by R. A. Boyd
Again, Nev nodded and then said to Benny, “How are you today, Mr. Benny? You look a little down. I know exactly what you need. A chocolate cupcake. It’s on the house. Chocolate can cheer anyone up.”
Benny’s dark brown eyes looked up at her as he removed his skullcap. “I am a little sad. Today’s the anniversary of my daughter’s death. My wife and I take care of our grandkids now, but I still feel it. It’s the worst day of the year for me, you know?”
Nev put the carafe on the table and sat down across from Benny. She reached over and put her hand on his. Focusing on calming herself, she pushed every ounce of peaceful energy she could into the touch, hoping that if he could feel even a fraction of it, he would be a little better for it. It didn’t always work, but right now, Nev hoped like heck she could help him.
“Mr. Benny. I do know. My momma died three years ago. Cancer. I know she’s still with me.”
“I’m right here, Lovie,” Nev’s mom hollered from across the pub. “Nev and I are going to the Baltimore Music Festival in a few days. You should come with us. There are quite a few sexy musicians I want to watch as they get dressed.”
His daughter smiled and gave a thumbs up.
Nev ignored them and kept going. “And I know for a fact that your daughter is still with you, Mr. Benny.”
“He holds on so tight,” his daughter said, reaching her hand up to touch her father’s face. She pulled away before she got too close. The living could always feel the cold, airy touch of the dead. Most people just didn’t realize what they were experiencing. “I can’t leave. I just love watching him and mom with my girls.”
With a weak smile, Mr. Benny added cream and sugar to his coffee. “I’m sorry you lost your mom. I bet she was just as pretty as you are.”
“He’s such a flirt,” his daughter said, smiling and lightly placing her hand on her chest where four gaping claw marks marred her skin. There was no blood. Just sliced flesh and empty crevices where blood, muscle, and bone should have been. “I’ll move on once he’s okay. The kids are fine. I said goodbye to them the night I died. They could see me then. They can’t now.”
Kids could usually see people they were really close to who had passed from this life. Adults were a little harder.
“Well,” Nev said, pursing her lips and passing a glance to her mother. “She was stunning. She was the most beautiful thing in the world. Even when she lost her hair, the sunlight reflecting off her full moon head was like a crown for everyone to see. I will always remember her like that.”
“You’re welcome,” Mom called.
“And I think—” Nev continued, “—that your daughter would rest easier if you let her go a little. And if I’m not going too far by saying this, I think you would do better if you let go. Just a little. Imagine how she’d feel knowing you mourned her for so long. Now, I don’t know how she died, but you and your wife taking care of her kids probably brings her more joy and comfort than you could imagine.” She released his hand and grabbed the carafe by the handle. “You can tell me to shut my face if you want to, but that’s what I’ve got.”
Mr. Benny’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears, and he used his skull cap to wipe them away before they fell. “I will do no such thing. And look at that. I do feel better after talking with you. I enjoy talking with you, Ms. Nevada. How’d you get so smart? You’re too young to know things like that.”
Nev smiled and blew a dark coil away from her eye that had worked its way from her messy bun. “I’m not as young as you think. I used to work in a hospice. You pick up things. I’ll bring your cupcake straight away.”
Giving him a rueful smile, Nev lifted her head, and the first thing she saw was Bastian. He watched her from across the pub as if confused by her. His blue eyes had lightened to that of clear crystal, and he observed her like she was some freak of a specimen. Or like he was ready for his food to get to his table, she couldn’t decide which.
Whichever one it was, Nev knew from that moment on she was dealing with a shifter. His eyes had lightened too fast not to be one. It didn’t matter. New Rose was full of shifters.
“Your food should be ready shortly,” Nev said to Bastian, making her rounds to fill up cups of coffee and seeing if anyone needed anything.
After dropping off Mr. Benny’s chocolate cupcake, one check, collecting her tips, and clearing two tables, she grabbed Bastian’s food from the counter and headed to his booth.
