The Soldier - S.R. Jones Page 0,22
lands a full-time job.
Cassie isn’t crazy on coffee, funnily enough, and only has one or two cups a day, preferring tea, and mostly iced, peach tea.
She’s into dancing, and the girl has a heart of fucking gold. Cassie takes her elderly neighbor ballroom dancing every Thursday night. She also visits her grandparents every weekend. I bet she bakes apple fucking pie and takes them to the food bank.
Cassie has a deep and abiding fear of wasps and bees, and it’s almost comical to see her zig and zag with her arms full of coffee cups as she dances out of their way on sunny days.
All she knows about me is that I’m a wealthy businessman, and I too love to read, I hate dancing and, in fact, can’t do it—which she says is rubbish, everyone can, I just need to try, and I love coffee. Oh, and yeah, I told her I love dogs too, which I do.
Cassie doesn’t know that I’m personally responsible for the movement of most of the weapons into the Western seaboard of the US. Or that whilst most of my business in London is legit, my business in Russia, the US, as well as South America and untold other places, is anything but. London is a front and an insurance policy in one. I’ve built up enough earnings from it that I don’t need the other shit, which makes it easier to walk away completely from the illegal side, if ever things get too hot.
Cassie is busy bussing a few of the tables that are outside. I slow my steps so I can watch her curvy figure as she moves. There’s something about her that makes my mouth water. In a world of Instagram and Tinder perfect women who all look eerily the same, she’s different. Her hair is often a tangled mess, her makeup is subtle, or some days nonexistent. Her body is divine, but not in the gym honed, plastic surgery enhanced way of so many of the women I fuck these days. No, my little barista is all natural.
As I approach, my ears prick at the conversation she’s having with a customer.
“You look amazing, though,” the other woman is saying.
“Honestly, just walking, dancing, and sporadic yoga. I don’t do anything else. I can’t be bothered. I hate the gym. I walk all the time, though. I walk to and from work. I walk to go meet friends, and I walk home after a night out. It’s so accessible and easy. Unless the weather is bad, I don’t bother with public transport or a cab.”
She ought to be careful who she tells these details to. There are a lot of predators around, and discussing your daily walking routine, loudly, isn’t smart. I know all about predators, being one myself. Except, I don’t prey on vulnerable women; where’s the fun in that? My targets are other predators, those like me. There’s nothing more satisfying than bringing down some big game, metaphorically speaking. Cassie is a gazelle, and there’s no thrill felling one of those.
She glances up, sees me, and flashes me a grin. God, her smile. It really is like the sun coming out from behind a cloud. It lights her whole face and is just pure joy.
“Hey, Konstantin,” she says.
She’s one of the very few people to use my first name. I gave it her one day when she asked for my name to write on my cup when I grabbed a rare takeout, and now she uses it freely. It never fails to give me a thrill, mostly because when she says it I imagine her gasping as I fuck her into the mattress.
I don’t know why I’ve not made a move on her. Partly it’s because I don’t think she’d be receptive to what I want. I don’t think she does casual fucking, or being someone’s arm candy for a few weeks or months. Cassie is deeper than that.
The other reason I’ve not made a move is because I like her. I don’t normally like people, not this much. I like her, and I want to fuck her, and I don’t quite know what to do with that. In fact, I want to fuck her so much, it almost worries me, or would, if I worried about such things. It does make me pause, though, and not make a move. It might get messy if I did, and things are critical business wise right now. I can’t afford emotional entanglements.
One of