2

Henry Luther

Shit, she was adorbs. Smoldering hot, too, not just hot. But there was the way she looked at me, the way her mouth seemed to always be on the verge of smiling, and it got me over to say something to her.

"Hey, Lydia," I said as she raised her eyes to meet mine, blinking as if I were some ghost.

She'd gazed down at her name tag, where I'd discovered the lovely name of hers. And then she'd gazed up.

"Hi," she'd said. "Would you like… could I get you something? I think we close our kitchen now, but…" She'd looked over her shoulder at the kitchen. She was on edge, and that only made her lovelier.

And she was already stunning, with fire-red hair spilling over her shoulder in loose waves, and big brown, round eyes that dared me to fall into them.

"Yeah," I said. "Your number."

She blinked. "What?"

"I'm being forward," I told her. "Sorry for that. You're just the most beautiful thing I've seen in a very, very long, long time. And I couldn't possibly allow the opportunity to pass to hang out with you.".

She blinked at me afterward flushed the shade of her cheeks.

"I'm not a thing," she bristled.

I laughed. Oh, God. Feisty, too. She was the complete package.

"I just told you you're pretty, and all you got was that I called you a thing?"

She shrugged. "I don't like being spoken to like the staff."

I laughed again. "I wasn't trying to treat you like staff. Bad choice of words. You're the prettiest woman I've seen in ages. Better?"

She nibbled on her lip, then nodded rosily.

Shit. Already, she was getting me out of my head. I grinned.

"And I'd like to spend some time with you. Would you like to have a drink with me?"

She dithered.

"There's still time before you close, isn't there?" I asked.

"I'm not supposed to drink when I work," she said.

"Who's going to know?" I asked. "We're the only ones here."

As she swung round, she realized I had been right. There were no other customers remaining. All the rest had shut up and gone home. It was a minute past twelve, and there was still hours' time to serve a couple of beers.

She pondered it in her mind, I could tell. And it was bloody stifling.

"Okay," she said eventually.

I grinned at her. "Okay."

She disappeared and a second later, she reappeared with two beers.

We walked over to the table where I sat with my college friend, Savon, and his girlfriend, Heppie.

"So, Lydia," I welcomed them when they sat down.

"Most people call me Lydia," she answered. "The name tag is formal." She smiled and stroked her fingers across the tag on her breast.

"Savon."

She smiled. "Hi, Henry."

I grinned to have my name spoken from her mouth.

"So, Lydia, what do you do? Apart from working here?"

"I'm a student," she said. "I'm studying art."

I whistled through my teeth. "That's impressive."

"Is it?"

"Surely," I said to her. She blushed to the compliment. I only envied a lot of art students. It was a difficult vocation—it was passion to them all because the majority of them didn't go far in the vocation of art. Learning money from something like that, regardless of how much you loved it, wasn't simple.

"What about you?" she inquired.

I graduated from college last year. I'm just completing an internship now.

"So what are you going to do, then?" she inquired.

I had beer. "Business school."

"Seriously?"

I nodded. "I want to make a difference, you know? But not the kind that most people say they want to."

"How, then?"

"Gourmet food."

She laughed, and I was done. I could be hooked on that sound.

"Hi," she said, nudging me in the shoulder with a grin of enjoyment at the contact. "Good food brings people together. And it makes a very profitable business, too."

"I admire your passion. Where is your school?"

"New York."

Did I imagine it, or did her expression droop?

I was departing for New York City in two days to start graduate school. I had worked hard to get to where I was, and I would work harder when I got to the Big Apple.

"When are you leaving?" she asked.

I hesitated, whether to tell her or not. I did not wish to scare her away.

"In two days."

Her eyes widened. "Oh, soon."

I nodded.

Leaving was not easy. I loved LA, but I needed to do this. An MBA would open a multitude of doors for me to push upon. And I had big dreams.

"Well, you'll likely get along just fine in grad school," Lydia said. "It almost sounds like you're really excited to be graduating and starting a business."

I nodded. "Absolutely. What's the point if there is no passion?

"Only so," she said to me. "Which is why I'm doing art, despite what I know everybody else has to say to me."

"I think it's noble," I said to her. "What do you do?"

"I paint," she said, her eyes lighting up.

"Ahh. What do you enjoy painting?"

Anything, she said, playfully twisting a curl of her red hair.

"Landscapes, abstract. But portraits are the best. I love people's faces. They always tell something."

She smiled at me. Her eyes were captivating. I was about to leave, but I needed to know more about her. There was something in her that seemed to be beckoning to me, pulling me in, to see what she was like.

"Are you single?" I asked.

My question startled me and her as much as it startled me and her.

