Keep It Sexy (KIS Series Book 3) Read online

  “Yeah. It’s like that,” I whispered coolly as I walked back into the garage.

  Chapter Nine

  Christian

  Tuesdays were the slowest day of the week. I didn’t need to be here, but with Ava’s call off and Billie still being fairly new I didn’t want to leave her alone, so I stayed and worked. I was distantly watching a repeat of the Broncos kicking the Oakland Raiders asses on TV when Billie walked into the bar from the kitchen doors. She always wore her short hair in curls but today it was straight with half of it pinned in the back. My stare travelled from her pretty face down her shoes and I was surprised to see her wearing white jeans that stopped mid-calf. Today she rocked black Vans.

  “Sorry,” she said, stopping in front of me with her backpack over her shoulder. “Since it was my day off, I washed my uniform and the load that was dry only had my shirts and not my skirts.”

  My lips curved up into a pleased grin. How could I be mad at her when she looked so sexy in white pants? I wondered how she was able to keep her pants clean from driving on her bike, then remembered her coming out of the bathroom the other night with her black leather bodysuit over her legs. It was zipped up to her waist and the rest fell behind her. It was one of the sexiest things I had ever seen.

  “Don’t worry about it. You’re doing me a favor by coming in. Honestly, it looks really good on you.”

  Billie smiled as she glanced down before looking back up.

  “Thanks.”

  My grin widened when I saw the small pink stains on her cheeks.

  “I’m going to cash in,” she said, biting down on her bottom lip so she could suppress her smile.

  “Okay.” After a small wave came and went, Billie and I were standing across from each other behind the bar. I’d turned off the TV and turned on some music. I pressed play on the song she sang a few days ago. Instantly, Billie smiled and blushed.

  “Sing for me?” I asked while I laid my phone on the bar. Billie bit down on her thumbnail; I could see it in her eyes she was fighting it and giving in.

  “Just once,” she said. I laughed and nodded.

  Billie grabbed my phone and restarted the song. As she sang, she said the words like they clearly meant more to her. Like the song was written especially for her. She closed her eyes and her face had an effortless air to it. She was at peace; it was nothing like I had ever seen before.

  I stepped closer to her as if there was this gravitational pull inside of her that forced me to. When the song ended I was so close to her I could smell the softness of her skin and the strawberry scent of her shampoo. I knew what I was doing was inappropriate. She was my employee and this was a huge mistake, but I physically could not help myself.

  Billie’s breath grew shallow as she could feel my body almost pressed against her. I wanted to pick her up and have my way with her on top of my bar, so every time I came in here I could remember her perfect naked body and my hips rolling into her. At the thought, my hands balled into fists as I fought with every fiber in my body to step back.

  “You have an amazing voice,” I said, clearing my throat. Billie drew in a deep breath before opening her eyes.

  “Thanks.” She smiled sweetly. “I’m going to run to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.” She didn’t wait for my reply before she moved past me and around the bar. I quickly poured a shot of Maker’s Mark and tossed it back. I wasn’t much of a drinker so the liquid burned down my throat and into the shallow part of my stomach.

  “Get it together, Christian,” I said to myself before wiping the whisky off my lips with the back of my hand. I needed to chill the fuck out.

  Quickly, I put the bottle back in its home then bent down to grab a rag from the bucket of sanitizer water we kept on the floor. Wringing out the excess water, I jumped over the bar to wipe down some tables. Distracting myself from this girl was going to be an issue. Luckily, I had an entire bar to clean and keep me busy.

  I heard the latch of the bar lift and shut. She was back, but I didn’t look up. I stayed busy cleaning the tables and chairs. Focused on a black spot on one of the tables, I almost missed the change in music and a very familiar song followed by Billie’s throaty laugh. She’d gotten into my Spanish music playlist. I was stunned. I wasn’t embarrassed by her knowing I listened to this sort of music, but was shocked out of my mind when she pressed one hand against her stomach and the other one bent at the elbow, and she started to dance. Well, she tried to dance.

