"Don't make it weird."
"It's already weird. Carmelo showed an emotion. I need to document this, its basically unheard of."
"Oh leave the man alone.”
The last soldiers leave around ten. The bar empties. I start closing up, wiping down the counter, washing glasses, the routine that my hands know by memory now.
Emilio is still behind the bar with me. Leaning against the back shelf, watching me work, nursing the last inch of his whiskey.
"You know," he says, "the first time I saw you behind this bar, I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That you'd found your place. That the woman who threw a lamp at my head and fought me in every corridor wasn't going to leave, because this bar is yours the way I'm yours. Not because someone gave it to you. Because you claimed it."
"Are you getting sentimental on me, DiAngelo?"
"Nah, it’s either say this or shove my woman-sized fingers so far up your pussy you won’t be able to control your moans."
I stop wiping as my mouth falls open. He's leaning against the shelf with the whiskey in his hand and the bandage peeking out from under his sleeve and his hair falling in his face, and he looks sofucking perfect.
"Come here," I say.
He sets down the glass and crosses the narrow space behind the bar. Two steps. His hands find my waist, and he turns me around so my back is against the counter and he's standing in front of me and the bar is between us and the empty room.
"The bar is closed," I say.
"The bar is closed."
"And we're alone."
"Very, very fucking alone."
He kisses me, his hands on my waist, my back against the counter. I grab the front of his shirt and pull him in so his chest is flush against mine. The kiss gets deeper and his tongue finds mine and his hips press forward and I can feel him getting hard against my stomach, and my body responds the way it always responds to this man, instantly and completely and without any input from my brain.
He pulls back and I stifle a groan. "You know what I've been thinking about all night?"
"If you say my ass, I'm closing the bar permanently."
"Your ass is a secondary consideration." His hands slide from my waist to my hips. His fingers hook into the waistband of my jeans. "I've been thinking about what it would be like to have my hand between your legs while you're pouring drinks. Standing right here, behind this counter, with a room full of people on the other side and my fingers inside you and nobody knowing."
"The bar is closed, Emilio. There's nobody here."
"Then we'll practice for next time."
His hand slides down the front of my jeans. Past the waistband, past my underwear, his fingers finding me already wet because the conversation alone did the job, and the sound I make when he touches me is loud enough to echo off the bottles on the shelves.
"Shh," he says against my ear. "Bar's closed, but the walls are thin."
"Don't shh me when you're the one who started this."
"I started it. You're going to finish it… right… on… my… hand." His fingers slide through me, finding my clit, pressing in a slow circle that makes my knees buckle. I grab the counter behind me with both hands and hold on.
He works me from the front, his fingers move with the confidence of a man who has mapped this territory thoroughly and knows exactly which roads lead where. Two fingers push inside me, and his thumb stays on my clit and the dual pressure builds fast because my body has been primed for this since he walked in tonight with that grin and that energy and those fucking dark eyes.
"You're so wet," he says against my neck. "All this from pouring drinks?"
"All this from watching you pour drinks badly. Your incompetence turns me on."