"Yeah," she said, and something flickered across her face too quickly for me to understand.

"Lucky me," I said, smiling at her.

She smiled back, and it was beautiful. Deep and rich and real.

"Yeah, I guess you are."

I downed a swig of my beer. "So, what do you do besides wait tables at Café Noir or make art?"

"Being a full-time student and working take up most of my time," she chuckled.

"What are you doing tonight?" I asked.

She shrugged. "After locking up the building and erasing all trace of my having disobeyed the rules tonight—" she smiled at me "—I'm probably going home to bed so that I can wake up early enough for classes again tomorrow morning."

"That's too bad," said I.

"Then why?"

"Because I was hoping you'd go out with me tonight to celebrate."

She blinked at me. "What are we celebrating?"

"The fact that I ran into the prettiest woman I've ever seen." I grinned at her and watched the color come to her cheeks.

"Oh, you are smooth, Henry. But bumping into me is not something one should boast about."

"Oh, Lydia," I whispered, moving closer. "Have you seen yourself?"

She blushed again and I moved forward, placing my hand on her arm. I couldn't help myself. She was drawn to me.

"So, what do you mean?" I said. "When you're done here, would you like to go with me?"

"Wherever are we going?" she whispered.

"Wherever you'd like."

"For someone who looks as together as you do, I'd think that you'd already have an answer for that question in hand," she said.

I smiled. "You think I look together?"

"Don't you?" she asked. "Mean, look at you." She scoured me with her eyes, and I liked the way she looked at me. "You're definitely the type of guy to control a boardroom."

I laughed. "Is it that obvious that I'm a business major? I couldn't just get by as a carpenter, or a lumberjack?"

She raised an eyebrow. "Seriously? A lumberjack? I can just imagine you in plaid and boots, staring up at a tree, wondering how much you'll need to bribe it to fall for you."

I laughed out loud. "Bribe it?"

"Ah, I can see you exercise," she stammered, her cheeks red. "But your hands are not calloused like a man who runs a chainsaw for a living." She grasped my hand and placed both hands over my hands. At contact, sparks erupted between them and I held my breath. She gazed up at me before scrutinizing my hand.

I liked the feel of her hands on me, smooth and soft skin, nimble fingers. Her hands were smudged with paint, and the smudges were adorable.

I scooted in closer so that our noses were bent heads together, checking out my hand.

"So, you believe I'll be more skilled at negotiating than at felling trees?" I asked. My voice was a bit rough.

She glanced up at me again and her lips were inches from my face, I could sense the flashes of gold in those great brown eyes.

"Yeah. And it's good for the planet."

I laughed. I could smell the shampoo in her hair. I held up my other hand and smoothed her hair behind her ear. Her eyes were locked on mine, and when I leaned forward and kissed her, her eyes closed.

When our lips met, the same fantastic electrical zing happened for me that had when she'd kissed my hand. I pushed my tongue into her mouth and she made a soft groaning sound.

The moan was arousing and sent my dick into a stiffen in my trousers.

I wrapped my fingers around her cheek and kissed her more forcefully, trying to show her the effect she was having. I ran my hands up her back onto her shoulders and into her hair as I pulled her into me. Her arms wrapped around my shoulders. I sniffed her scent, and it made me reeled.

When at last we managed to tear ourselves apart from one another to look into the other's face, she was gasping as though she'd run a mile and her eyes were darker and more intense. Her lips parted very slightly.

"Go home with me," I instructed.

She retreated one step.

Shit, did I mess up?

"I need to close the café and do the cleanup," she replied.

I nodded. "I'll help out."

We stayed there. Everyone else was nowhere to be found, and I helped her close up. We rocked the chairs back onto the tables for the cleaning crew to sweep come morning, wiped the countertops clean, and she started the big industrial dishwasher that someone had already begun.

I never once looked away from her the entire time. I watched her work, keeping up with her as we did. She was gorgeous and poised, all done slowly, like it actually mattered. Her bright red hair fell like a flame down her back in the dim light. When she glanced at me occasionally, her eyes were profound. Her face told me that she was as eager to get out of this place as I was.

After she'd finished the shop and closed the door behind her, she turned to confront me.

"I don't do this," she told me.

"Clean up the shop?"

She smiled. "No. Go home with a guy I just met. It's not normally. my style."

"Alright," I said. What if she changed her mind? I was so needy of her but did not want to persuade her to do something she didn't want. "Are you completely sure you want to do this?"

"Yes, I am. But I only wanted you to know it."

I nodded also.

"So, which way?" she asked.

I took her hand and brought it to my lips, placing my mouth over the knuckles.

"This way," I whispered and led her to my car.