The waiter set down their plates as her entire body buzzed with the delicious tingles of an orgasm she hid fiercely.
“Your risotto, miss,” he said, gesturing to the plate. Then he set down Clay’s meal. “Do you need anything else?”
“I believe I have everything I could possibly want,” Clay said, then flashed a quick smile, before turning to her. “What about you? Do you need anything more?”
“I’m good,” she said, her eyes bugging out.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she said with a satisfied sigh, that one syllable strung out, the only hint of what had just gone down.
The waiter left, and she picked up her fork. “I am famished.”
“You deserve some sort of award for that performance.”
“My reward will be torturing you when you least expect it.”
“I will count down the seconds until that kind of torture comes my way.”
Chapter Six
Her phone woke her up in the morning.
She’d turned the damn thing off last night, seeing as she was spent and exhausted from her time with Clay, but now it was buzzing. McKenna probably wanted more details on last night since they always shared these kind of tidbits with each other – not the nitty gritty sex details, but the so you really like him part. It had been a long time since Julia had actually liked someone. Even with Dillon, even as it ended, the really like him feelings had faded well before. Sure, she’d fallen for him in the start, for his self-deprecating humor, for his piercing blue eyes, for the sweet nothings he whispered to her that made her feel special.
She met him when he was one of her students at a weekend class she’d been teaching at a boutique bar in Noe Valley on the art of making cocktails. She’d taken on the class before she bought a stake in Cubic Z; the class helped supplement her bartending income. And Dillon had been her finest student, his keen eye for detail giving him a leg up as he mixed and matched the perfect amounts.
“You, sir, concocted a most excellent margarita,” she told him.
He’d tapped the side of the glass, and said, “Someday I’ll be sipping this in Bora Bora or the Bahamas.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice. Sitting on a hammock in the sun with a nice cool drink.”
“Blue skies and mixed drinks,” he added. “A perfect getaway.”
One time, after everyone else had left, he hung back, raised his hand as if in a classroom, and asked. “I have a question. I know student-teacher relationships are generally forbidden. Does that apply to bartending school too?”
“Terribly forbidden. Violates all sorts of mixed drink laws,” she teased.
“Call me guilty then,” he said, then asked her out.
They’d gone to a Turkish restaurant in Russian Hill for the first date, then for a walk through that neighborhood. A photographer, he’d made a decent wage shooting interiors of homes in the city for realtors, so he showed her the outside of some of the homes he shot, including a rather tiny one that he’d made look palatial in a picture. He used to say that with the right angled shot, he could make any room look “spacious, open and well-lit.”
Later, after they became a couple, he was the one who had encouraged her to expand her role at Cubic Z, and to invest in the bar. She didn’t regret that decision, not one bit, though she sure as hell regretted him, and wished she’d gotten out sooner.
All his sweetness had leaked away by the end, and they were merely holding on. Until he left. The unraveling of that relationship wasn’t what hurt; it was the way it fell to pieces that stung like snake poison. The way she had to bear the brunt of the breakup and all he heaped on her, and she couldn’t even tell McKenna the specifics. Julia ached to pour out all the sordid details at times especially because her sister understood heartache. But McKenna understood happiness too. Newly engaged to a man who made her wildly happy, McKenna was in that haze of believing that every new relationship would turn out to be the one, so Julia fully expected a text asking her when she was going to get engaged.
Ha. As if Julia were ever going to do that.
She fumbled for her phone, unlocking the screen. McKenna’s name popped up and the first word she saw was size. She shook her head in amusement. She wasn’t sure if her sister was talking about ring fingers or other measurements, but before she could open the note another text flashed.
Where is the pretty bartender? She wasn’t at the bar last night. She should hope she’s not skipping town. I wouldn’t want to have to inquire with that other woman behind the bar. She seems like she might be preoccupied, and more so in a few more months…