I know it sounds unhinged, but I treasure the notes he leaves as tips. They’re crisp and bright and feel more valuable than they are because they’re always perfect and they’re from him. He places one into the tip jar and winks at me every weekday.
I serve him coffee, and have managed to resist the urge to drape myself over the wooden countertop next to his cup, and ask if he’d like to take me in those big, capable-looking hands.
So far.
Side of desperate girl with your coffee, sir? No charge. On the house. Complimentary.
What he’d do thereafter is honestly a little blurry around the edges. I have experience of caffeine highs that make my pupils large as dinner plates and my body twitchy as a wind-up toy. Dating? Not so much.
Which is an issue for my chosen enthusiasm: writing monster romances. Don’t get me wrong, I love to read steamy scenes. I just can’t seem to write them.
And my readers are getting a bit frustrated with my fade to black or tab A, slot B, attempts. They say they’re unsatisfied.
Same readers, same.
Which is why after a year of scrimping and saving I’m finally going to do that MA in creative writing. Perfect combination, right? Much more likely to help me lose my V-card and amp up my romance stories than the graveyard shift at an all-hours coffee shop.
If I can’t get laid and improve my novel at university, I’m more of a sad case than I realised. Which is… Horrifyingly possible.
Anyway. It’s the morning of my last ever shift. My bags are packed and in my car, which is in the long-stay I use for work. Can’t park nearby—I’d have no profit left at the end of the day with the price of parking in London. I’ll drive north this afternoon, probably spending the night in said car. But I’m moving on to a better stage of my life and career. I should be excited.
I am.
I totally am.
I am not mourning an entirely one-sided crush on a customer. Sir. It’s hardly as though being a barista has a ton of strict conditions associated with it, but high on the list is not drooling. That’s not like latte art. No one is going to look at my slobber and think—oh yeah, she takes her job seriously.
At half-four I allow myself to begin to get excited. I serve the few bleary-eyed customers coming in before their shifts, and watch the door out of the corner of my eye.
When a woman comes in at ten past five, smiling and chatty, wanting to tell me about her holiday, I am efficient. I make the coffee. I smile politely. I don’t ask her about her flight or where she’s been. I really don’t want someone else spoiling the last time I’ll see my sir. I all but shoo her out of the door so that when the sky is turning white-gold I’m ready to take in every part of him. To look my fill.
Every day sir arrives at quarter past five in the morning. I’m always a little self-conscious because I’m at the end of an eight-hour shift and he’s clearly a morning person who just got up, but today, I’m determined to make this count.
Then right on schedule, there he is, striding through the door, gaze already focused on me. My CEO. Possibly. I have no idea what he does for a living, but he has an air of power and grace that suggests he is used to being obeyed.
He takes my breath away.
Where I’m a normal girl with black hair, a snub nose, a permanent coffee stain on my jeans, he’s a god in a three-piece suit with dark brown hair and steel-grey eyes. The shiny silver metal of his cufflinks screams wealth, as does the thick luxurious cotton of his shirt. His clothes are of the highest quality, chosen with care, and those details are insanely hot to me. Because a man who has the diligence with that sort of precise clothing, while also exuding power as sir does, I bet when he concentrates on something—or someone—it’s like the August sunshine.
Honestly, this man is straight out of an advert in a glossy men’s magazine, complete with scratch and sniff. The hint of his aftershave that I catch sometimes as he takes the receipt is addictive. Better than the crazy expensive Columbian single-estate coffee the boss once accidentally bought.
“Good morning, sir!” I always give customers a bright smile, but with this man, it’s real. It bubbles up from my heart.
I don’t know his name, so I call him sir. I tried to see it on his matt black bank card once when our payment machine was having a hissy fit about contactless, but it was written discreetly on the back.
“Good morning, kisa.” He always calls me that and I’ve never been brave enough to ask what it means. I suppose it’s Russian for barista, or something? But the way he says it in his deep voice and rough accent sends delicious shivers down my spine.
His grey eyes look right into mine. Not glancing at the menu, or my boobs, or fiddling with his phone. Nope. When he’s here, he’s present. He focuses on me. Occasionally I catch his gaze dipping to my mouth, but otherwise, he’s so level and collected. It’s a relief at this time in the morning, after I’ve dealt with bleary-eyed night shift workers and frazzled young mothers.
I know his order by now, and I’ve got the cups ready. But we have this dance, where we pretend we’re strangers. Or I do anyway. I act like I haven’t been thinking about him all shift.
“An espresso to drink in, and a flat white to go.” He never says please, or makes his voice rise at the end of the sentence to make it a request. There’s something in his tone that is gravelly and authoritative. Dirty.
It’s the sort of voice that if he told me to get on my knees and suck his dick, I’d do it. No questions asked.
To be fair, I wouldn’t care how he said it. A soft dare. A crudely barked command. A plea, or just a crooked finger. If I got to taste him, that would be enough.
