Page 12 of With This Kiss
I shot him a look. No man was ever reallyharmless, but especially not Baran. That much was obvious with one look at him. He had to be at least six foot three, and he looked like he could take care of himself.
I hesitated before I did something I hoped I wouldn’t regret.
I followed him to the booth and sat down, placing my drink down in front of me. I hadn’t even finished half of it. Baran sat close to me, close enough that I could feel the heat emanating from him. Close enough that our thighs nearly touched. I looked at the small space between us, then at him.
He let out a cheeky grin before moving back, giving me a little more space, just as a pretty waitress came by. She had long brown hair tied up in a high ponytail and was wearing what seemed to be the standard uniform here—a tight-fitted white T-shirt, a black miniskirt, and black heels that I knew had to be painful given how much she actually walked around.
“The usual?” she asked Baran.
I glanced over at him just as he nodded and handed some bills to the waitress. “That would be great, sweetheart.”
She offered a shy smile, grabbed the money, and walked away.
“You come here often enough to have a usual,” I stated. Not sure how I felt about the fact that I had just willingly sat down next to a man who seemed to be spending most of his time at a club owned by the Bratva.
He let out a small chuckle. “Just enough. That’s not going to put you off me, is it?”
“I don’t think it would matter much either way,” I answered. It wasn’t like I was interested in him.
He didn’t seem offended by that. “That’s right. It wouldn’t matter. What matters is that you’re interested in Reign Mahankov.”
I looked down at the table.
The fuck I was interested in him.
I was… intrigued.
Given my family background, I should have known more about the Mahankovs than I did. I didn’t even know what the infamous brothers, who seemed to be known all over Manhattan—hell, the entire state of New York and then some—looked like.
“Why does that matter?” I asked.
“Because I mean no offense when I say this, but the woman at the bar is right. You’re not usually Reign’s type.”
Given all the “dating” rumors about him, I’d say it wasn’t a bad thing tonotbe his type.
So what the hell was I still doing here?
“Not usually?” I asked.
He smiled. I didn’t trust that smile one bit. “Not usually. But…”
“But?”
He leaned in close to me, his hot breath fanning over my cheek. I resisted the urge to back away from him.
“But,” he said, his smile widening. “He hasn’t stopped looking over here since the moment I brought you to this booth.”
He placed two fingers beneath my chin and turned my head to the side.
My eyes clashed with a man standing by the bar, surrounded by a group of people, all clamoring for his attention, yet he somehow seemed so alone.
My breath caught, and my heart pinched.
I froze in my seat, unable to think, to react, to do anything other than look at what was possibly the most beautiful human being I had ever seen in my life.
And he was looking straight at me.
My throat felt like it was on the verge of closing, and there just wasn’t enough room for any oxygen to reach my lungs.
