Please for the love of God, stop blushing, I told myself. I cleared my throat. “So, what would you like to drink?”

“Aside from you?”

I laughed anxiously. “You can’t drink me.”

He leaned forward, his eyes running up and down my body, causing my skin to heat. “Yes, I believe I can. And I believe I will. But for now, I’ll just have a Bombay and tonic.”

I gulped down his words as they penetrated hotly. This was going far too easy, far too well. I expected to have a challenge in getting to know this man, to get close to him, and here he was coming after me. It made things much easier and much more dangerous, in ways I couldn’t even pinpoint.

I quickly made him his drink, trying hard to look cool and confident as I did so, knowing his eyes were on me the whole time.

I handed over the drink then grabbed a slice of lime for a garnish as an afterthought. I was about to place it on the rim, but he reached out for my hand and took the lime out of my fingers. Then, while his eyes held mine, hot and hard, he placed his lips on my fingers and sucked the lime juice off of them. Tingles pricked at me from the inside, running from my fingertips to my heart.

My jaw unhinged for a second before I snatched my fingers away from his warm mouth.

“You taste as sweet as I imagined, angel,” he said, his eyes dancing with intensity. “Of course, when I said I’d drink you, I was hoping for a bit more privacy.”

What could I say to that? I couldn’t even find the words. So I switched the subject.

“Thank you for that.”

“For licking your fingers?”

I smiled wryly, conscious of how wet they still were. I didn’t want to wipe them off. “For saving my ass back there. I…”

“You handled him just fine,” he said quickly. “I didn’t mean to just show up and save anything. You, my angel, don’t need any saving. I just wanted to put the boy in his place. That is all.”

I felt an unwanted thrill at his use of the word “angel” again. Particularly when he put “my” in front of it. His angel. My mark.

“You look like you put a lot of boys in their place,” I remarked, aware that I was skirting dangerous territory.

He shrugged and sipped his drink. “Perhaps I do.”

“So why did you come here?”

He smiled lazily. “I told you. I’m persistent. I don’t like being told no.”

“To be fair,” I said, consciously wiping down the bar and counter so I didn’t look like I was slacking off, “you asked me out on a date for Friday night, not Thursday night. I only said no to your second offer.”

“I hoped I could show you what you were missing.”

“And that is?”

“You’ll find out. I’m planning on staying here until you’re off your shift.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I told him. “I don’t think those boys will be back.”

He lowered his chin. “You are misreading me. I am staying here so I can talk to you. Look at you.” His eyes seemed locked on to a place at my bare neck, where it met my shoulders. “Be with you.”

I swallowed hard. “You’re very forward, Mr. Bernal.”

“Please,” he said, waving his hand dismissively. “Mister, that makes me sound so old.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

I did a double-take. “No way.”

He stroked his face. “Do I look older? Younger? I hope you think I’m handsome, no matter what the number is.”

“You are handsome,” I blurted out stupidly. “I mean, I thought you were older. You act older. I don’t know many twenty-year-olds who dress so well.” I was going to say expensive, but I didn’t want him to think I noticed his wealth.

He took another sip of his drink and folded his hands on the table. “And you. How old is Eden?”

“Twenty,” I said automatically then realized my terrible mistake. “I mean, twenty-one. Man, I guess I’m just hanging onto that golden age.”

My heart was racing so fast in my throat over that error I was certain it was showing up all over my face, like I had a big neon sign blinking above my head that said, “Liar, Right Here.”

But Javier just gave me a slow smile, gradually showing his white teeth. “You have the face and body of a twenty-one year old, I can see that very well. But your eyes. No, you have a story in your eyes. You lived in this world a hundred times over. You’ve seen some things that no one else should see.”

A shiver ran down my spine and I channeled it into putting empty glasses away. What else could he see? I gave him a polite glance and then turned my back, trying to get my thoughts under control.

“You’re very beautiful,” he said from behind me, his voice like a soft blanket. “But you know that. I can see you know that. And I’m glad. It means people have been brave enough to tell you. We need more bravery in this world.”

“You’re just saying that because I called you handsome,” I joked self-deprecatingly, not willing to face him yet. I concentrated on a sticker on the register that said “Mississippi Does it Better,” my focus going in and out like a camera on macro.

“Flattery will get you everywhere,” he remarked. “At least with me. How about with you?”

I took in a deep breath and finally turned around. “It will get you another drink.”

“I can live with that.”

