Page 81 of Missed Sunrise
Yeah, Ti Bet. I was looking at you.
I may not have been in the correct life space to go balls out with a new relationship, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to think it was from lack of want.
Or of desperate need and desire.
Because Lord Almighty, I wanted, needed, and desired—and it was fucking desperate. And considering my current below-the-waist apparel situation, it would have been so much smarter to stop watching him so intently.
Forcing my gaze to the customer in front of me, I did my damnedest to be the best, most attentive biscuit peddler in Bay Springs.
Several orders and more small talk and botched attempts at French Cajun slang than anyone should ever have to experience later, I treated myself to a look at Liem for a job well done.
My heart sped as I found him at the front of the dining room, turned mostly away from me, and the buzzing and burning in my body told me what my brain was taking longer to process.
The person standing in front of him and chatting him up was a little too close to be casual.
This was what I got for looking away.
Huffing a long breath, I clenched my fist around the pen I’d been using to absently doodle on an order book and cursed the heavens that the damn EMT had wormed his way in here. He was dressed in his uniform and apparently having a slow day, considering he was here in Liem’s space instead of out there doing his job.
God, I needed to get it together, but I wasn’t used to dealing with these feelings.
People had hit on Austin on the cruise ship all the time, and not for a second had I cared.
A new, angry dragon had awakened in my chest and was ready to spit fire and burn it all down when the EMT reached up to brush away the smear of flour on Liem’s cheek.
That wasmyflour.
Mycheek.
I rose from my seat to stalk over there and—well, I wasn’t sure, exactly, but I figured I had a dozen steps to figure it out.
Before I even made it to three, Bree and Vinh pushed through the saloon doors.
“Time for your breaks,” Bree said with a pat on my shoulder, and I exhaled harshly, looking past her at where Vinh stood beside Liem and the EMT to—I assumed—communicate the same message.
Liem nodded and smiled faintly at his brother, but then the EMT jockeyed for his attention again, and I blew through steps four through twelve, not bothering to think through my actions along the way.
Not a person on this Earth was surprised.
Except the EMT, that was, whose eyes widened in shock when I suddenly loomed over them. I hooked my finger into Liem’s apron and tugged—just enough to make my intentions as clear as mud. “Break time, Ti Bet. Labor laws.”
To my utter delight, Liem made no objection and only offered a measly goodbye wave to the dude as I towed him by the apron straight through the saloon doors and the kitchen. I paused briefly to lean over the prep table and swipe my finger through some errant flour left there, thankful that Ari, Monny, and Mrs. Lott were so deep into fulfilling orders and fussing among themselves that they didn’t spare us a glance.
I hooked my finger deeper into Liem’s apron and tugged again, leading him out the back door and kicking it closed with my foot. Down the ramp we went and further into the muggy midmorning that was about to get either a whole lot clearer or even more muddled.
Liem said nothing, and when I glanced at him over my shoulder, his eyes were amused but not cautious.
Good.
I scouted the area around us for somewhere private, the slight lapping of the water from the Bay and morning birdsong barely registering as I decided on our destination. Halting suddenly, I revolved around Liem like the sun he was, using my grip on his apron to turn him to face me.
His lips were parted as I unhooked my finger from the inside of his apron and splayed my hand over the bottom of his ribs. I counted three long breaths under my palm before I pushed against him, urging him to step backward. The ground-sweeping branches of the weeping willow tree brushed his shoulder after a few steps, and I reached past him with my free hand and swept them aside, creating a doorway for us to walk through.
I didn’t stop ushering us into the willow’s depths until Liem’s back met its trunk.
Only the slightest hitch of his breath under my palm gave away his surprise as my hand slid down his ribs to his hip, and I ran my thumb across the sharp bone there as I took my sweet time looking my fill.
His dark-brown eyes and pink, parted lips were already burned permanently into my memory, but the tiny pieces of hair that had escaped his braid were new, and I studied each and every dark strand. Then I moved on to the metal bar through his eyebrow, the healing cut on the other, and then to the apple of his cheek.
