Out of the corner of my eye I can see Clove watching and grimacing. She probably wanted the chance to flirt with the tall brown adonis I lead to the bar. I can’t help but let a smirk go over me for a second and blush. The whole thing seems unreal that a handsome stranger would pick me instead of having Clove or Stacy help him, two fairly beautiful girls that most male customers typically would gush over. I can see Stacy staring at him dreamily even though she has Chris. It’s like he’s Jame Dean, Chris Evans, or Freddy Mercury. He might as well be, he’s a total twenty on a scale of ten in his tight fitting clothes that seem to make his muscular build pop out even more if that’s humanly possible.
When we reach the bar, he sits down at the midpoint and I hand him his menu and utensils.
“Thank you,” he says with a husky voice dipped in a slight accent that’s hard to place. I swallow and try to keep my breath steady. Even in his voice he radiates sex appeal.
“Would you like some water?” I ask him.
“Yes, please, Alonso” he says and I blush for a second wondering how exactly he knows my name. Stupidly, I remember that I’m wearing a name tag.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I turn to get the water and give him time to look over the menu. Before I can get away, he clears his throat and says, “Excuse me.”
I turn back, smiling. I ask, “Have you… already decided what you want?”
“Actually,” he pauses, licking his perfectly carved bottom lip. “Do you have any recommendations? It’s my first time here.”
“Um…sure,” I say. “Are you vegetarian or Vegan? Or allergic to anything?”
He stares at me for a minute grimacing. He finally says, “Don’t laugh, but what’s vegetarian, vegan, and allergic?”
I look at him and wonder if he’s for real and where exactly he’s from. He has to be pulling my leg. The accent throws me off majorly. “Um…they’re terms for dietary restrictions. Is there anything you don’t eat?”
“ I eat about everything,” he grins.
“Great!” I say. “Have you ever had chicken and waffles? They’re actually my personal favorite, sweet and savory in one bite!”
“I’ll have that then and with just the water.”
I move to take the menu.
“Would you be able to join me?” he asks out of the blue as I reach for his menu. “If I made it two chicken and waffles?”
For a second, I stammer and look at the clock. It’s thirty minutes till my lunch and there really isn’t a rule against joining a customer for a bit during your lunch. If it was any other stranger I would say no but he isn’t any other stranger. He’s a handsome guy that’s obviously trying to flirt. So I tell him I can join him in half an hour.
“Perfect,” he beams and I look down. “Two chicken and Waffles then.”
I turn away smiling and hand his order to the cooks.
“Who’s the cutie?” Stacy asks. “Clove told me he asked for you.”
“No idea,” I say. “But he wants me to eat with him on my lunch. He actually offered to buy.”
“Weird,” she says all big eyed. “Are you going to take him up on it?”
“Maybe,” I blush.
“Just be safe and make sure he’s not a weirdo.”
“Don’t worry,” I blush even more. “Anyway, it’s free food.”
Twentyish minutes later I deliver the two plates
“See you in ten minutes,” I say.
The ten minutes seem like they would go by fast but in reality it feels like an hour as I’m briskly helping other customers and pondering the mystery guy, glancing what feels like every second at him and looking away whenever his odd green eyes meet mine. I wonder if his eyes have contacts or if they are real and it just adds another layer to the mystery man with the moxie to ask me on what might as well be a date.
Finely it’s a minute to two and I punch out with giddy fingers, wondering if this was how Bella Swan felt the first time the mysterious Edward Cullon took her out to eat.
“Hope I didn’t leave you waiting for too long,” I say, sitting down.
“No, not at all,” he smiles. “Let’s eat.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I say, pouring syrup off the plate-sized waffle with its equally sized piece of fried chicken. I hand him the syrup and he follows suit.
“Have you worked here long?” he asks.
“A little over a year,” I say. “It’s an easy enough job to handle on top of classes. Do you attend the university or the local college?”
“Oh my,’ he moans around a bite of food. “This is amazing, you were right to have me order this. The perfect amount of sweet and savory.”
