Ellie has the scent of coffee clinging to her clothes, to her skin, to her hair, and it moves into my own shop with her. I’m into it.

“You smell like success,” I tell her while I shut the side door and lock it.

She makes a face. “Not even a little.” Ellie takes a deep breath in. “This place, on the other hand...” There’s a flicker of worry in her eyes. Is it about me, or the store, or both? I only half believe she’s standing here right now when people have been booing my banner all day. “So clean. So fresh.”

She looks clean and fresh, despite having worked a whole shift at Medium Roast. “Are you telling me you like this better?”

“Than a coffee shop that’s been drowning in grounds all day? Yeah,” she says, raising her eyebrows. “Yeah, I really do.”

This is interesting. Ellie has been working her ass off at Medium Roast for...I don’t know how long, but long enough. She attacks each day with a ferocity normally reserved for things like heated sporting events. But she’s standing in front of me right now, giving a little shudder at the thought of the shop.

“What’s on your mind, then?”

She blinks, cocking her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“You came over to talk.”

A smile curls at the corners of her pink, perfect lips. “You asked me to come over and talk. I figured you had something in mind.”

Ellie gives the tiniest exhale, and in the space of a moment it’s like all the air in my storefront has been lit on fire. She must feel it too, because she bites at her lip, shifting her weight from one foot to the next. It has the effect of making her hips sway in slow motion, and holy fuck do I want my hands on those lips.

We’re standing in the side room by the alley. It’s more of a long hallway, though the high windows let in plenty of light and the low furniture I’ve had set along the walls make it cozy as hell. 

It’s also inviting as hell for the things I’d like to do with her.

“I have a few things in mind.”

I know how it sounds. It sounds like a come-on.

That’s because it is.

Ellie blushes a little, turning to look around. “Like what?”

The words come out of the last remaining working part of my brain. “Shop. The shop.”

She grins up at me, and I swear to God, she arches her back an inch, putting those glorious breasts on display, even under her standard t-shirt. “What about it?”

Get your head in the game. “What’s in it for you?”

Ellie crosses her arms over her chest, which is one of the more significant disappointments of my lifetime. “Let me get this straight. You wanted me to come over here to tell me I should be doing something else?”

“No. I wanted to ask you if you should be doing something else. You’re…” I can hardly string the words together. “You’re tenacious. Driven. You could have survived the other day without me, even though I’m pretty sure you don’t like coffee.”

Ellie laughs, a short burst that’s like sunrays coming through the window. “I think about that day a lot.”

She’s being flirty. Isn’t she? “Me too.”

“I think about how...” her eyes are alight. “...nice you were behind the counter. You saved the day, and I still don’t get why. Why would you do that when your whole purpose in life is to ruin mine?”

“That’s not my purpose in life,” I shoot back. “I started this project before I knew you, and I don’t let things go unfinished.” A pain stabs at the center of my chest. “Unless it’s out of my hands.”

She wrinkles her brow. “What could possibly be out of your hands?” Ellie raises her own hands, gesturing to everything around us. “You’ve got a new store, a slick setup, a daughter who’s so cute it kind of makes me sick...you have everything.”

I’m all emotion, no thought. I’m so hard my pants feel like a prison. I grit my teeth to keep the words in. They escape anyway. “You’re out of my hands.” I run those empty hands through my hair, taking one step closer. “I came here to finish what I started, and here you are, standing in my way.”

Ellie lets out a belly laugh, but her eyes have gone dark with some other emotion. “Me? Standing in your way? I don’t think so. Medium Roast is never going to be able to compete with this. Your place will put us right under. You’re the one standing in my way. And the worst thing of all—” She stops, giving a sharp shake of her head.

“The worst thing is that you’ll be out of a job?”

“The worst thing is that I can’t stop thinking about you,” she bursts out. “You were so fucking helpful and sexy, and you’ve been driving me crazy, over here in your t-shirts. I felt bad for you because all the regulars think you’re scum and you are scum, but only sometimes.” Her face is getting redder and redder. “Saturday? That was simple. I wanted you to be there, and you were.  You saved my ass when nobody else was willing to step up to the plate, and I can’t forget that. I can’t forget you.” She whirls away from me, turning toward the doorway into the main shop, and a frustrated growl bursts free from her. “God, this is so fucking stupid. I want you, and I always want what I can’t have—”

Two steps.

That’s all it takes for me to close the distance between us. Touching her is like touching a live wire. I pull her in. She gasps, arching back a little, and I have one fleeting moment to see the surprise—see the heat—in her gray eyes before I’m not looking anymore.

I cover her mouth with mine, claiming those lips at last.

Fuck the consequences.