“I feel like something sweet.” The heat in both his words and eyes…Good gravy! “I’ll have the cinnamon pancakes, a side of bacon, and scrambled eggs. Got any cherry syrup?” His eyes drop to my pelvis, and I quickly scurry away to the sounds of his laughter and his friend giving him hell for scaring me off.
“Holy crap,” Karma says, fanning her face with a menu as I quickly type in their order. “How are you still standing?”
Martha shakes her head at us as she begins slicing pies, and a few customers walk in, preventing me from answering. The rest of the morning remains much of the same. Taking orders, serving coffee, preparing baked goods for the display case, and receiving the largest tip of my life when my guy and his friend leave.
“Two hundred bucks?” Karma gapes. “I’d ask what you did, but I know you weren’t under that table doing things you only wish you could because you haven’t stopped moving all morning.”
Slapping her arm and shooting her my best glare, I pocket my tip money and get ready to leave for my afternoon classes. Afterwards, I’ll have to go grocery shopping. I could drop the money off at home with my mom, but the last time I did that, she sat in a bar for two days, and I only got a call because she fell off her stool and wound up in the hospital getting stitches in her head.
Things have been rough for her since my dad left when I was thirteen. He couldn’t resist his attraction to his secretary, knocked her up, then took off to Chicago, I think. Where he is now, I have no idea. Luckily, Mom was smart enough to take him for half of everything in child support and alimony; however, since the business world deemed her unemployable due to her being a stay-at-home mom and wife for so many years, she started drinking.
He also had to pay off the mortgage, so all we have to take care of are utilities and taxes, which we can manage with the continued alimony and the $40,000 check for college tuition he sent me on my eighteenth birthday. I hated him that day…fought the urge to burn the check, but I’m no idiot. I wanted a degree, and that was the only way to do it debt-free.
Now, I work to help Mom with our few bills, save as much as I can, and make sure we’ll be okay when I graduate in a couple of months, in case I can’t find immediate employment. There are days I feel blessed, and days I’d like to hunt my father down and run him over with my beat-up Honda, then back over him again.
Growing up, Mom was Mrs. Brady Bunch. Homemade dinner, fresh baked goods every day, never a speck of dust in the house, always there for me. When Dad left, it broke her. She didn’t want to get out of bed most days, and even now, she mostly just moves to the couch. She’s not a terrible mother, just sad, depressed, and stuck.
This weekend, I hope to get her up and out of the house. A trip to the beach will do us both some good, giving me a break from studying and working, and providing her with a change of scenery. Maybe seeing the outside world will help break through her depression, and she’ll remember some of the many beach trips we took when I was little.
It’s a long shot, but what have I got to lose at this point? She’s not getting better, and I’m miserable trying to show her that there is life outside of my dad. He’s gone; I’m not, and it hurts to know I’m not enough to draw her out of this stupor.
As a girl, we spent nearly every weekend at the beach, building sandcastles and making up stories of sunken ships and mermaids. I dreamt of talking lobsters and singing fish because of her. Any glimpse of the woman she used to be would be a delight. Anything but the woman who smells bad, barely eats, and drinks to unconsciousness. Because I don’t know how much more of this I can take.
CHAPTER 2
Vito
Woodlawn Beach in Pensacola, Florida, has been home for a few years now. I enjoy the peacefulness of the ocean as waves crash against the shore. The driftwood and seaweed emit a calming scent when I step out of my house every morning.
I wouldn’t trade my view for the world.
Or, I wouldn’t have… Until my eyes landed on the cute waitress in the Blue Heights Diner a few months ago. I’d been there a couple of times prior to the day I saw her, but obviously not during any of her shifts. But after that first time she served me, spilling the food and drink on me, I was hooked.
There’s something sweet and addictive about a woman who is so vulnerable in showcasing her feelings the way Stella did. It’s not something a man in my position is used to. My adulthood has been spent first in war as a special forces soldier, then, after returning home, intending to become a cop but unable to pass the psychological tests, I became a man for hire.
In the last decade, I’ve taken all types of jobs in various corners of the world. Typically, whoever offers the highest price receives my services. When I started working closer to home about six months ago, the Adair family became my largest clientele, with the Deviant Sinners MC coming in second.
The things I’ve done have ranged from eliminating abusive members of the families they save to hunting some of those predators down or surveilling them for prosecution. The only thing I won’t do is kill or kidnap children. I’ve even made a few boat runs south to bring in women, children, or people trying to escape poverty, abuse, and the cartels.
Stella has me looking in a different direction for my life, though, and I like what I see. The things I want. But only with her. Today was a breakthrough in my opinion because after the first time we met, she’s avoided me like the plague. Any sort of interaction from the stubborn woman has been a damn miracle, and it screams green light to me.
I don’t plan to be quite as psychotic as my older brother, Dark, and not let her know my name until our wedding day, or stalk her and send filthy text messages. I want Stella to clearly understand my intentions, which is why my eyes have a hard time leaving her body when we’re in the same space.
“Hey, man, thought you’d be back here.” Bishop Kincaid comes strolling down the pathway of my backyard to the small space on the beach I’ve taken up.
“Beer?” Grabbing a bottle from the cooler packed with ice, he drops into the chair next to me and cracks it open.
We sit in silence for a few minutes before he finally says, “Easton tells me you aren’t doing any out-of-town jobs for a while.” Bishop and his brother are the ones I mostly deal with for the Adair jobs. It helps that I served with them for a few years.
“Got a girl here,” I reply.
“So he says. Quite the looker too, I hear.”
It’s difficult to temper my reaction. Of course, Easton noticed her. Who the hell wouldn’t with those fuckable hips and that ass made for a good, hard spanking.
“Tell him to keep his hands and eyes to himself, or I’ll remove them.”
Bishop belts out a belly laugh loud enough to scare off the seagulls scavenging the beach for their dinner.
