***
With last night seared into my brain, I head straight to the dining room when I reach the resort. I check the whiteboard the servers use to keep track of their tables. She only has one left in the private dining room. We keep it closed off from the main area, and I can’t see shit through the etched glass panes of the double doors—the entire point, of course, but inconvenient as fuck right now.
I cut through the service hallway connecting the dining rooms and come out in the kitchen. Leighton has her back to me, her hip jutted out while she counts cash with Cole leaning his hip against the counter beside her. I missed what he said as I rounded the corner, but she laughs as he throws a white towel at her. She bats it away.
“Ass,” she says, re-stacking the money and starting over.
I step farther in, and his eyes dart up. The second he sees me in the doorway, he straightens and grabs the towel from where it fell in front of her.
“I need to check on Mrs. Richardson,” he says, walking toward me.
Leighton nods, distracted with her counting. “Keep your junk out of her reach.”
Cole chuckles after he passes me, and I clench my jaw, waiting for him to disappear into the private dining room. Then I walk up behind Leighton.
“We need to talk,” I growl.
She tenses for a second but then shakes her head. “You’ll have the schedules by Monday.”
“Not about that, Leighton.” I reach over, plucking the cash from her hand, and she whips around, double-checking we’re alone before she nails me with a glare.
“Well,” she says, jerking the money back from me, “we have nothing to talk about then.”
“I beg to differ since you were about a minute away from coming on my fingers last night.”
Her face blazes red, and her throat bobs in a hard swallow. “Knox…”
Leighton’s eyes flit to the side when a cook walks in, and she smiles at him, pretending I’m not standing right in front of her. And I’m about to fire the motherfucker because of it if I don’t get my shit together.
She looks up at me again after he goes farther into the kitchen.
“Last night shouldn’t have happened,” she says, her voice low. “And it’s never happening again. So, unless it has to do with work, we have nothing we need to say to each other.”
Except, it will happen again. We’d already pushed the line as far as it would go, and last night, we moaned our way across it. We both know it. But she won’t budge so long as we’re standing in the kitchen where any number of people could walk in.
“Fine,” I grind out. “We’ll keep it professional. It’s been brought to my attention that the townie was hired for B shift. I’ll expect your scheduling to reflect that from now on.”
Her eyes narrow at me. “Cole. And last I checked, I’m in charge of who works when. Isn’t that part of the deal?”
“We have no deal, Leigh.” I take a half-step, pressing into her so her ass hits the counter, and I lean down so my lips hover at her ear, sending a shiver through her. “Let me know when you’re ready to talk to me about how you were whimpering my name with your hand stroking my hard cock.”
As I pull back, she scowls even harder, and I wink at her before walking out.
I drive over to the admin building, tucking my keys into my pocket on my way to Millie’s office. She looks up when I walk in, her brow furrowing as she watches me cross the room.
“Who pissed in your cereal, kid?”
“Leighton Howard,” I say, apparently in a chatty mood. “You still have the package from yesterday?”
She rolls her chair back and slides the box out from under the desk. “I was using it as a footrest until the truck came to pick it up.” She gives me a suspicious look when I grab it. “Leighton changed her mind?”
“Not exactly.”
I grin at her, and after a second, she waves me off. She learned to not ask too many questions a long time ago.
“She’s a sweet girl,” Millie says, an air of warning to her voice.
“The sweetest,” I answer dryly. I head toward the door.
“I think she and Sidney are just what you Cabot men need to keep you in line.”
“Exactly what we need,” I call over my shoulder.
I turn down the hall, heading toward the staff lounge with the one thing that will undoubtedly make Leighton want to talk to me. Or yell at me. Either way, it will get her to my office.
Chapter Seven
Leighton
After I leave the dining room, I reluctantly walk over to the administration building to drop off my stuff. I force myself not to look at Knox’s closed office door or down the dark maintenance hallway.
No matter how hard I’ve tried, I can’t shake what happened last night. Every rogue thought of Knox has me wet, my body desperate for release. Even while telling him it was a mistake that wouldn’t happen again, my skin tingled at how close he was to me.
Still annoyed with him over the schedule thing, I open the door for the lounge. I’m surprised when I see my bunkmate, Ainsley, at one of the tables, leaned over a form with a pen. For one, the room stays pretty empty in the afternoons other than a few coming and going, but also, she’s a lifeguard. They have their own locker room and employee lounge in the pool house, so they rarely make an appearance in ours.
She glances up, her blue eyes brightening when she sees me, and I stop by the table beside her.
“Are you lost?”
Laughing, she shakes her head. “No, I missed a form.” She pauses and tilts her head to the side, making her blonde ponytail fall over her shoulder. “Or I guess my brother did when he forged them.”
He worked here last year as a guard with two of his friends, but while the friends came back this season, Ainsley showed up in her brother’s place a few days ago.
Since she was late getting here, we’ve only slept in the cabin together the one night, but I can honestly say she’s not the typical ivy. She and Palmer, our other bunkmate, don’t seem to give a shit who they talk to. They didn’t even bat an eye at sharing living space with a townie—not the norm for cabin assignments.
Ainsley tosses the pen down. “Done.” She hops up from her chair, more excited than I’ve seen her.
“You’re awfully cheery today,” I say.
From what I could tell, a summer at the Cove wasn’t her first choice, but she has a glow to her today, so the idea must have grown on her.
“I guess you could say I had a good night last night.”
At least one of us did.
She grins, pulling open the door. “I’m going to drop this off and then swim some laps. Enjoy your weekend away.”
“See you Monday,” I call after her.
I cross the room to the wall of lockers, realizing I should have asked about her night, but we barely know each other. Plus, I know for a fact, I wouldn’t have told her about my night, so it’s probably better I didn’t initiate a bonding moment.