And so Javier sat there and had a couple of drinks until it was time for me to leave. He wouldn’t have more than two, since he said he was driving, something I found somewhat admirable since so many people in the south drove drunk. We didn’t talk much about him, but we discussed neutral topics like music. It turned out he was into some of the same bands as I was, which was always the way I bonded with people. He asked a few questions about me, but I was so prepared with my answers that I handled them with ease. Eden White grew up in Bixby, Arizona. She went to college in Phoenix for two years, wanting to take veterinary medicine, but dropped out because she couldn’t handle the thought of animals dying on her. She came to Mississippi because she had a cousin in Florida she wanted to visit and she ran out of money halfway through the trip. She didn’t plan on staying in Biloxi for long, unless she found a good reason. So far, her good reason may have been drinking a gin and tonic.

When I was done working and had collected my first tips from the tip jar and said goodbye to Deanne and Julie, Javier walked with me out of the bar. After the way we had been chatting like old friends, you’d think I would have felt comfortable with him walking beside me as we stepped into the thick and heated night air. But I was anything but comfortable. I was hyper-aware of my body, of every gesture of his, of the second when his wrist lightly brushed against mine. I felt like I was on one never-ending panic attack that looped and looped as we walked toward my truck.

“Well, this is my ride,” I said, banging the hood. It groaned in response, all chipped paint and rust. He gave it a glance and raised his brows at me.

“Beautiful girl, ugly truck. You’re a high contrast woman,” he said. “I like it.”

A stupid grin broke across my face which I quickly recovered from. I thought I was a good con artist, but apparently you put a hot man in front of me and all my instincts go to shit. I could barely remember to breathe a sigh of relief at the fact he hadn’t noticed my truck lurking outside Travis’s. Instead, all I could think about was how he had just taken a step toward me, very little space remaining between us.

I instinctively held my breath as he reached up and brushed a strand of hair behind my ear. His fingers were precise and warm, soothing and invigorating all at once. I closed my eyes, enjoying the foreign sensation. How little I had been touched in my life.

I felt him lean in, catching a whiff of his cologne that smelled like musk and tea and made my insides glow. He placed his soft lips on my cheek, letting them linger there for one hot, wet moment, before trailing his mouth over to my ear.

“Good night,” he whispered slowly, deliberately, in my ear, his breath making the hairs on my neck stand up.

Then he pulled his lips away, gave me a polite nod and said, “Get home safe. I’ll call you tomorrow morning.”

I watched, stunned and surprisingly turned on as he walked confidently away to his GTO that was parked at the other end of the lot. He got in, beeped his horn, then roared out of the parking lot.

This little angel was definitely going to get her wings dirty.

CHAPTER FIVE

My sleep was restless. I tossed and turned all night, my brain thinking those non-thoughts” that existed between dreaming and consciousness. I kept seeing images of Javier, the feeling of his lips on my fingers, his mouth at my ear. I saw Tom and his ugly face. I remembered fear. I recalled conflict. When I drifted off, my dreams were all the same. I was falling and falling with no one to hear my screams.

It was eleven in the morning when Javier called me and I felt like I’d just gotten to sleep only a few hours before. In my half-awake state, I almost balked when he called me Eden over the phone. But everything came back to me with a hit of clarity. The lie. The con. The fact that it didn’t matter how Javier had made me feel so far, the point of all of this was to use him. I couldn’t forget that.

Our conversation was brief and I wondered if he picked up on my aloofness over the phone. I had to tread a very fine line between protecting myself and leading him on. I needed to do both and I wasn’t too sure how. But if I was acting different, he wasn’t. He was as sharp and suave as before and told me he’d be picking me up at three. It was kind of early for a date, but I hadn’t been on too many, so I wasn’t one to question it.

Still, the whole situation was making me feel off-balance which in turn made me feel uncomfortable. I need advice and guidance. I quickly rang Gus.

“Everything okay?” were his first words.

I breathed a sigh of relief at his familiar voice. It grounded me in this apartment that still felt so strange and cold.

“Yes, everything is fine. I just wanted to check in.”

Pause. “Oh, well I’m glad you did. That makes me feel good. So everything is fine?”

“Well yeah. So far anyway. I got a job!”

“A legitimate one? I never got the reference check.”

I walked over to the window and opened up the blinds. It was a gorgeous, sunny day; it’s too bad the surroundings were so urban and boring. I was starting to miss the open desert.

“It’s legit but I guess they didn’t need to make the call. I looked hot enough, that’s all you need. Though you also need balls of steel.”

“Rough night?”

“Yeah, my first shift.” I went on to explain what happened, conveniently leaving out Javier till the end.

“Um,” I started, peering down absently at my scarred leg, the pink and red welts looking extra ugly in the harsh daylight. “And so the guy at the end who beat up the other guy, well…that was my mark.”

Silence filled the air. I could hear a cow mooing somewhere on his property.