  “Ooh,” she mouthed as she pranced in circles with raised eyebrows and an amused look. I finally cracked when she did a little turn, laughing with my hands rested on my waist. I caught my breath when she finally stopped dancing and turned down the music.

  “I love that you listen to that,” she said breathlessly. I walked near the bar as I wiped a tear from my eye.

  “I loved what you just did. You didn’t hurt yourself, did you?”

  She playfully scowled. “Hey! Don’t dis on my awesome dancing skills, okay? I don’t bust them out for just anyone. You should be honored.”

  “I’m offended, actually.” I laughed. Billie’s face pinched again before she threw a slice of lemon at my head. I moved just in time. “Come here.” I gestured for her to round the bar. “I’m going to show you how to dance.”

  “A Mexican man who knows how to dance? Let me get my surprised face.” She deadpanned. I smirked; she was a ball buster, and I liked it.

  “Oh, you got jokes?” I chuckled. “Come here, whitey, let me show you the things hips can do. It’s not part of your genetic makeup, but I’ve been known to work miracles.” Billie tried to hide her grin while she jumped over the bar. “Oh, no comeback?” I asked.

  “Are you going to teach me or not?”

  I grabbed my phone and pressed the shuffle button on my Spanish music playlist. The song that played wasn’t one from the same genre as the song Billie danced to. This type of music wasn’t even from Mexico, but luckily for me I still knew how to dance to it.

  Slowly, I walked back to her. I felt her resistance before she spoke.

  “I don’t know how to dance to this,” she whispered. Damn, she was cute. I stopped in front of her with her hands in mine.

  “Come on, you’re from Harden. There had to be at least one quinceañera that you were invited to where you at least learned the basics to music like this?” I grinned when she frowned, and those wrinkles I liked so much appeared in between her eyebrows.

  “No, I wasn’t popular in high school.” She lowered her head, embarrassed, but I wasn’t going to have that. With my finger under her chin, I lifted her head so I could look directly into her big brown eyes. I shook my head before guiding my index finger down her wrinkled brow.

  “Well then, this just means were going to have to dance all night until you learn.” I smiled when she giggled.

  “Teach away, Mr. Rodriguez.”

  I grinned mischievously as I heard the words to “Propuesta Indecente” by Romeo Santos.

  “Bachata is danced side by side.” I pulled back so she could see my movements. “One, two, tap. One, two, tap.”

  She nodded as she kept her head down, making sure to follow my movements. Once she started to mimic my moves, I gripped her hips with my hands and as she moved I swayed her hips in an imaginary eight movement.

  “Girls are supposed to move their hips more,” I explained when she smiled and narrowed her eyes at me. I removed my hands when she swung her hips on her own. Then I stepped closer with one hand planted on her upper back, and I scooped her arm so it was resting on top of mine. She instinctively gripped my bicep while I held her other hand up with my free one. I couldn’t help but look down her shirt; it was the perfect angle.

  “There is still nothing in there for you,” she said again, but this time there was a softness and huskiness to her tone. Looking in her eyes this time, I smirked.

  “You sure about that?”

  She looked down again as her cheeks burned with the slightest shade of pink. When she
looked back up and her tongue darted to lick her lips, I felt my steps falter.

  “What’s he saying?” she whispered, nodding toward the speakers, and I knew she was asking about the song. She was getting the hang of the dance and I was caught up in the moment as we began to really move, feeling the song and its sensual rhythm. As fate would have it, the perfect part of the chorus played.

  “If I lift up your skirt, would you give me permission?”

  Billie’s face stilled, but her body kept moving. Her stare flickered from my eyes to my lips as she processed the words I’d translated.

  “The song is called “Indecent Proposal,”” I said.

