Page 47 of Break the Rule
“Bold of you to admit that us fucking benefits me,” Charlie smirks, “which by the way it does. Last week was?—”
“Don’t. Fucking. Say. It.”
“Why?” Charlie pouts.
“Because,” Eden says sharply. “I’m at work.”
“So if you weren’t at work, I could talk about how good the?—”
Eden all but launches himself across the counter, slapping his hand over Charlie’s mouth to stop him from saying another word. Sure, his boss and the other employees are busy, and there are no customers. That doesn’t mean Charlie should be saying this shit out loud.
“Stop talking right now.”
Charlie’s eyes widen, but he makes no move to pull away. Given the copious space behind him, if he didn’t want Eden’s hand covering his mouth all he’d need to do is take a single step backward. Yet, he doesn’t move a muscle, eyes hyperfocused on Eden. It makes Eden’s dick hard and his brain confused.
Charlie King is a fucking menace.
What Eden needs to do is nip this in the bud before it becomes a problem. Before things get complicated or messy or any of the other myriad of things that Eden has worked damn hard to avoid. Eden needs to stop letting Charlie see anythinghe says as encouragement, needs to shut everything down and ignore him.
Unfortunately for both of them, what Eden should do and what he does are not the same thing.
“I’m going to take my hand away, and when I do you’re not going to say a goddamn word, got it?” At Charlie’s compliance, Eden withdraws his hand. “Good. Now go sit in the fucking corner where you belong, and I’m going to bring you your usual. You’re going to eat it silently and then you’re going to leave.”
“But—”
“I’m off at ten tonight. I can’t be home late because—just because. You can have twenty minutes.”
“To talk or fuck?” Charlie asks, definitely not keeping his big mouth shut.
It’s a good question, and one Eden is incapable of answering. He has no idea why he’s agreeing to meet up with Charlie.
“Go sit the fuck down and shut up, and you’ll find out tonight.” Charlie doesn’t move, but he doesn’t say anything either. He just stands there, half-leaning on the counter and smiling. It’s outrageous. “What?”
“I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to walk. You’re so bossy, I was waiting.”
Unable to verbally spar a moment longer—and not because he wants an excuse to touch him—Eden flips up the counter and stalks around towards Charlie, grabbing his shoulders. He’s just as solid and big as Eden remembers, and he tries not to think about the sweet, fruity scent wafting off him, or the way he looked bent over and moaning under Eden as Eden physically marches him to the booth in the far corner—out of his line of sight. There’s not a damn way Eden can survive the rest of his shift if he has to watch Charlie suckmolefrom his fingers again.
“Sit down and shut up, Charlie.”
“You know, you’re hot when you’re bossy.”
“You’re not shutting up,” Eden points out, unsure why Charlie’s words make his cheeks warm. He doesn’t give a flying fuck if a man thinks he’s hot. Hedoesn’t.
“I don’t think you grasp the full scope of what it would cost me to not speak,” Charlie says.
“I’m grasping that no one has ever told you to stop talking before.”
“Oh lots of people have told me that,” Charlie grins. “I just don’t listen.
“You’ll listen or you won’t get yourmole,” Eden threatens, even if the threat is empty. He has no power to stop a paying customer, and while Charlie didn’t technically order or pay yet, as one of Juanita’s favorite regulars the only thing that would come of him refusing to serve Charlie would be Eden out of a job.
Charlie tips his head back to watch Eden walk away, his hair tumbling down and his eyes crinkling at the corners. “I like your skirt, by the way. It looks good.”
Once again Eden’s cheeks heat while something uncomfortable settles in his chest, making him want to run. What he does instead is flip Charlie off, not at all surprised when Charlie smiles.
Charlie King is a problem, and one Eden needs to rid himself of. One and done didn’t work so two and, well—Eden doesn’t have a catchy phrase for it. All he knows is fucking Charlie once didn’t dissolve his attraction. If anything, it made things worse because for reasons unknown, Eden doesn’t completely hate what a pain in the ass Charlie is, and that is entirely unacceptable. Eden hates everyone. It’s far safer to dislike people as a baseline, then you can’t be disappointed or surprised when they show their true colors and let you down. Which Charlie will. All people do. All men especially.
One last hookup with Charlie is exactly what Eden needs to get over this inexplicable attraction. It’ll give Charlie anopportunity to show his true colors, and once Eden can see for himself that Charlie’s as shitty as the rest of humanity, he can stop finding his stupid face and his stupid clothes and his stupid arguing hot.
