After Hours (InterMix)(16)

I nodded. “Jenny said you teach it.”

“Nah, not really. They just use me ’cause I’m huge. Prepare you for the worst.”

“You’re really good at it, though, aren’t you? That’s what Dennis told me. He said they call you ‘the Disorderly.’ The best man to have around when there’s an incident.”

He smiled his panty-shredding smile. “And here I thought it was because I’m a bad housekeeper.”

My ability to string words together had abandoned me the second he grinned, so I took a final sip of the whiskey before sliding the not-quite-empty glass across the wood.

“Better get you back,” Kelly said, standing. Fuck me, he was tall.

“Can I give you some money for the drinks?”

He narrowed his eyes like I’d called his mother a rude word, and I dropped it.

I slid from my stool, feeling woozier than I should from two drinks. One glass of wine, a shot and a half of whiskey, twelve hours of work, little food and even less sleep . . . crippling, ill-advised infatuation.

“Thanks for bringing me out,” I told him as he held the door. The night felt good. When we’d left work it had been warm and humid, and now in the streetlight’s glow, with a breeze cooling my skin, it felt like a new day, like I’d left Monday behind me.

“No problem. If you’re feeling like you’re not cut out for this, don’t. Not yet. I’ve seen people fall to way worse pieces after their first days in Starling.”

“I don’t feel nearly as awful as I had when our shift ended, anyhow.”

“Nothing like a change of scenery to hit the restart button.”

I watched Kelly’s triceps twitch as he unlocked my side of his truck, thinking, yes, nothing like a change of scenery.

But I hated myself, a little, for being so attracted to him. He wasn’t quite like the men who’d turned my mom and sister’s lives inside out. He was hardworking and seemed honest, and unless he made a pass when he dropped me off, his intentions were harmless enough. But he’d painted himself as a cousin of those men—aggressive and admittedly selfish, admittedly a bit of a bully. I’d always been so determined to never fall for one of those types; now it felt like my body had turned traitor.

Just because your body’s interested doesn’t mean you’d ever do anything with him.

Good point, brain. Plus he was my coworker. But there was no harm if, say, I maybe hypothesized about what he’d be like in bed as I put myself to sleep, right? Though to be honest I didn’t have the first clue. The few guys I’d been with had been selected for their gentleness, all trusted friends slowly transitioned to lovers. And I’d never gotten hot over the idea of being with a hulking thug of a man, so I couldn’t even imagine what I might want to do with one. Or have done to me. If I’d even get a say, I thought, remembering the white wine.

As we drove I pictured tomorrow’s restraint training, trying to imagine Kelly’s huge arms locked around my neck or bear-hugging my middle, his deep voice at my ear, barking orders.

Fucking hell.





Chapter Three


I woke on my birthday with more of a hangover than I deserved, peeling my eyes open at the sound of my alarm clock. I’d been waking to that same bleating for fifteen years, but once I shut it off, all the familiarity of the world abandoned me.

Strange room, windows in the wrong places. Wrong-color paint on the walls, wrong temperature as I sat up, slipped on my flip-flops in the morning chill and dug in the open suitcase propped by the foot of the bed. Wrong, wrong, wrong that I had to put on a robe, lug my towel and shampoo three doors down, and punch in a security code to get into the women’s communal bathroom, wronger still that someone else already had steam rising from one of the shower cubicles.

As I adjusted the water and hung my robe on the hook outside the stall, I decided I’d find an apartment, a real one. Soon. They’d be cheap in Darren, even without roommates, and in a way, a twenty-minute drive would be preferable to a stroll across campus—a clear, physical delineation between work and home. Maybe I’d find a place and discover I lived near Kelly Robak, and we could carpool.

My hands paused mid-lather. Where had that stupid thought come from?

Though if I did live near Kelly, I’d probably worry a lot less about the town’s least savory characters hassling me. People wouldn’t f*ck with Kelly Robak’s woman—

Oh God, where had that one come from?