“There you go,” she said, leaning over his table to grab the ketchup bottle and sugar dispenser.
He kept watching her as she worked on placing his food neatly in front of him, that playful lilt to his lips gone.
This was something new to her. Regardless of the look in his eyes, Bastian was always smiling. But not now. His ravenous gaze ate her up as she moved, and he reached forward to push his glass out of the way before her boob fell into his juice. The big old things were sometimes more trouble than they were worth.
When Nev finished and turned around, Mom was standing about two inches from her face.
Startling hard enough to bump Bastian’s booth with the backs of her thighs, Nev shot out, “Jesus,” and slapped her hand across her mouth. She jolted to a halt so she wouldn’t walk through her mother. Walking through the dead was something you never got used to. Nev widened her eyes as if to say, What the heck are you doing?
“Are you okay?” Bastian asked, but Nev had her back turned to him. The concern was evident in his voice.
Mom’s usual joyful appearance was gone as she looked worriedly at Nev. Her bright brown eyes shined in the light that surrounded the dead. “Touch. Him. Nevada. I’m begging you. Your gleam is exactly the same color right now. You’re vibrating on the same wavelength. Do it. Now, damn-it!”
Gleam. Mom always talked about people ‘gleaming’ when they were connected. Sometimes for good reasons, and sometimes for bad. Nev had never been able to see it, but mom could call a connection from a mile away. Mom could see the gleam. Nev could see the dead and ease the pain of the living.
The urgency in mom’s eyes was too severe, so Nev did the first thing that popped into her mind.
She turned around and slapped her hand on Bastian’s forehead, cringing as he flinched back from the force of her touch.
Man-oh-man, the zing that she felt earlier became an electric shock that filled out her entire body. Nev had to close her eyes and grab hold of the table before she fell onto it and ruined his food.
Nev gasped and then caressed her hand down the side of his cheek, feeling the hay colored day-old scruff scratch against her palm in a way that made her imagine that same scruff grazing the inside of her thighs. Her nether-bits throbbed at the idea of him going down on her.
Where the heck did that come from?
She opened her eyes just in time to see Bastian turn his face into her palm and inhale deeply. Holy bananas, his eyes glowed the color of sunlight dancing on the ocean waves.
Bastian cupped her hand against his face and kissed her palm. His soft lips pressing against her skin released crazed butterflies that soared through her chest.
His voice was just above a whisper when he asked, “Is everything okay?”
Excuses. Nev needed an excuse. She was molesting the poor man right there at her job where everyone could see.
“You’re hot as fuck.” The words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them. She realized how awkward she must sound and pulled her hand away from him, slapping it over her mouth instead. Wrong words. She didn’t curse! “I meant you looked hot. Like a fever. You look flushed like you have a fever, and I was just checking because I’m concerned about your health. Enjoy your food.”
If she ever had any questions about it before, this was the best way to look completely and utterly foolish. Even after she’d slapped him hard enough to make her hand sting, he’d kissed her sweetly as if she were something precious to him. Maybe he was touched that she cared whether or not he was well. Or perhaps that palm-kiss was a signature m
ove he performed on women to persuade them to hand over their panties. It sure did the trick.
Truth be told, she’d been attracted to him long before they’d touched. How could she not be? He was a sexy, beefed up man that probably got every woman he’d come on to.
Dang-it. That touch had done something to her. Her ears were on fire, and her heart strummed in her chest like the rolling wheels of a steam train. Still covering her mouth, Nev used her free hand to reach up and put her palm over her heart as if her will alone could make it slow down.
This was crazy. She was being irrational and needed to get away. Now.
Grabbing the tray she’d used to carry his food, Nev walked to the rear of the restaurant, pausing to tell her co-worker Danni that she needed to run to the bathroom. Really, she just wanted a few minutes alone. What if Bastian put some kind of shifter hormone whammy on her? Some of the shifter females went into heat. Could the men go into heat, too? That had to be it. There was no way in the world she could feel this hyped up and excited with just one touch.