  Chapter Ten

  Billie

  If there were any correlation between how a man danced and how he was in bed, Christian would be king of all that is sex. The man could dance; his hips and movements followed every beat of the song like he was born this way. It was mind-altering. And the song we were dancing to wasn’t helping matters, especially after he translated part of it. I knew this was wrong; he was my boss and nothing good would come from this. He was my recipe for a disaster.

  I knew he had a phone full of numbers because as I looked for a song to play, some girl named Hannah sent him a very suggestive picture. And then there was this whole Ava thing. Suddenly, I felt like trash, like a sad excuse for a vagina. I was letting his attractiveness, charm, and dance skills suck me back into my pattern. I wasn’t going to allow that, not anymore. Abruptly, I stopped and stepped back. Christian’s hands fell lifelessly to his sides, and he seemed confused.

  “I’d better get back to work,” I said. Chris cleared his throat while rubbing the back of his neck.

  “Yeah, okay,” he replied. The fact that no customers were coming in allowed us to dance without an audience; still, there were things to do. We worked in an awkward silence while a few people came and went. We were painfully slow. When my break came around, I grabbed my backpack from the employee locker room and took it to the dining room. I sat, taking out my lunch and a book I had been dying to read—Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations.

  As I opened up the lid to my plastic container to eat whatever Pete had made for last night’s dinner, Christian pulled out the chair across from me and sat. I had a fork full of Pete’s cheesy experiment midway to my mouth when he made himself comfortable as he dragged out his own packed lunch. His smelled and looked delicious. He caught me ogling his food.

  “Want some?” he asked, tearing the tortilla dish in half. He didn’t wait for my answer before he took out a napkin from his pack and set the food on top of it, pushing it in front of me.

  “Um, thanks.” I wasn’t the type of girl to refuse food in front of a man. It looked delicious, while Pete’s food looked alive; I swear it winked at me. I threw the fork in the Tupperware and pushed it aside. Before I could take a bite from Christian’s lunch, he spoke.

  “It’s called a mulita. It’s pretty much a quesadilla with pieces of grilled steak and guacamole inside.”

  I nodded before taking a big bite. It was like a fiesta with a dancing Mariachi band, piñatas, and colorful confetti in my mouth. I groaned. Christian smiled before taking a bite of his half.

  “Good, huh?” he mumbled.

  “Oh, God, it’s soooo good. You made this?” I asked, swallowing my food as I picked up a Diet Coke from my pack to drink.

  “Nah.” He swallowed. “Promise, not to laugh?” He picked up a piece of food and popped it in his mouth.

  “I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” I replied as I lowered the can from my mouth. Christian looked at me like he was lost in thought. Something passed in his eyes before he blinked it away and cleared his throat.

  “My mom cooks for me. It’s her way of still feeling like she can do something for me. I haven’t needed her help since I was a kid, so…” He shrugged. I nodded, then ate more. “So besides your personal information, I know nothing about you.”

  “What do you want to know?” I asked cautiously.

  “The patch on your backpack.” He pointed at my bag on the floor.

  I had that etched into my backpack since I was fourteen, when I was deep inside the game; it was a black patch with a knotted green M and A intertwined with a hidden cross. I left it there to remind me of what I’ve been through and the things I had to do in the name of family. And why I wouldn’t go back.

  “I’ve seen it before,” he added.

  Yeah, I bet you have. I relaxed against the back of my chair before answering.

  “It’s a family emblem,” I replied. Christian nodded.

  “The McAllister family.” He wasn’t asking, he knew. “Don McAllister’s family.”

  “The man, the myth, the legend.” I sighed, annoyed. “Are you going to fire me now?”

  Christian snorted. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because you know who my dad is, and what my family is all about.”

  “Billie, I’m well aware not all of us are products of our parents.” He looked at me and raised his eyebrows as if to ask, am I right? I was glad, but confused that he wasn’t going to fire me after finding out who my dad was. It didn’t feel real to me. “You don’t believe me?” he asked.

  I had a hell of a poker face, but with Christian it seemed to slip at times.

  “Sorry, but I have a problem when it comes to trusting people.”

