Carnage: Book #1 The Story Of Us (Volume 1)(78)

He looks me over. “How’s the wine?”

I look at my glass, and then back at him. “It’s delicious, very clean and crisp, a bit dryer than I usually drink but it’s nice.”

He nods his approval. “Good girl, well done.”

Shit, I didn’t know it was a test, I would’ve swirled it and sniffed and mentioned peaches and grass if that’s what he was after, still, he seems happy enough with my answer.

“Why do we not have salmon on the menu?” he asks whoever is on the other end of the phone, I’m assuming its Gino. Who Gino is, I have no idea. “Well look harder, I want salmon on the menu, in fact I want a couple of fish choices, not just prawns, I don’t know, you’re the f*ckin’ chef, do your job, this might be Essex but I want more than prawn cocktail, sirloin steak and black forest gateaux on the menu… No, don’t take all of that off the menu, I said I want more than that, hang on.”

He looks toward me. “How dya like your steak?”

“Medium rare,” I reply.

“Two steaks, one rare, one medium rare, both with jacket spuds fully loaded, spuds, spuds, potatoes, learn some f*ckin’ English will ya.” He disconnects the call and throws the phone down on the coffee table.

“Sorry, we’ve only just started doing food, this is just a trial menu, I’m expanding the wine bar into the shop next door, we’ll have a full a la cart restaurant up and running by September and bar food available in the wine bar.”

“That’s great.” I raise my glass to him. “Here’s to Cameron King and his ever expanding kingdom.”

He smiles at me and his eyes sparkle. “I’ll drink to that.”

He clinks his glass against mine. He leans forward and my heart pounds hard against that brick wall it’s encased in. He reaches for the wine bottle and tops up both our glasses with a slight smile on his lips, f*cker, he knows I thought he was going to kiss me, I thank him for the wine and turn and angle myself toward him. “How old are you Cam?”

I don’t know why I asked that. I’m curious, I know he must be at least thirty, he’s been married, he almost had a family, I won’t ask about that though, it’s too soon, I’ll let him tell me when he’s ready. “Why are you so concerned about my age? You haven’t told me how old you are.”

“I’m twenty, it’s not a secret.” He spits his wine everywhere and I mean everywhere, coffee table, sofa, carpet, me. “You’re only twenty?”

“Well yeah, didn’t you know that?” He doesn’t look happy, he gets up and goes and gets a tea towel from the kitchen and wipes the sofa and the coffee table and then leaves the room, leaving me sitting there. Fuck, what does that mean? Am I too young for him? How f*cking old is he then? He returns with a t-shirt in his hand.

“Sorry about that, throw this on, I’ll put this in the drier.”

He’s standing right in front of me, between the sofa and the coffee table, as I stand up, there are only a couple of inches between us. I pull my sweatshirt over my head and face him in just my bra, he struggles for a split second, then loses the battle and looks down at my chest; he reaches up with his three middle fingers and drags them over my throat and down into my cleavage. My nipples are so hard they are painful, I look down to where his touching me, he cups my right boob and drags his thumb over my nipple, he leans in and sucks on my left, through my bra and I can’t help but throw my head back. “You have a fantastic pair of tits for such a skinny little thing.”

Before I get chance to consider what is the appropriate answer to that, a buzzer sounds and I jump out of my skin and launch myself toward him.