating my fucking balls off while I twist the wires and solder the last parts back in place. Sweat drips down my back and my chest, and drips into my damn eyes. I hiss as the soldering iron singes a fingertip, but with that last part, I’m done.
I stand, panting and sweating my ass off. I don’t even think, and I don’t care anyways, when I reach down and peel my absolutely soaked shirt off. I stretch my sore muscles from kneeling over the control box, and I whirl to go for the water bottle I’ve set on the shelf behind me.
…And I whirl right into Taylor as she comes waltzing back into the room.
She gasps and tumbles into me, her palms flat against my chest and a sound of surprise on her lips. I grunt, and my arms circle her on instinct. But once they’re there, they don’t go anywhere. I freeze with this angel in my arms, blushing deeply and gasping as she looks up into my eyes.
I’m shirtless—she might as well be with that thin, soaked tank-top like a second skin. I can feel the swell of her pert breasts against me, and I can feel the hard points of her nipples against my skin. The hollow of her neck throbs with her pulse, and I swear, I feel her hips sink against me.
I should walk away, for a million reasons. She’s too young. She’s the niece of the guy who owns this place and is paying us for this job. I’m too fucked up from war and killing for something so pure and innocent as her.
I could keep going until the list is a mile long. But I know damn well it won’t make a lick of difference, and it won’t stop me for even a single millisecond from doing, well, this.
I grab her tight, lean down, and as she breaths out a soft, moaning whimper, I crush my lips to hers, hard.