After Hours by Cara McKenna Read Free Book Online Page B

bottle. “You signed up for restraint training tomorrow morning?”
    I nodded. “Jenny said you teach it.”
    “Nah, not really. They just use me ’cause I’m huge. Prepare you for the worst.”
    “You’re really good at it, though, aren’t you? That’s what Dennis told me. He said
     they call you ‘the Disorderly.’ The best man to have around when there’s an incident.”
    He smiled his panty-shredding smile. “And here I thought it was because I’m a bad
     housekeeper.”
    My ability to string words together had abandoned me the second he grinned, so I took
     a final sip of the whiskey before sliding the not-quite-empty glass across the wood.
    “Better get you back,” Kelly said, standing. Fuck me, he was tall.
    “Can I give you some money for the drinks?”
    He narrowed his eyes like I’d called his mother a rude word, and I dropped it.
    I slid from my stool, feeling woozier than I should from two drinks. One glass of
     wine, a shot and a half of whiskey, twelve hours of work, little food and even less
     sleep . . . crippling, ill-advised infatuation.
    “Thanks for bringing me out,” I told him as he held the door. The night felt good.
     When we’d left work it had been warm and humid, and now in the streetlight’s glow,
     with a breeze cooling my skin, it felt like a new day, like I’d left Monday behind
     me.
    “No problem. If you’re feeling like you’re not cut out for this, don’t. Not yet. I’ve
     seen people fall to way worse pieces after their first days in Starling.”
    “I don’t feel nearly as awful as I had when our shift ended, anyhow.”
    “Nothing like a change of scenery to hit the restart button.”
    I watched Kelly’s triceps twitch as he unlocked my side of his truck, thinking,
yes, nothing like a change of scenery.
    But I hated myself, a little, for being so attracted to him. He wasn’t quite like
     the men who’d turned my mom and sister’s lives inside out. He was hardworking and
     seemed honest, and unless he made a pass when he dropped me off, his intentions were
     harmless enough. But he’d painted himself as a cousin of those men—aggressive and
     admittedly selfish, admittedly a bit of a bully. I’d always been so determined to
     never fall for one of those types; now it felt like my body had turned traitor.
    Just because your body’s interested doesn’t mean you’d ever do anything with him.
    Good point, brain. Plus he was my coworker. But there was no harm if, say, I maybe
     hypothesized about what he’d be like in bed as I put myself to sleep, right? Though
     to be honest I didn’t have the first clue. The few guys I’d been with had been selected
     for their gentleness, all trusted friends slowly transitioned to lovers. And I’d never
     gotten hot over the idea of being with a hulking thug of a man, so I couldn’t even
     imagine what I might want to do with one. Or have done to me.
If I’d even get a say,
I thought, remembering the white wine.
    As we drove I pictured tomorrow’s restraint training, trying to imagine Kelly’s huge
     arms locked around my neck or bear-hugging my middle, his deep voice at my ear, barking
     orders.
    Fucking hell.

Chapter Three
    I woke on my birthday with more of a hangover than I deserved, peeling my eyes open
     at the sound of my alarm clock. I’d been waking to that same bleating for fifteen
     years, but once I shut it off, all the familiarity of the world abandoned me.
    Strange room, windows in the wrong places. Wrong-color paint on the walls, wrong temperature
     as I sat up, slipped on my flip-flops in the morning chill and dug in the open suitcase
     propped by the foot of the bed. Wrong, wrong, wrong that I had to put on a robe, lug
     my towel and shampoo three doors down, and punch in a security code to get into the
     women’s communal bathroom, wronger still that someone else already had steam rising
     from one of the shower cubicles.
    As I adjusted the water and hung my robe on the hook outside the