On Every Street by Karina Halle Page B

legs, then got up on the bar with me, kneeling between them. He popped another ice cube in his mouth then proceeded to go down on me.
    I flinched from his icy lips on my warm ones. The sensation was new but not unpleasurable, and just as I was getting used to the contrast in temperature, I felt him press the ice cube into me using only his tongue.
    I gasped, gripping the edge of the counter while the ice started to melt away, constricted by my muscles and tempered by my inner heat.
    “I could drink you all day,” he murmured into me, his hands stroking the sides of my thighs, his trimmed nails raking downward. But despite his threat, he got me off in seconds flat and I hoped my cries wouldn’t attract the attention of any passerby outside.
    Afterward, I tried to return the favor but he just smiled and handed me my clothes.
    “Why are you so good to me?” I asked him, surprised to hear the sincerity in my voice.
    He cocked his head, studying me for a moment, before he placed his hands behind my head and brought my face to his so only our noses were touching. Up this close, I could count the number of golden flecks in his green eyes —twelve in the left and ten in the right—the color variation made his eyes take on that unusual hue. His eyelashes were dark as night and unbearably long and pretty, something else that was really quite unfair.
    “Why am I good to you?” he repeated, his lips brushing against mine as he spoke. “Because I can see you are broken. And I want nothing more than to put you back together.”
    I was drowning again. In his words. In his promises that he never said but I knew he kept.
    “I’d like that,” I told him, ignoring that pinch in my heart, the one that told me that he could never put the real me back together. He could never fix Ellie Watt because he had no idea who she was.
    My lips found his and I kissed him like he was the blood that pumped in my heart. We lost each other then found each other over and over again, tumbling in the depths.
    Until a loud knock at the door rattled it on its hinges and broke us apart with a start.
    “Shit,” I swore, jumping off the counter and slipping on my clothes as fast as I could. “I bet it’s Steve. You shouldn’t be here.”
    He knitted his brows together. “Why not? I’m your boyfriend.”
    My brain stopped on that very phrase —boyfriend—for one brief and happy moment before it went back to fretting that I only had my pants done up.
    I slipped on my bra, twisting it around me. “You are my boyfriend. But I don’t think I’m supposed to have people here with me after hours.” For reasons that included the thing we just did on the counter.
    The pounding continued. Javier took a step toward the door, determination righting his posture. “If it’s Steve, why isn’t he using his key?”
    “Javier, please,” I told him as I pulled down my shirt and tried to make myself look presentable. “Go wait in the back and don’t come out till I tell you to.”
    He didn’t move ; his eyes were locked on the door. I wished I could see out the nearby window but there was an entrance blocking my view. I gave him a little push. “Go.”
    He did so reluctantly , and I waited until he was out of sight, hiding in the hallway where the washrooms were, until I approached the door.
    “Steve?” I asked. My hand went for the handle which was jumping with each knock. “Julie?”
    I eyed the chain lock and decided to err on the side of caution and slide it across. Better safe than sorry. Then I opened the door.
    There was an explosion of sound, of splintering wood and breaking metal. The door came off its hinges and hit me right in the face, slamming me into the ground. Before I could figure out what had happened, that someone had kicked the door open breaking the chain and the hinges, I was being hauled to my feet by the big brute whom I’d gotten kicked out. Tom had come back and his fingers were digging into my arms as he shook