  Christian chuckled as he tossed a balled up napkin inside his empty food container. With a smirk, he sat back on his chair.

  “You’re preaching to the choir, chiquita. I came up the same way you did. Hustlin’ to make money. You might have been dealing with larger quantities, but I know how it feels to be drained from that life. And the burn in your gut every time you wake up, never being able to shake the feeling of dread and waiting for the other shoe to drop, because sooner or later it always drops.”

  His face had gone expressionless. It was the same look I used to see in the mirror right before a job. I didn’t know what to say so I just nodded. I finished the food in silence, but it wasn’t awkward, it was comfortable like we had reached a level of understanding and respect for each other.

  Whether I wanted to admit it or not, Christian and I were cut from the same cloth. Both trapped between what we were and who we wanted to be. But in his case he had left that life behind and made something of himself. I, on the other hand, had one foot in the real world and the other in my past—too chicken shit to admit that maybe I wasn’t ready to leave it all behind.

  “So, you know Jade?” he asked with uncertainty in his voice. My lips tugged into a small smile. This was his way of changing the subject.

  “Yeah, we’ve been friends for a long time.”

  “Vegas was really hot, I bet.”

  I laughed. “You suck at making small talk.”

  Christian rubbed the back of his neck. “And you’re a ball buster.”

  I smiled, leaning in to whisper. “But maybe you love it.”

  Christian’s tongue shot out to lick his lips. His gaze flickered between my lips and eyes.

  “Un poquito,” he said, holding an invisible cube between his thumb and index finger. I laughed, but my amusement died abruptly as my past came crashing into my present.

  Chapter Eleven

  Christian

  It felt like a roller coaster ride being around Billie. One minute she was fun and playful and the next she would suddenly retreat back into herself. And it didn’t bother me. It was a challenge to see how long I could keep her smiling and laughing before she went serious. We’d only been alone for a few hours, and I couldn’t remember the last time I had this much fun with a woman who wasn’t naked.

  I didn’t make it a habit to become friends with the opposite sex. I placed them in one of two categories—employee or booty call. And who was I kidding? Ava and I had never been friends; I hardly knew her. I knew every curve and freckle on her body, but inside? I knew nothing, and I wasn’t pushing to find out. Billie, on the other hand, had me on the edge
of my seat waiting to see what she would do or say next. But soon I learned keeping her around meant inviting others into my world I had no business dealing with. I heard the front doors of the bar open and Billie’s face froze. I didn’t bother turning around. I saw three guys walk in from the security mirror I had installed in the corner of the wall directly in front of me.

  It was obvious two of them were related to Billie. They looked a lot alike besides the height difference. When they stopped in front of our table, I stood, plastering on my welcome mask even though I could feel they weren’t here for a drink or for a friendly visit.

  “You guys here for a drink? I can take your order at the bar.” The one I assumed wasn’t related to Billie, because of his blond hair, chuckled at me like I was a joke. My jaw clenched.

  “Sure, boyo, we’ll take a drink.” He moved away so I could pass. I could feel anger seep into my shoulders. Dudes like this always pissed me off. There was an unspoken rule on the street; you don’t come into someone’s home and start shit. Apparently they didn’t get that memo where they were from. I rounded the bar just in time to see Billie stand from her seat and follow behind.

  “What can I get you?” The three pulled bar stools and sat.

  “I’ll do a shot of Powers,” the Irishman said.

  “Sorry, man, the only Irish whisky I carry is Jameson.”

  All three scuffed.

  “But I bet you carry a shit ton of tequila, right?” the one with short hair asked as he leaned in. My jaw tightened to the point where I thought my teeth would crack.

  “As a matter of fact, I do, and I can pour you some as long as you show me your ID.”

  He laughed without humor while he slammed his palm on the wood, revealing a tattoo on his hand.

  “Do you know who we are?” he said through gritted teeth. I looked down at his hand, amused as Billie hustled over to stand by my side.