“How do you know I’m from out of town?” I added, taking a sip of my now-cold dregs.
“Populations less than three-thousand,” he grunted. “New faces always stand out. Where did you say you were from again?”
“Didn’t.”
“Huh, never heard of it. And does this little attitude work for you there?” he said, gesturing at me with his oversized hand as he sat on the stool beside me. I glared at him, and if it were possible for steam to come out of my ears, it would have. I preferred the men I turned my wrath on to run away with their tails between their legs, not to fight back. Although the tingling in my pelvis was rather confusing.
“You know, mouthing off to strangers is something not everyone can do. If you’re planning on sticking around, I might have some work available,” he added.
“What?” I asked, my guard slipping at the mention of work.
“Sometimes I’ve got clients who need... encouragement to pay their bill. I was going to get a dog, bring it along to help scare up some cash. But you could do it. I’d let you loose, and you could nip at their ankles instead.”
He did not just compare me to a dog.
Heat rose in my chest as I stood, squaring my shoulders. Now that he was seated, we were eye to eye, inches apart. I could hear his breath, even though he looked infuriatingly calm. His mouth still held an easy smile. His gaze moved from my grey eyes to the dimple on my left cheek—visible even when I scowled—before settling on my bottom lip.
“You—”
“Whoa!” Breeze interrupted, reappearing with both hands in the air. “What did I just walk in on?”
“New girl was introducing herself,” Dax said, eyes locked on mine.
Breeze placed a heated scone into a brown paper bag, handing it to him and looking back and forth between us.
“O-kay well, see you tomorrow.”
Dax didn’t move. Instead, in a motion I wasn’t expecting, he leaned around me, his shoulder brushing my arm as he reached around to grab my serviette. I stilled at his closeness, and warmth filled somewhere low in my pelvis.
I really needed to get laid. I couldn’t have this response to every guy I met here, especially this jackass. Even if they were all drinking the hot-man Kool-Aid.
He skimmed the list as he stretched his legs out in front of him, the grin on his stupid, sexy lips building.
“Woodchipper. Definitely,” he said, tapping a thick finger on the words before giving it back to me.
Fucker.
“That was interesting,” Breeze said once he’d gone, scrubbing at the counter in front of me. The layers of grime weren’t giving up easily.
“You say interesting, I say annoying. Shame he wasn’t serious about the job. Not that I’d work for a prick like that,” I sighed into my empty mug.
“He’s actually not so bad…”
I waved her off with my hand. She couldn’t shift my opinion; once it was made, it set like concrete. Breeze leaned against the wall again.
“I’ve got a proposition. Although you might not be interested,” she said, biting her bottom lip as she thought.
“I’m pretty open at this point.”
All my fight evaporated when Dax did. Truth was, I was desperate. Stuck. On the verge of panic. Not that I was about to admit it. Breeze busied herself at the coffee machine again and then slid a flat white in front of me.
My jaw dropped. I hadn’t ordered it, not at the extra quid it cost.
“How’d you know flat whites are my favourite?” I asked, reaching for my purse.
“Call it a fellow skimper’s intuition,” she shrugged, waving my money away again.
“Have you ever thought that your refusing to accept people’s money might be contributing to your financial woes?” I asked, taking a sip of the foamy coffee and letting a purr of satisfaction roll through my body. She paused for a minute, looking towards the corner of the ceiling.