Nev’s mother stood at the counter, a knowing smile on her face like she’d just conquered the world.
“I need privacy, Mom.”
“Absolutely. I’ll go next door and say hello to one of my people.” She called every ghost ‘my people.’ It was a funny term, but she’d heard other ghosts use the same phrase. Must be a ghost-thing.
Nev used her key and unlocked the single stalled, female employee bathroom. She cut the light on and stared at herself in the mirror. Whoa. Her pupils were dilated, and she couldn’t catch her breath.
“Calm down, Nev,” she whispered as she turned on the cold water. “You’re old enough to be his mother. Well, if his mother had him at a young age.” She leaned over, collected the water into her hands, and then splashed her face. It took away some of the fire Bastian had magically injected into her body, but she could still feel the effects of his blazing touch deep in her belly.
Maybe there were sexual matches? Mom said the gleam was intense between them. That was it. They should have sex.
“You will do no such thing,” she scolded, pointing at her reflection.
Nope. They shouldn’t have sex. Nev liked working at Melinda’s. The possibility of quitting for a few weeks just so she could sleep with Bastian, and then asking for her job back popped into her mind, but that was foolish. Who did that?
She took a few deep breaths, in through her nose and out through her mouth. Yep. That did it. She was right as rain. Time to go back to work.
Nev opened the door, only to run into a giant wall of man in a grey tee-shirt. She looked up into Bastian’s blue eyes and noticed the tiny flecks of gold around his iris.
“Um, this is the women’s bathroom. And it’s for employees only,” she muttered, her voice low and breathy. She was back to panting again, and she could see the rise and fall of her breasts as she tried to look away from his gaze. And her shoe. There was ketchup on the tip of her shoe.
Screw that. She wasn’t an inexperienced woman who shied away from a man’s eyes just because she wanted to hop on and ride him until neither one of them could see straight.
Nev cleared her throat, raised her chin, and pasted on a friendly smile. “Did I forget something you ordered? I can get it.”
“Is my presence here making you uncomfortable?” he ground out. His voice was low, melodic, and kind of growly. Yup. Definitely a shifter.
Bastian being this close should make her uncomfortable, but it didn’t. Nev wasn’t usually a touchy-feely person, but all she wanted was to run her hands down Bastian’s abs and have him touch her.
Slowly, she shook her head and skimmed the tip of her tongue over her top lip. “No. It’s not. Should it?”
Bow chica wow-wow. This was how pornos started. Did quickies in public bathrooms start like this too? Forty-year-old women did not have porno-sex in public restrooms!
Bastian looked down the hall toward the seating area and then stepped into the bathroom, his large body forcing her back. “Compared to the men’s bathroom, this is nice.” He took another step and then closed the door behind him.
“The waitresses like to keep it pretty in here. Danni brought in the curtains a few weeks ago, and I brought in all the accents. Soap dish, lotion dispenser, trash can. Notice how it smells like mint and vanilla?” She pointed to the essential oil tray in the corner. “My idea. It’s one of the only rooms in this place that doesn’t smell like food.” She rubbed the back of her neck and then swept her hand around the small room. “Well, that was the grand tour of the one-room employee bathroom.” She should have followed up with, Please, tip your tour guide.
Really. They were having a talk about the décor?
Bastian nodded and moved toward her, not stopping until Nev’s back hit the accessories table. It was high and came to her belly button and held a space for combs, brushes, and feminine products. That had been there before Nev was hired.
When she couldn’t go any further, Bastian placed a palm on either side of her on the table. She swallowed thickly and looked up at him. As if giving her a chance to tell him to get the heck away from her, Bastian lowered his head until his warm breath caressed her cheek.
“I can scent your desire. You smell fucking delicious.” His lips lightly trailed from her cheek to the corner of her lips. “Are you wet for me?”
