Page 13 of Honey, Honey
“You’re brooding.”
I glanced up from my cellphone to look at Addie. “This is just my face. We’ve been over this.”
She snorted but tilted her head to the side and placed a folder on my desk. “Liar.” It was an early evening on Thursday and the end of another work day. We should be gone by now, but I’d lingered as usual, and Addie hadn’t strayed from my side, also as usual. A crack of lightning flashed across the sky, lighting up the city better than any sunny day. It was blinding and I squinted with a frown.
“I’m having the car brought round to take you home.”
Addie waved a hand. “I’m fine on the subway.”
I shook my head. “You know I don’t like that you insult me by taking that damn thing to begin with,” I jerked my chin towards the window where another brighter than daylight lightning strike was making itself known, “I’m not having you do it now when you stayed to work late.”
Addie blinked hard. “I’m fi-,” she began, and I pinched the bridge of my nose.”
“I’m calling the car. That’s final. Or you are banned from staying to work late for a week,” I threatened.
“But boss-”
“A month,” I threatened.
She stamped her foot and crossed her arms. “Fine,fine. I’ll just go get my coat then.” I knew she would cave when I brought work into it. There was nothing Addie loved more than working—she would stop at nothing to keep herself in all the late nights she could handle. Some people had hobbies they did to relax, but from what I could see Addie worked to relax. The woman was a machine. I was sending her to a damn beach somewhere once the next fiscal term was over.
“See that you do.”
Addie glowered in my direction but I ignored her in favor of my phone. She was getting home, dry as a bone, and that was that. I didn’t need my assistant turning up sick. I hit the button for my driver, Taylor, and a ring later they were answering.
“Sir?”
“You’re taking Addie home tonight. She’ll be down in five. Don’t let her out until she’s home.”
I heard Taylor huff out a laugh. “Understood.”
“Good man.” I ended the call and turned, looking out at the rainstorm. It was practically a fucking hurricane and Addie would have been blown sideways if I’d let her make her own way home. I rolled my shoulders, letting some of the tenseness out. If Taylor had the order it would be carried out. He was a man who had a similar understanding of this world, someone who had worked his way off the street to lead a quieter life. Someone looking for, and willing to protect, one very important thing.
Normal.
Honey’s dark eyes came to mind and I almost groaned. As plain as day I could see her eyes, those ocher flecked brown eyes that I’d seen four days ago. I glanced towards the empty cup of coffee sitting on my desk. It was from A Different Brew, courtesy of Addie, of course. The damn meddling woman had caught on that something had happened in the shop and had made her play to force a reaction from me. I kept myself calm and in check the first time she gave me the cup, though I might have held onto it for a minute too long, the memory of Honey coming to me and waking me out of my early morning routine.
“Something the matter, boss?” Addie had inquired, watching my face carefully.
I didn’t answer, favoring a noncommittal grunt before I took a swig of the coffee before stalking back into my office. Addie had let it slide, but she had made a point to bring in a cup every day since I’d seen Honey.
Not just seen, but claimed her as my own.
My palms itched and I rubbed them against my thighs in frustration. Thinking about Honey, just what her eyes looked like when staring back at me, made me like this. Too restless, like my body was overheating, blood rising and making me want.
I shouldn’t want.
I had everything I had ever wanted. A man like me didn’t want, because when I wanted something, I fucking took it. But that was when it came to things, people, anything that wasn’t Honey. She deserved better than that.
You didn’t just take a woman like that. She’d come willingly enough if I asked. I could see it in her. Even in the brief interaction we’d had in the coffee shop, I knew if I so much as held my hand out, Honey would take it. She’d been intrigued by me and not just because I’d taken up for her, but genuinely. I hadn’t missed the stunned look in her eyes or slightly flushed color that had dusted her cheeks when I’d done it.When I’d called her mine.Honey wasn’t taken, she offered herself, and if she did that to me...My palm prickled again. I clenched my fingers, chasing away the feeling, and scrubbed my hand across my thigh. It would be like offering a starving man a feast on a silver platter.
There would be nothing left of her. I would do what I always did. The only thing I knew how to do. I would have her, have all of her and consume every last bit of her until she couldn’t tell where she ended and I began. I would fill her so full of me that she would be ruined for anyone else.
“Don’t even know her,” I reminded myself.
I didn’t know her and I was going to keep it that way—no matter how many coffees Addie brought me from A Different Brew, five counting today, or how often I daydreamed about Honey like some shitty high schooler crushing on a pretty girl they didn’t know how to handle. I knew exactly how to handle Honey—and that was the problem. A woman like that would bend and form in my grasp, every bit of her mimicking her namesake as easily as if I were pouring her from a heated spoon into my morning coffee. She’d be sweet. I knew that, god she wouldn’t just be sweet—she would be perfect.
I snatched up the empty paper cup from A Different Brew and stared down at the stamped logo, a mug inked in black, little curlicues of steam wrapping itself around the shop name, and I glared at it. It was what Addie would declare to be ‘cute,’ but I didn’t have time for cute, not in my real life.
