Page 11 of Guarding Salvation

“They’re hilarious. Better than any comedy club. I get to watch them for free and get paid.”

Bein sipped his pint. “You been to many comedy clubs?”

She tensed fractionally before he saw her relax. “A few.”

Interesting. She was being vague, and nondescript and he agreed with Bob’s assessment wholeheartedly. This woman was scared and running, which meant he should stay far away, get up from his seat and walk away. He did none of those things.

“Name’s Bram but most people call me Bein, nice to meet you…?”

He held out his hand and waited a beat for her to take it. When she did, sparks shot from their joined palms up his arm and straight to his cock. Awareness shot between them, and her eyes went from jade green to emerald. She was fucking stunning, and he wanted her more than his next breath. Irish pulled her hand away and wiped it against her jeans as if trying to erase the sensation he knew she’d felt.

“Bein. That’s an interesting name, but I prefer Bram and it’s nice to meet you, too.”

“Bein means mountain in Gaelic. I love the mountains and spend a lot of time there, so that was how I got the name Bein.”

He waited for her to respond with her own name but she didn’t, so he prompted her.

“You got a name or am I gonna call you Irish, princess?”

Her back snapped straight and he saw her pale before his eyes at his words. Her hand shook as she placed the glass on the rack, her eyes not meeting his and he saw true terror in her body language. It took everything in him not to drag her across the bar and hold her in his arms and tell her she was safe, but he didn’t. She was nothing to him and Shadow couldn’t afford for him to go around playing hero to random women, no matter how much he wanted to.

“W…why would you call me that?”

“Because you have an Irish accent?” He shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant when he felt anything but and took a sip of his drink as if he hadn’t just seen her react the way he had. She needed to think she was getting things past him or she’d bolt, he could sense it.

“Oh, okay that makes sense and yeah call me Irish.”

“So, Irish, important question, and this is very serious.” He saw her take a small step back as he leaned forward, her trust in him as thin as rice paper.

“Okay,” she responded slowly, drawing the word out.

“Ketchup or brown sauce on a bacon roll?”

Her smile lit up the room and Bein felt her relax as she leaned in closer again, the perceived threat she’d seen in him was suddenly gone now he was asking random questions.

“Brown sauce.”

Bein gave her a grin and a wink and saw her flourish under his friendly banter. Maybe friends was what she needed more than a quick fuck, and he found himself wanting to get to know her better. “Good answer. Okay, next one. Apple pie or apple crumble?”

“Crumble, always crumble.”

“Wow, you’re smashing this.”

“My turn.”

He nodded, loving how she was opening up to him, even if she didn’t realise it. As the night wore on, and in between serving punters, she stayed at the bar near him, and they continued to chat about mundane things. Movies, music, she was into Marvel movies, which he also loved, but hated horrors, which he didn’t mind. She loved sushi, which he thought of as the devil’s food, but they both loved sweet and salty popcorn rather than the toffee kind.

He found out she was well educated with a love of history and languages. That she loved Taylor Swift and hated Rap music. He told her he was ex-army, which was what he told everyone, sticking as close to the truth as he could about what he did in the past was always best. Most lies were based in truth, it was more authentic and made it easier to keep up the façade.

He glanced down at her ring finger and saw no marks but asked anyway. “You married, Irish?”

As soon as he said the words, the tension was back, the personal questions were where the danger lay for her, and it made him want to know more.

“No, not married. You?”

“No, I was married to the army and now my job here.”

“So, what do you do exactly?”