Despite always leaving a cash tip, he pays with his phone, like a normal person. Then he pulls the note from his pocket, and I can’t move as his big square hands curl it and tuck it into the tip jar with a handwritten label and smiley face. Who has cash these days? Only drug dealers and old people. And although he’s older than me—maybe in his late thirties or early forties I’d guess—he’s not using-cash sort of old.
When he’s left, I’m going to fish out that note and keep it forever, never spend it.
The stretch of his arm reveals his cuffs and a smattering of dark hair over his wrists, and a curl of dark ink. A tattoo. I’m so intrigued by what it might be, that tattoo. And the way he moves his hands is borderline—alright, for me, well over the border—erotic. It makes my pulse race.
It’s not the money, I do get paid for this job and the amount isn’t so much. It’s him.
“How was your day?” he asks in a deep rumbly voice as I make his drink.
I’m always torn between taking as long as possible to spin out the time with him, and making it as quickly as I can to see if I can get that nod of approval and to the next bit of our routine that I like even better.
“The blender is on the fritz, so I had to ask a customer to leave when they started shouting about how her need for a three AM strawberry smoothie was a human right.”
“Shall I have them killed for you?” he asks casually.
I snort and shoot a grin over my shoulder. “Overreaction, much?”
He shrugs, the corner of his mouth hitching up slightly.
“I think she was hormonal. Said something about night sweats.”
The scent of fresh coffee fills the air as his espresso hits the cup.
“Ah. Mitigating circumstances.” His eyes twinkle. “We’ll hold off on the murder.”
“She might just need some drugs,” I joke.
“That could be arranged.”
I giggle again as I grab the milk jug—freshly refilled—and start heating it. Just right. Although I’m distracted by his presence, I never burn the coffee or scald the milk. Not for him. “Your humour is so dry.”
“If you say so,” he replies evenly.
I flush and fight the urge to bite my lip. Did I push it too far? Ugh. Say the wrong thing? I hate being in my brain sometimes. All night I speak with people and try to be fun and chirpy, but get home and wonder why I’m lonely.
That’s when I think of him. In bed after my shift, more times than I care to admit I run my fingers down my body and imagine they’re his. I’m always wet if I’ve been thinking of him, and the orgasm helps me sleep.
Not happening today though, is it? I hide my face in a dip of my chin as I pour the milk over the coffee and make a leaves and flower design. The flower looks suspiciously like a heart.
I take my time screwing on the cap to his mug and placing a spoon and a little biscuit on the side of the saucer beside his espresso. I can feel his gaze on me as I carry both drinks to the service area for him to pick up, and he mirrors my movements. I place his coffees down and wipe my sweaty palms on my apron.
Then this is the best bit. He leans his hip against the bar, picks up the espresso, and inhales the scent. There’s no pretentiousness. He just appreciates quality.
Shuffling the cocoa and sugar shakers around, I surreptitiously watch his throat bob as he sips the hot crema-topped drink.
His mouth. Oh god, his mouth was made for sensuous pleasures. It was made for coffee and cream and chocolate. His lips are the perfect shade of dusky pink, full but masculine. Someone like me will never touch that mouth, but I’ve tried to write about it. Him. I’ve pressed my hand to my lips and wondered how kissing him would feel.
He sighs deeply at the second sip. “Delicious. I needed that.”
“Everything okay, sir?” I ask tentatively.
A taut smile. “Fine. Just a bit stressful. Tell me how you’re getting on with your new book.” He never talks directly about his work, but since I let slip about my writing, he always asks.
I flush, because the hero is totally inspired by him. In every detail. “I wrote two thousand words yesterday.”
“Good girl.” He nods with satisfaction and drinks a little more coffee.
Umph. I melt when he praises me. Weekends were bad enough, how am I going to cope with never having my sir call me a good girl again?
“What about the cover?”
I tell him about the premade cover I found for hardly any money, and he nods. After a lifetime of being ignored, first by my parents who really shouldn’t have had a child and I don’t think remember I exist now I’ve moved out, then by almost everyone else because I struggle to speak up, the way sir takes an interest in me is a revelation.
“The cover might be a bit dark,” I admit. It’s far too easy to tell this man things.
“Dark is good,” he murmurs.
“Yes,” I squeak. My heart thuds as he tips the little cup up, draining the last of the espresso.
“Thank you, kisa.” Scooping up his takeaway flat white, he’s going before I’m ready.
I wanted more. A few more minutes, the guts to admit I think he’s beautiful. But he’s leaving, and I’m frozen. He’s striding away with those long legs—he must be six-foot-three at least.
This is the moment. The last time I’ll see him. I have to see his face again. Once more.
He’s at the exit.
I screw up my courage and dart around the counter after him.
“Excuse me, sir.”
He turns as he pulls the door open. Those grey eyes spear me as I screech to a halt before him.
Oh god what am I going to say? I should have planned this. I can’t just blurt out, Please take me home with you, marry me, and give me babies.
“What is it?” He moves towards me, the door swinging, then bam!
The gunshot is so unexpected, my brain doesn’t process it as real.
My sir flies forward, taking me with him.
