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Private Property
M’Renee Allen
1
She’d made almost one hundred dollars in tips.
Nowhere near enough to pay off her debt. Still, it would do for tonight. She was tired, her feet hurt from standing in heels all night long and she was ready to go to bed. Cristal Dawson counted the ones and fives that had been dropped into her tip jar.
At this rate, she wouldn’t be done paying off her debt for five years. Screw that, ten. This was worse than trying to pay off a student loan. Luckily, this debt didn’t come with interest. Just as she was folding her money, a customer walked up to the bar and tapped her on the shoulder.
“Are you the bartender?” The female asked, words slurred.
With her back to the customer, Criss shook her head, not bothering to look over her shoulder. She wasn’t a bartender. Yeah, she was standing on the bartender’s side of the bar, but that didn’t mean anything. She was just watching the register for Angelina, who’d gone to the back to use the restroom.
“Is the bar still open?” The customer behind her asked.
Again, Criss shook her head without turning around. Yeah, it was kind of rude of her to ignore the customer. But if she made eye contact, the female would start begging her to prepare her a drink.
They always got her with that one drink line. Once the drink was prepared, they complained about its taste. As if she hadn’t told them she wasn’t a damn bartender. Tonight, Criss didn’t have time for that.
After a few moments and a few choice words, she heard the customer stumble away from the bar. Cristal turned around and scanned the crowd, looking for a security guard. Her eyes connected with Ramirez, who was posted up in the corner.
She waved to get his attention. When he looked her way, she pointed in the direction of the female she’d just finished talking to. The female was stumbling through the crowd. Ramirez saw the chick and nodded.
Criss didn’t have to say a word. Ramirez already knew what she wanted. She wanted him to keep an eye on the female and make sure she made it into a cab safely. She waited for Ramirez to reach the woman, before turning her back to the counter once more.
The club was closing. The music was no longer blaring. Even though that was a tell-tell sign that it was time to go home, there was always one or two people security had to toss out each night.
It would probably be another thirty minutes before she was able to go home. Criss went back to counting her money. Maybe if she counted it slower, more would appear. Yeah, right. Stuff like that only happened at Hogwarts.
Cristal shoved the money into her back pocket and stared at the liquor bottles on the shelves. From the corner of her eye, she saw the side panel on the bar open. In stepped the real bartender, Angelina.
Angelina caught her staring at the bottles of liquor on the back wall. “Hey, Criss, you want a drink?”
Cristal glanced at the scantily clad bartender approaching her and shook her head. “Nope. I have to drive.”
“You could always catch a cab.”
“I don’t want to waste my money.”
“You could get the boss man to take you home.” Angelina winked at her as the club’s D.J stepped up to the bar and placed an order.
“I don’t trust the boss man as far as I can throw him.”
Angelina chuckled as she served her last customer of the night his drink. Every night, D.J Loco got a free drink before heading home. Not only him, but most of the security guards and the dancers got free drinks before leaving also.
After the D.J. walked away, Angelina put up the ‘No Longer Serving’ sign and started counting the money from her register. So much money. Why couldn’t Cristal bring in the kind of money each night?
“I don’t know what you have against our boss man. You’d have to be blind not to notice how sexy that man is. Wouldn’t you love for that hunk to give you a ride home then stay and have his way with you?”
Cristal pretended she hadn’t heard what the bartender said. Truth was, she would love for Constantine Novinkoff to have his way with her. Even though she hated to admit it, it was hard to ignore the raw sex appeal he exuded.
Dude had to be about 6’4. And he wasn’t pretty-boy fine. He was rugged, lumber jack, headboard banging until the wee hours of the morning fine. He had broad shoulders that were made to have a female’s legs thrown over them.
In her wild fantasies, she yearned to rub her tongue all over his bulging muscles. Sometimes, when she was alone with him, he stared at her in a way that made her think he wished for the same thing.
Then he opened his mouth and spoke, and she remembered why she hated him. He may be sexy, but he was also rude and obnoxious. He was also a killer. Maybe that should’ve been at the top of the list of reasons why she despised him.