“I know, right! I’ve never had anything like it till I moved here.”
“To answer your question, I don’t attend one of the academies. I’m just visiting the area for a while for an errand I had to run.”
“Ah,” I say. This might just be him trying to find out hot spots from someone from the area and a possible easy hookup. “Where are you from? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Down the coast, a village with a name too hard for many to even say. It’s quite beautiful, a lighthouse overlooks the village and sea on top of a cliff they built it on. Not many people visit it, it’s not a well known place. ”
That’s weird and red flags sound but I can’t help the attraction of the beautiful exotic male beside me. His adam’s apple bobs as he swallows a bite of food. I can’t help but think of kissing the tender muscles of his strong neck and the idea of tasting his lips and seeing if they too taste like his scent of pines and roses. I swallow a piece of chicken with the thoughts washing around me of our bodies melting into each other like waves crashing into one another.
“Where are you from?” he asks. “Since most students don’t study at home.”
“Portland Oregon, have you ever been?”
“I haven’t, what’s it like?”
“It’s like Bellingham, hipster but with more homeless then it has any right to have and way more dirty. That’s part of the reason why I picked Bellingham, it’s what Portland used to be before it got so bad.”
“Do you miss Portland sometimes, I mean it is your home?”
“I miss my parents and the food trucks. Other than that, not really.”
“Do you have a partner?” he asks, catching me off guard and my fork clatters onto the counter. I look downward and look out of the corner of my eye. I can see Stacy and Clove watching but I notice him focusing on me intently like I am all there is in the world.
“No,” I say. “I don’t have a partner…do you?
“No,” he says, his voice tickling in my ear as I feel a tingling working through me and my cock enlarges some. I’ve never met in reality someone so forward about relationship statuses. It’s refreshing to meet a guy that actually puts himself out there. In the bars, guys normally talk on Grindr with other bar goers before talking in person as a way to curve face to face rejection.
“I have to go in five minutes,” I gush.
“Already?” he frowns.
“Sadly, yes,” I groan. He has my interest and something about him is intoxicating.
“I wish we had more time,” he says. “Do you have time tonight? Perhaps for a drink around here?”
For a second I think. Half of me wants to run from a guy who had no idea what Vegan was yet who lived down the coast in an unnamed ‘village’. The other part of me wanted to follow the road before me that he stood on and find out exactly what waited for me with me holding his hand and eveloped in his rich toxicating scent of pine and roses.
“Why don’t we meet at Gossip,” I found myself saying. “It’s a couple blocks away, next to my studio even. What do you say?”
“Sounds great,” he says. ” Does eight work for you?”
“That works,” I say, standing up. “I’m going to punch in and I can ring you out. Thanks for the meal by the way!”
“No problem,” he says.
I punch back in and meet him at the till, ringing him up.
“That’ll be $23.67,” I say.
“Here you go,” he says, handing me a thirty. “I’ll see you tonight.”
Before I can get him his change he walks off.
“Must be a tip,” Stacy says out of nowhere and I stuff his change in the tip jar. “What did he leave on the counter?”
I reach over and pick up a piece of paper and a small faded gold coin. On the paper, with elegant handwriting, is a phone number with the name Fernando.
Fernando, it has a beautiful sound to it and it fits the man I just met shrouded in mystery.
“Let me see the coin,” Stacy says.
I had the coin over and she looks at it with a frown. She says, “That’s strange. I think this is a gift for you.”
I take the coin back. On one side is a pointy spiked crown with the words “there is no pleasure without pain” in Spanish and on the other side a pair of swords meeting under what looks like… an ancient lighthouse
“This is so weird,” I frown. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
“Keep it,” Stacy says. “I think he meant it for you. Just be safe. This is all so strange, Alonso.”
With a frown I place the coin in my pocket and I get back to work, my head racing with curiosity and wondering what the night holds.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/pdjp04/forbidden_desirespart_2