AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No, I just hadn’t ticked it off my list yet.” I winced slightly. “I don’t think martinis are my style, though.”
“Gin is an acquired taste. Not everyone likes juniper. Perhaps something sweet would be more to your taste.”
“Maybe.” I had avoided any sweet drinks so far because I was still getting used to sweets. Many of them were overwhelming to me. Even an ordinary mango had surprised me with its powerful flavor. “I just always thought the martinis made people holding them look more sophisticated, I guess.”
“Ah. But sophistication is in the mind and the manner, not in the glass.” His gaze swept over me, taking in everything from my earrings to my dress to my shoes before settling on my eyes again. “You manage fairly well without the martini glass, little rose.”
My cheeks prickled with warmth, and I covered my smile with my hand shyly.
He lifted an eyebrow. “Do you always hide your mouth when you smile?”
I blinked and lowered my hand a little self-consciously. “I guess it’s a habit. I barely notice it.”
“I see.” He glanced around briefly. “I’m surprised you’re here on your own. Don’t young ladies tend to travel in packs in bars?”
I laughed a little. “Um, I guess so. All my friends were busy tonight, though, and I was bored.” Besides, I didn’t want a bunch of friends running interference. I wasn’t sure all of them would have approved of my plan.
“You’re not concerned for your safety, alone in a bar in this neighborhood?”
“Not really. I know how to defend myself.” Self-defense classes were another item I had knocked off my Sin List, for obvious reasons. This was Chicago, the big city. I couldn’t rely on a man, my family, or God for safety all of the time. I had to know how to take care of myself.
“Good to know.” His eyebrows were climbing his forehead slowly, he didn’t look convinced.
“Yeah,” I joked, forcing a wry little grin, “so you’d better watch your manners, or your ankles are toast.”
He burst out laughing. “Oh, I see! I shall have to keep that in mind, little rose. I would not wish to feel your thorns.”
I smiled and looked down into my glass, a little embarrassed. “Yeah, well, don’t underestimate us tiny girls.”
“I never would. My own mother was quite small.”
I looked him up and down. “Did she marry a giant?”
“No, she married a mill worker. He was rather tall, though.” He chuckled and took a swallow of his drink.
We were still in the small-talk zone. I thought I was doing okay, but my desperate inexperience with flirting was adding to my nerves. Could I actually seal the deal with a guy I didn’t know like normal women did all the time?
Maybe. No way of knowing until I tried. “So, what do you do, anyway?”
He hesitated for just a moment, long enough for me to see his expression shift, and become a touch more guarded. “I’m in private security,” he said smoothly enough. “Yourself?”
I shrugged. “I do deliveries and work some online as well.”
“I see. What do you aim to do?”
“Well, I have a list of things I’ve wanted to do since I was little. As soon as I got away from my parents, I started checking things off. But if you’re talking career, I’m still figuring that out.”
Free.If I had to boil down what I wanted to be in one word, that was it. I didn’t want to be smothered by my parents or in some marriage they arranged with a guy twice my age. I didn’t want to be someone’s property. I wanted my own money, my own home, my own ability to choose and control my own life. “Whatever will keep me living independently is fine with me.”
He took a sip of his drink and then looked up at me. “You said ‘got away from’ your parents.”
“I did. Yeah, they were…not fabulous. We’re not in contact.” It had taken the threat of a protection order to stop my father, butI had won myself eighteen months and counting, of peace away from them.
“Ah, I see. It is unfortunate that some people are blessed with a child but do not treat it as a blessing.” His way of constantly watching me unnerved me a little. He seemed to loom, even perched on his chair. But it didn’t seem to be something he could help. He didn’t have a menacing air, and he wasn’t setting off any alarm bells. He was just a touch overwhelming up close.
But that only made me want him more. I wanted to know how those large hands would feel on my skin. I wanted to know what his weight would feel like pressing down on me. I wondered if he used his teeth in bed, and what he would do to me.
“It’s not even that they didn’t care about me. They were that flavor of Jesus freak who thinks a girl just living her life the way most people do is unforgivable.” I hesitantly took another sip of the martini, but it just never got any better.
