The King - S.R. Jones Page 0,3
around until she gets up and joins in this roasting.
I don’t want to see the gorgeous creature Konstantin is married to either.
He never told me he was married during any of our talks, which we had quite regularly when I was seemingly his favorite barista. In fact, he gave the distinct impression he was single. Lying rat.
I should’ve known he was married despite not wearing a ring. A man like this, so much power in him, so much damn charisma, he doesn’t stay on the market.
It sucks.
He’s been mine for the longest time. My secret, my dark little walk on the wild side. At night, when my cheating asshole fiancé was with his other woman, but I thought he was out with friends, I used to take my trusty vibrator in hand and imagine Konstantin doing all the things to me I’d never dare try in real life.
Yeah, time to leave. I can’t bear to meet his wife looking like this.
I start to walk toward the door, but Konstantin takes hold of my upper arm. His grip isn’t tight, but it is commanding.
“You can’t walk to the village; at least, I doubt you can. Not in those shoes. It’s a good thirty-minute walk and muddy in places. No pavements a lot of the way.”
“Oh.” I want the ground to open up and swallow me.
My whole life I’ve never met a man I’ve been so intensely attracted to from the get-go. I swear if I’d been the sort of girl who gave in to her animalistic side, I’d beg him to take me here and now on his shiny kitchen counter top. I’m not, though. I’m the girl who crushed on him forever, used to giggle when I took his coffee orders like a stupid kid, and now is standing here, a bedraggled mess in his showroom kitchen.
“You look older dressed like this.” He sounds disapproving almost.
While talking, he’s flipped the switch on a fancy coffee machine and now it’s making a hissing noise. He turns away from me to carry out the alchemy that turns mere water and coffee grounds into a beverage straight from heaven. Or it is for most folks. I prefer tea.
He fills one cup and holds it out to me. “I know you don’t drink much coffee, but you like it in the morning, right?”
Wow, he remembers.
I thought I was the only one who remembered our conversations from all those months ago when he was a regular in the café. I hoarded the little snippets of information I gained about him like treasures. I swear, if they could be put in a box and kept safe, I would have.
He remembers too. Then again, he strikes me as the sort of man who remembers a lot, who takes in the world around him, analyzes it, and stores facts. I tell myself not to take it personally and see it as anything more than him being observant. With a smile, I reach out for the coffee.
“Milk?” he offers?
I shake my head. I often drink coffee with milk if I have a second, but my first of the day? Always black.
“Listen, Cassie, or should I call you jailbait these days, if this is how you dress now?” He smirks, one-sided, cold, but still as sexy as hell. “You’re going to be in for a long wait for a cab, there’s no buses from the village on Sunday, even if you could get there in your stripper shoes, and the trains are irregular at best. Where do you live?”
“Camden, near the center of town, close to the coffee shop, but it’s miles away.”
“I’m heading into town, got to work. I’ll drop you off.”
I love how he calls London town too, like me. It makes me smile. One of the biggest cities in the world, a busy, noisy, chaotic mess, and we call it town. Another little thing we have in common, like our love of dogs, and interest in great Russian literature.
He downs his coffee, and I watch his throat work in fascination.
“Come on, jailbait. I’ll give you a lift.”
I frown at him. “Which is it? One minute you’re telling me I’m dressed like a stripper and look older, but the next, you’re telling me I’m jailbait. It’s a contradiction.”
He pauses, turns to look at me, and smirks again. I shouldn’t find that arrogant expression so very sexy.
“You are a contradiction. You used to look like a wholesome young woman; now, like this, with the smudged makeup, you appear oddly