Lucien’s message could not have been clearer, and Dylan admired him all the more for his loyalty.
“I’ll never hurt her on purpose.”
“It’s easily done.”
Dylan swirled the whisky in his glass. “I get that too.”
His heart felt oddly heavy in his chest long after the conversation had ended. He’d forgotten that feeling in the last few weeks, but now it was back with him. Could he really have this life? Was he entitled to it, after all that had gone before? He badly needed to believe that the answer was yes.
Chapter Fifteen
“Throwing yourself a party, Sailor?” Kara sat down at the bar a couple of evenings later, the bangles around her wrist clattering against the mirrored surface. Dylan was working late again, the mellow sound of Bob Marley low in the background as he studied an array of rainbow coloured liqueurs and bottles of spirits lined up across the bar. Sophie and Lucien had left together an hour or two before, leaving Kara and Dylan behind to lock up.
“Every club needs its signature cocktail.”
“It does?” Kara turned the closest bottle towards her, reading the label on the deep amber liquid. “Hierbas?”
Dylan nodded.
“Top of the list. It’s locally made.” He took the bottle from her and opened it. “The taste of Ibiza.” He held it out for her to smell. She inhaled, catching notes of fresh lavender and herbs.
“It smells like summer,” she said as Dylan reached for a shot glass and poured out a little for her to try. The flavours burst in her mouth: sweet aniseed, fragrant herbs, and smooth, warm alcohol. “Wow,” she laughed. “That’s… potent.”
“Yes it is,” Dylan murmured, setting the bottle to one side and opening a bottle of Cava from the fridge.
“This is turning into my kind of Friday night,” Kara said, as Dylan reached down a champagne flute from the overhead rack and poured her a glass. She watched him as he studied the bottles on the bar, selecting the odd one and either shortlisting it next to the Hierbas or else putting it back in its place behind him on the shelf.
“You’ve done this before, huh?”
He shrugged. “Some.”
“Can you toss the shaker behind your back? Please say yes,” Kara giggled, halfway towards a Tom Cruise fantasy already.
Dylan rolled his eyes. He’d cut his teeth on all that stuff, it was second nature.
“For sure. But I’m not doing it for you now.”
“You so are,” Kara placed her Cava down. “I’d like a Sex on the Beach, please barman, followed by a Slow Comfortable Screw.”
Dylan shook his head, the trace of a laugh on his face.
“Predictable.” He measured Hierbas into a glass cup and then into a silver beaker.
“A Screaming Orgasm then?” She tilted her head to one side winsomely and batted her eyelashes. “Please?” Just saying the words warmed the pit of her stomach, because Dylan Day was capable of exactly that with just a few flicks of his fingers. It was verging on embarrassing how easily the man could make her come.
He lifted his amused eyes to hers, and then reached for a mortar and pestle. She sat for a few seconds as he plucked fresh mint from a plant on the back of the bar then set to work. She watched his hands, the slow grinding motion as he crushed the leaves. She wanted them on her instead.
Reaching behind her neck, she pulled the ties of her halter necked sundress open and let it fall to her waist.
Dylan ran his tongue over his lips. He paused, then seemed to think better of it and continued to add a little Cava to the crushed mint.
Kara unclipped her strapless bra and peeled it from her body, holding it up for a second and letting it fall fluidly from her fingertips. She didn’t need to look down to know that her nipples were hard. Her body was screaming for him.
“Slippery Nipple?” she said, her eyes on his as she slid her hands over herself, tweaking her nipples lightly for his benefit. She had him and she knew it. His eyes darkened. He set the cocktail equipment down to one side and walked slowly round to her side of the bar.
Swinging her stool around to face him, he opened her knees and moved to stand between them.
“I think I’d better test that claim, English,” he said, and Kara sighed into his mouth as it covered hers at the same time as his hands covered her breasts. He rolled her nipples slowly, his tongue sliding over hers.
“You lied,” he murmured. “Not slippery.”
He reached for the bottle of Hierbas and tipped a little into his mouth, then lowered his head and closed his mouth over her nipple. His hands spanned her ribcage above her pushed down dress, holding her steady as he kissed his way over her curves to give her other breast some attention. Heat, and the slide of his tongue around her sensitive nipple, then delicious suction.
“Now they’re slippery,” he said as he raised his head. “Slippery, and sexy, and delicious.”
His mouth tasted of warm, sweet summer sunshine when he kissed her again, a sensual assault, his hands sliding into her hair.
“If I fucked you right now, would you be slippery there too?” he breathed, pressing the hardness of his cock into the silk of her knickers below her rucked up skirt. Just as Kara decided that Hierbas was her favourite drink in the whole wide world, he pulled back, dropped a kiss that lingered on the hollow at the base of her neck, and then returned to the other side of the bar.
She stared at him, her breath coming in less than regular gasps.
“I’m working,” he said, steadily. “And you’re a beautiful distraction.”
He strained the mint infusion into the Hierbas in the metal shaker. His eyes ran over the coloured spirits in front of him.
“Which one, English?” he said. “Which one would you choose?”
Did he actually expect her to have a lucid opinion on anything other than how much she wanted him to get naked? In the background, Bob Marley helpfully suggested she should stir it up as she scanned the bottles quickly.
“The blue one,” she said, at random.
He frowned thoughtfully, then shrugged and picked the blue curacao out of the line up. Lurid as it was, its bitter orange flavour might just harmonise well. He measured it out and added it to the mint and Hierbas in the shaker.
Kara crossed her legs and picked up the glass of Cava he’d just topped up for her, learning patience, now beginning to enjoy his slow game because she was pretty certain that it would end with what she so much wanted. She held out a cautionary hand as he screwed the top onto the cocktail shaker and hefted it.