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I’d grabbed him on instinct. I had no plan, but I couldn’t let him walk away, either. Not looking like that.
He stared at me, barely breathing, and I wracked my brain for something to say.
The boy beat me to it.
“Callum?” he whispered, trembling in my grip but making no effort to shake me off or move away.
I froze, no doubt looking as shocked as he had.
He knew me?
Then I remembered that Jackie had given him my name at the restaurant, and the fact that the boy remembered it woke something up in me—something hot and primitive and possessive—that didn’t bode well for my ability to walk away at all once this moment between us was over.
“Sorry,” he whispered when my silence lasted a beat too long, looking down.
I let go of his arm and gripped his chin, tiling his face back up.
I needed those eyes on me again, and when he blinked up at me, I smiled down at him, my voice gentler than anyone in my life would ever recognize. “That’s right, sweetheart. We met at La Vigneta last week.”
The boy’s face flushed a gorgeous pink, and for a moment, the strained, desperate look in his eyes was replaced by something I liked a hell of a lot more. Something a little bit naughty and a whole lot enticing as he ducked his head again, a small smile hovering around his pretty mouth. “I remember, sir.”
My cock flexed in my pants. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I wanted that mouth… badly.
“Look at me,” I said without thinking, then dropped my hand before I crossed another line when his instant compliance tempted me to do something completely inappropriate, like let my fingers play over his full lips.
Or lean down to taste them.
He searched my face for a moment, then straightened his shoulders, running a hand self-consciously down the front of his wrinkled uniform shirt and clearing his throat. “Did you need something, sir?”
“Did I… no,” I said, suddenly feeling off kilter in a way I wasn’t used to at all. I grasped at the first thing that came to mind, gesturing toward the barista that the boy had just spoken with as I scrambled for some kind of reasonable excuse for having stopped him like that. “Was there a problem ordering?”
The sweet blush on his cheeks had started to fade, but my question instantly turned him pink again.
No, not pink this time. Bright red.
“Um,” he said, clearly uncomfortable with the question, and—if I was reading him correctly—hoping to leave his answer at just that.
Unacceptable.
I raised an eyebrow and just waited, not willing to walk away without a real answer from him, even if, for the life of me, I couldn’t have said why it felt so important that I find out what was happening here.
“No,” he finally mumbled after a moment, looking down again so I could barely catch the rest of what he said. “I just… I thought maybe they did free birthday drinks here, but she, uh, she said they don’t do that.”
Oh. Right. He’d told Jackie that his birthday was coming up, and it must be today.
Which meant he was nineteen now.
Still too young. But not… as young.
I clenched my jaw tightly the moment I caught myself trying to justify my interest. He was still off limits if I knew what was good for me.
Clearly, I didn’t.
“Then it sounds like I’ll need to buy you a birthday drink,” I said, inordinately pleased to have an excuse for a few more minutes in his company as I pulled him back into line with me.
His eyes jerked up to meet mine again as another wave of pink colored his cheeks. And damn, that was something I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of seeing.
I loved how he looked when he got all flushed and flustered.
