Chapter Eight
Jasper
Who the fuck do these arseholes think they are? I’m seething right now. Is this the kind of shite that Fannin has to deal with? With a fist around the blasted elastic band her step-sister tried to force on her, I do my best to keep my cool. Looking at the two of them, I have to agree with Fannin—they do deserve each other. Her sister couldn’t be more opposite her if she tried. Bethany is short and slender with stick straight and perfectly styled blonde hair and brown eyes. Pearls at her throat and a simple sundress. She looks like a Stepford wife and that makes perfect sense. Adam has no business with a woman like Fannin. He needs someone with less fire, less drive. Just . . . less. Once again, I’m left wondering how a man like him caught the attention of a woman like Fannin. She is exactly everything this woman is not.
“How . . . lovely,” her snotty sister responds to my going on about Fannin’s hair.
“Did you say ‘Fanny’? You do know her name is Fannin, don’t you?” Adam scoffs.
“Of course I know. It’s what I like to call her though.” I don’t even know where it came from, it just slipped out. She’ll be pissed when she finds out what a ‘fanny’ is where I come from.
“A pet name? She hates pet names.”
“Actually, I don’t,” Fannin cuts in. “I hated you calling me ‘sweetheart,’ and you just assumed I didn’t like pet names. Just like you assumed I wouldn’t mind sharing you with my step-sister. And you know what they say about people who assume . . .” The pair in front of us shifts a little uncomfortably. I love this Fannin. The one who fights back. “Anyway, Jasper, this is Bethany. Bethany, meet Jasper James.”
I don’t offer my hand. As irrational as it may seem, I don’t want to touch her, especially in front of Fannin, so I give a small wave instead.
“Oh. So this is the bartender?” Her brown eyes travel over me, from the top of my head, lingering on my beard, over my plain white T-shirt, my faded jeans, down to the tips of my worn boots, and then back up again. I cock an eyebrow at her.
“Do I pass?” I know that I do. I also know that she doesn’t want me to have. It’s written all over her face—the appreciative gleam in her eyes that I’m no stranger to.
“For someone like Fannin you do.” Her snide comment is used to hide her embarrassment at being called out and doesn’t sit well with me.
“Fannin is absolute perfection, so I’ll take that as a compliment.” It’s not what I really want to say. What I really want to say is, “Go fuck yourself you silly cow,” but I refrain for Fannin’s sake.
“As lovely as this has been, I do need to get upstairs for the conference call.” Fannin turns to me. “Lunch was amazing. We’ll talk later?”
“Aye. I’ll call you tonight.” With Bethany and Adam watching, I pull Fannin closer to me, her eyes going wide. This isn’t how I thought our first kiss would go, but no way will I let her walk away with him, not without first claiming her as mine. Show them both that he lost, not her. Ever so slowly, my eyes locked on Fannin’s, I lower my mouth to cover hers. At first she’s frozen, but when I tug on her wild curls, she softens into me. She’s tall, but I’m taller, and her body molds to mine. I’m sure this isn’t the way she saw our first kiss either, but I’ll make sure neither one of us will forget it. With Fannin wrapped around me, my hand buried in her hair, I hold her head in place as I nip and suck at her bottom lip. When she gasps in pleasure, I smile against her mouth and dip my tongue inside, just briefly enough to brush hers and swallow her happy little sounds. My shirt knotted in her hands, I pull back just slightly to gaze down at her. Face upturned, lips and face are flushed, eyes full of need. Yeah, I’m proper fucked. I would lay her down right here in an instant and fuck us both senseless if I thought we wouldn’t get arrested.
“Go inside, Fannin, before I forget that I’m a gentleman,” I tell her softly.
“I’m really starting to hate that trait. I thought chivalry was dead?” she pouts.
“You minx. Get your arse upstairs before I bend you over my knee for all of Manhattan and your two admirers to see.”
The mention of her step-sister and ex isn’t quite like a bucket of cold water thrown on us both, but it definitely has a cooling effect. Fannin sighs deeply. “Fine.”
She steps out of my embrace, turning and walking right past a gawking Adam and Bethany. Her ass sways to and fro in her tight skirt, her legs looking two miles long in those spiked heels. I don’t even bother adjusting myself. There’s nothing to be done about the situation in my jeans. “Fannin,” I call. When she turns to look back at me over her shoulder. “Tonight. Dinner. I’m taking you.” My voice holds a control I’m not sure I feel right now. The clipped tone all I can even manage. Fannin nods in agreement and disappears into the building, Adam and Bethany scrambling after her, leaving me on the sidewalk, hard as the concrete under my feet.
***
“Have you talked to Fannin yet?” I say in way of greeting as I enter the back office at the Iron Flask.
“Well, hello to you too, mate.”
“Well? Have you?” I practically jogged back here to catch him before the call.
“No, about twenty minutes. Why?”
“Do you have any contact over there with her boss, Noah?”
“No, I go through his assistant Rosita mostly and now Fannin. You gonna tell me what’s going on.”
“I want you to call Noah, or whoever and tell them you want Adam Cafferty off the account.”
“I do, do I? So you’re the boss now?” Theo kicks back in the chair and sips his tea. “Why do we want this Adam lad fired?”
“He treats Fannin like shite. He’s the ex marrying the sister and the two of them are fucking bawbags.”
“Bawbags? Be careful, your Scotsman is showing,” he chuckles.
“There’s going to be a lot more showing if I have to spend much more time with the likes of them. Proper cunts they are. Him and the step-sister. Treating Fannin like she’s beneath them.” I rap a knuckle against the scarred wood of the desk in agitation.
“Are you taking the piss? You really like this girl don’t you?”
“I do. She doesn’t care about money, or that I’m a bartender. She’s nothing like Lorna.” Theo shudders at the mention of my ex-girlfriend’s name. They hated one another. Had I listened to my pal, I would have left her long ago and saved myself some heartache.
“So, let me get this straight. You just met her, and yet you want me to have a man fired for her honor? Is that right?”
“Not fired. Just taken off the Iron Flask account.”
“Okay. I’ll call Noah and see what he can do.” He sips his tea, watching me over the brim. “You gonna tell her?”
“Tell her what? That I had him removed?” I know that’s not what he means. I’ll play daft as long as I can though.
“That and then some.”
I shrug. “Nothing to tell, really.”
“Nothing to tell.” Theo snorts. “Mark my words, Jasper, you’ll be sorry you didn’t. That’s all I’m gonna say about that, mate.”
I’m saved by the ringing of his phone. “This will be your lady love, then. Get out of here, I won’t have you staring daggers through me while I talk business.” With a flick of his wrist he shoos me away.
Pulling out my own phone, I check the time wondering who I can call in to cover the bar tonight so that I can have dinner with Fannin. If I’m not careful, I’ll rush her right into dessert and things are already moving fast. Not that I plan on trying to stop that. She has a pull, an energy, I want to be caught up in. It feels a little bit like quicksand, especially to a man like me who doesn’t fall fast or easy, or at all really. But I want to get to know Fannin. Every inch of her body, but also her mind. Her likes and dislikes in and out of the bedroom. For the first time in what seems like forever, I want to be with a woman on more than a physical level and that should make me nervous. It doesn’t though, and that just makes me want to spend more time with her and find out why. If some of that time is spent naked, so be it.