Hard by Eve Jagger Read Free Book Online Page A

whiskey and beckons me with his fingers: Come here.
    Wading
through the shoulder-to-shoulder bodies—all while spilling not
a drop, I might add—I make my way to Ryder. His blazer gone,
his shirt sleeves are rolled up and for the first time I get a look
at his ink, a swath of colors and black outlines that somehow make
the muscles in his forearms even sexier and more defined.
    “Yes,
Mr. Cole?”
    “Finally,”
he says, “a little respect.”
    “Emphasis
on little.”
    “When
it comes to you, Cassie, I’ll take what I can get.” He
smiles like a hungry man about to feast. “Emphasis on take.”
    “Did you need something or are you just trying to distract me
from my tables?” I say, cocking my hip to the side and
balancing the tray on it.
    “Do I distract you?” He steps closer. I inhale the smell
of him like a spell, a mix of cedar and citrus and something sweet
taking over every cell in my body.
    I exhale. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I say, but more
breathlessly than I expected.
    “Then pay attention to the orders,” he says. He takes
three speared olives from the containers on the bar and puts one in
each martini. “This is the easy part of the job.”
    “Maybe that’s why I missed it,” I say. “I
prefer doing things that are hard.” I let my gaze trickle down
from his face, past his chest, pausing at his pelvis. When I look up
at him again, his smile has gone from hungry man to starving, ready
to devour the first thing he sees.
    And he’s looking right at me.
    He raises his eyebrows. “You’re walking a very thin line
tonight, tiger.”
    “You gonna cross it?” I say.
    He leans toward me, his eyes narrowed but bright, even in the
darkness of the bar. “Don’t start something you can’t
finish.”
    I stand on my tiptoes and tilt my mouth toward his. “Oh, I
always finish,” I say as I turn to go deliver my drinks, my
slow walk the complete opposite of the racing of my heart, like we’re
playing a tense game of hide and seek.
    And based on the way I can feel his eyes focused on the swivel of my
hips, I don’t think I’d mind being caught.

 
    RYDER
     

CH. 8
     
    She’s
swallowed up by the crowd as she turns away from me, but all I can
think about is Cassie’s mouth swallowing my cock, her soft lips
moving up and down my hard shaft as my hands comb through her long,
blond hair, rub over her naked back, then across her ribcage, cupping
her tits as my thumbs drift lightly across her hard nipples, making
her moan and reach between her legs with her own hand to stroke her
wet, pink pussy.
    “You
gonna hit that?” Cash says.
    “What?”
    From
behind the bar, Cash points to my glass of whiskey, less than half
gone. “You gonna finish it? Because if not,” he says,
then takes the glass and throws it back in one gulp.
    “You
didn’t even let me answer,” I say.
    “You’re
too slow,” he says. “Better speed it up if you want to
get to her first, too.”
    “Get
to who first?”
    Cash
laughs. “No need to play coy with me, Ryde. You were
practically going down on Cassie with your eyeballs a second ago, and
I want you to know, I’m in full support, dude. She’s hot.
And smart. Maybe too smart for you.”
    “You’ve
got it all wrong. I was just instructing my new employee on the
nuances of her job,” I say.
    “While
imagining her naked.”
    I
shake my head. “You need to get laid more,” I say. “I
sense some pent-up projection.”
    “I
don’t think so,” he says. “Katie and I had sex in
her car right before her shift started tonight, so I’m good.
This is about you and your blue balls.”
    “You
and our waitress Katie?” I say.
    Cash
shrugs. “Yeah, it’s totally casual,” he says. “Like
a stress-reliever thing for her. She’s pre-med at Emory.”
    “How
charitable of you.”
    He
smiles. “I do what I can to keep the staff happy,” he
says. “But I know I can be hard to resist, so don’t
worry. I’ll stay away from Cassie. Don’t know if I can
say