Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80302 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80302 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 321(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“I’m making you uncomfortable,” Drake says as he straightens away from the bar.
“You’re not,” I mutter.
“So you like it?”
“What’s that?” I ask, pretending like I haven’t noticed the way the man flirts with me.
Acknowledging that it’s happening issues an unspoken challenge as to why I haven’t bothered to shut it down.
The opinions I carried years ago no longer have the same hold on me they once did. But there are many things from the life I once lived that still cling to me like the rancid scent of death that clung to the road I walked on as a teen in Utah.
I know that what Drake does and who he is at his core is wrong, but I hold no ill-will toward the man. I save all my castigation for myself these days. His judgment is not mine to determine.
I don’t find him disgusting. If anything, Drake, along with several of the men I work with that live openly homosexual and bisexual lives, make me curious. No one is immune to sin, but even after nearly ten years since leaving the ranch, I find myself in awe with how open people are about their transgressions.
I’ve done my best to deconstruct the religious beliefs I was raised to think were the be-all and end-all, but some fundamentalist ideologies still cling to me, and I have to actively shove them down.
“You like it when I flirt with you,” Drake says, the corners of his mouth tugging up in a half-smile.
“I wish you’d stop,” I say, half of me hoping he’ll listen if only to avoid the temptation and the other half praying he never does.
I live for the time I spend at the bar, especially on those nights that the other Cerberus members stay back at the clubhouse. I’d never indulge myself the way I am tonight if they were present.
“Another soda?” Drake asks, reaching for my glass.
I slide the glass across the bar, swallowing hard when his fingers brush mine.
We’ve touched fingers a few times, and like all the others, a rush of something I have a hard time understanding most days rushes over my skin.
Arousal threatens to take hold of me, my cock kicking in my jeans.
I spent eight years in the Marine Corps before getting out and joining Cerberus not long after my discharge. I’ve seen some things. I’ve watched men with no qualms about who sees them in every state of sexual gratification, yet somehow the brush of his fingers on mine has the ability to make my palms sweat and my breath quicken.
Drake is slow to pull the glass away, and the man chuckles when I realize we’ve both been frozen with our fingers touching for much longer than necessary to make the exchange.
I look down the bar, grateful for the light crowd tonight, and doubly thankful that no one seems to be paying either of us any attention.
“Want a little whiskey in it?” Drake asks as he lifts the nozzle for the soda toward my glass.
I keep my eyes locked on his face, getting lost in the vicinity of his mouth. The sight of it makes me lick at my own suddenly dry lips.
“No thank you,” I say. “I’m on my bike.”
The excuse is only part of the truth. The half I won’t admit to is that adding alcohol into the mix, when my brain is already threatening to take me places it can never go again, is the worst idea in the world. A splash of whiskey in my soda would allow for excuses. It could possibly have the power to convince me that the actions I want to take are perfectly fine.
“You’re one of those wholesome types, aren’t you?” Drake asks, as he tops off the glass before sliding it back across the bar in front of me.
“I’m not wholesome,” I argue, my eyes drifting to the droplets of condensation on the glass.
“Liar.”
I snap my eyes up at him, hating him a little for the challenge I see on his face.
“You come to the bar nearly every night, but you never drink. I never see you leave with a woman. You never take me up on my offers. You never—”
“Maybe I’m not interested,” I interrupt.
His smile never falters as he hitches his thumb over his shoulder. “See the mirror behind me?”
I don’t pull my eyes off him. Of course, I see the damn mirror.
“It’s not just used for making the top shelf liquor bottles look better.”
I swallow as I start to understand where he’s heading.
“Realizing you’re not as sly as you thought you were?”
Drake leans on the bar in front of me, his hands once again twisting that bar towel.
“I’m bored at the clubhouse when we aren’t working,” I say, trying to distract him.
I should know better, though. Drake is an expert at multitasking. It’s what makes him a great bartender.