I’m ruined, I realize, as he pumps deep and clamps me to him with his teeth and his hips and those raw-knuckled, love-hate hands. He’s gasping like he’s run a race and, itisa race.
Itwas. But it’s over and he caught me and I’mfucked.
“That’s one rule down,” he whispers against the place he’s just bitten. “Or is it two?”
“What?” I gasp, my mind pure mush.
“Restaurant sex. That’s one,” he lists off, sounding as out of breath as I am. “And biting.” He gives me a nip as if to prove his point. “Was that even in the contract?”
The answer’s no. No, it wasn’t in the contract. But it should have been. Because now, along with everything else I told himwe couldn’t do, it’s on my list of things I want more than anything.
Which just confirms that I am, indeed, totally, royallyfucked.
16
Jake
“Here.” Kit hands me a sheet of paper almost as soon as I walk in the next day. “Schedule.”
“Thanks.” I don’t look at it, focusing instead on her face. “You good?”
“Yep.” Her smile is wide and plastic, which tells me only that she’s uncomfortable. It fritters a little when she gets a good look at my eye. “What’s that bruise? What happened?”
“Nothing to worry about.” I shove the paper into my pocket and turn away from the sudden annoyance on her face, heading into the kitchen to start setting up for the shift.
My knuckles are a mess from last night, not to mention this morning’s activities.
When I woke up to the sound of fists against a heavy bag this morning, hitting someone again seemed like just what I was missing. Only sanctioned hitting this time.
I’m an idiot, I guess, but I needed something, anything, to get all this ramped up shit out of my veins.
Problem is, no matter how hard I work my body, the antidote to what ails me can’t be found in the ring.
A while later, Kit comes back into the kitchen. “Hey, you mind adding a person to tonight’s staff meal?”
“No problem. I made more than enough.” I always make more than enough now that I know how often Kit likes to give food away.
“We sometimes have guests,” she told me the first time. Now I just add the extra portions automatically.
Guests, in this case, turns out to be a party of one, a kid who can’t be more than twelve or thirteen and looks enough like Toni, our dishwasher, to be related.
“Hey,” Toni says to me. “Thanks.”
“Anytime.” I set two steaming platters of mushroom risotto on the ten-top we typically eat at. Cora and Riley get flatware and plates and Frida follows up with a green salad. I point my chin at where Kit’s filling a water pitcher behind the bar and say, “You should thank the boss.”
“Jake, this is my sibling. Raf.”
“Nice to meet you, Raf.”
Raf gives me an inaudible hello, clearly too timid to dig in.
“Raf, um, eats here when our parents kick them out.”
My brows fly up. “That happen a lot?”
Raf shrugs, which I’ll take to be a resoundingYes.
Before sitting down with the others, I mosey over to the bar and grab a stack of glasses.