Yup. Nev was excited before she came into the bathroom, but Bastian’s words brought on a flush of wetness to her panties. She knew her voice wouldn’t work, so she nodded and lifted her hands to his chest. God, his heartbeat mirrored hers. It hammered against his sternum and played a high tempo against her hand.
She would have been worried if his heart beat slowly inside him. It would have let her know that this was something he did all the time. They didn’t know each other, but this moment felt big and dangerous. Not just whatever they were about to do in the restroom, but something so much bigger. It was kismet. That or the years of pent-up lust had taken control of her body and good sense.
Nev’s eyes slid closed as Bastian’s lips met hers. It was a gentle kiss at first. Slow sips and exploring fingers, but it boiled over as his demanding mouth covered hers. She opened to him, and Bastian did not disappoint. His tongue searched every inch of her mouth, penetrating and retreating as he thrust his hips against hers. His thumbs caressed the skin of her throat, and Nev let out a needy moan that surprised her.
He pulled away, his eyes scanning her face as he asked, “Is this okay?” Effortlessly, he lifted her and sat her up on the table. “You are so fucking sweet. Your lips, your smile, the way you treat people. I bet your pussy is sweet too.”
Okay. That was a new one. No one had ever said anything like that to Nev before. She would allow it, though. Brownie points and five golden stars for Bastian.
She smiled into the kiss and let her nails scratch down the sides of his arms as she held on to him. Through his jeans, the long bar of his cock stretched to get closer to her. Jeez, Bastian was hard. And his erection was damn near intimidating.
Nev shivered as Bastian used his hips to widen her legs, and her nipples stiffened to tender peaks as his solid chest rubbed against hers. It felt so good to have him this close to her, kissing her like he’d been doing it every day for years.
Overtaken by this meeting of their bodies, Nev opened wider to him, curling her arms around his neck and spearing her fingers into his hair.
Bastian reached between their bodies and slipped his hand inside her pants and panties. Nev jerked as his fingers slid between her wet folds. He cupped her sex and slid a finger into her pussy. Her fingers tightened in his hair as he added a second finger, his palm skimming her clit at just the right angle.
Nev pulled away from their kiss and let out a groan of lust. Pressure built in her core as he fucked her with his fingers. She rocked her hips into each one of his thrusts, and smiled as she felt his body rhythmically moving against her as if he were taking her with his cock.
“Bastian,
” she whispered, feeling the pulsing heat of her orgasm building deep in her core.
Still working her over with one hand, he reached the other up and cupped her face, bringing her kiss back to his. “Come for me, Nev. That’s all I want right now. Come for me.”
His lips covered hers and swallowed every cry of pleasure that flowed from her open mouth. She nipped his bottom lip and held on tighter, hoping like hell she wasn’t pulling out strands of his hair. He didn’t seem to care if she did or not.
A low, feral growl rumbled in his throat, the sound a demand for her orgasm. Nev bit her lip to hold in the sob of release. Her channel clenched around his fingers as he brought her to climax harder and faster than anyone ever had. His massive shoulders bunched up as if her release brought him relief.
Nev let out a shuddering breath as his fingers worked through the aftershocks of her orgasm. Holy bananas. This was easily the sexiest thing Nev had ever done, and they weren’t even having sex.
Watching her with liquid blue eyes, Bastian carefully pulled his hand from her pants and brought it to his lips. He opened his mouth and sucked off the evidence of her slick passion from his fingers.
“I would take you right now if the chef didn’t just ask where you were.”
Crap. She was at work. She just let Bastian get her off. In the bathroom of her job. Well, that was one request off her bucket list, and it had been mind-blowing.
“Have lunch with me?”
Nev looked around the room. “I’m working.”
“Tomorrow?”
She almost laughed at herself when she said, “I don’t date younger men.” Nope. But apparently, she let them finger-bang her in inappropriate spaces. Some women preferred younger guys, but Nev never had a good experience with them.
Once she’d turned forty, she’d promised herself that the only men she would date were those that were at least her age. And who had a job.
