Made in America (2 page)

Holy shit. This woman is exquisite.

And judging by the rest of her, she’s got a bit of a wild side. I like that.

Her multicolored hair is tied up in pigtails, with hues of red, white, and blue streaking through it. ‘Murica, right? Both her arms are covered in tattoos, and while I try to make sense of them with just a quick glance, I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything other than her face, which isn’t caked in make-up like the women I’m used to being with. No, this face is a natural, pale beauty with just a hint of blush and eye shadow, and lips that aren’t smeared in lipstick, but rather glossed over with a sheen that would look incredible gliding up and down my cock.

I peruse her figure. Not too thin, but not overly big.

She’s full-bodied, like a good Merlot.

Clearing my throat, I look at her name tag. RAVEN. Interesting name. I say it over and over again, committing it to memory, though I’m not sure why. A cocktail waitress is far removed from the stature I’m used to pursuing. I’m used to going after supermodels, actresses, high society women that are an easy lay. Raven is the furthest thing from all of those, yet I can’t help but think if I stood her next to one of my many conquests in a line-up, I’d choose her over any of them each time.

Alan shifts in his seat and starts talking, and thank God for that. I’m too flabbergasted to say anything. If it were up to me I’d just remain staring at her tits all day.

“We’re doing fine, sweetheart,” he says, “but you know what you could do for me?”

Raven smiles, revealing a set of pearly whites free of nicotine stains. A non-smoker. That’s another plus.

“What’s that, love?” she says, and I notice for the first time that she has a British accent. If I wasn’t sure about her before, I am now. I’m a sucker for foreign women, and this one is the total package.

Alan winks and says, “You can give me your number, and maybe later on tonight you can let me play with those fun bags you got going on.” He ogles her tits, jiggling his eyebrows at them like a six year old.

Did he?

Did I just hear?

Jesus Christ, Alan.

Her smile fades as she stands there, dumbfounded. I’m sure in a place like this Raven is no stranger to men’s advances, but I don’t know if she’s ever met anyone like Alan.

Or me, for that matter.

But at least I have a filter.

“You’ll have to excuse my friend,” I say. “He forgot to take his meds this morning, and well, it’s left him feeling a little audacious.”

Raven blinks. Probably doesn’t even know the meaning of the word. She rolls her eyes at the two of us and walks away, giving me an excellent view of her ass. It’s just as perfect as the rest of her. Firm and plump. Stuffed tight in a pair of black shorts. God, what I wouldn’t give to jerk my dick all over—

“What’d you do that for? I think she was gonna give me her number.”

I tear my eyes away from Raven and face Alan. His thin face is sporting a devilish smirk as he watches her leave.

“The only thing she was going to give you was a punch in the mouth.”

“I bet she’s freaky in the sack. All those tattoos? That hair? A girl like that has to have a wild side, right? Probably likes it in the ass, too. God, she’s got a great ass.”

He grunts his desire to pummel our waitress, and all I can do is shake my head. Alan’s got a keen eye when it comes to business, but his social skills leave something to be desired, which is why I do all of the talking in our meetings. If I left it up to him, we’d be belly up in thirty days because no one would want to be involved with a foul-mouthed creature like him. It’s always
fuck this
, or
fuck that
. You’d think being under my care for the last five years—taken into my confidence—would have changed him, but no. He’s still the same brash, ignoramus I absorbed when I took over his boss’s company.

Old dog, new tricks, right?

Glancing over at the bar, I catch Raven’s eye and smile. I expect her to smile back out of pure courtesy, but she doesn’t. She flips me the bird and huffs something under her breath. No doubt it’s an expletive, and I can’t help but take offense. It wasn’t
me
who made a lewd comment; I was just sitting here staring at her…tits.

Okay, so maybe she does have a reason to judge the two of us.

Plenty of fish in the sea, Grant
, I tell myself.
Leave this one for the minnows. You’re a shark.

Of course I am, but that doesn’t mean I can’t go swimming for chum every once in a while, and you can best believe when I’m nailing April to the wall later tonight, I’ll be thinking of Raven’s big, gorgeous tits in my face.

“So, anyway,” Alan says. “Forget about her. McCreedy. What do we have to do to land that bastard?”

For the next half hour we hash out our plans to get Nelson McCreedy in the family. He’s got a lot of money to play with. We just have to show him where to invest it. Where to make it grow. He’s hardheaded, and been with The Monroe Group since dinosaurs walked the Earth, but after a few bad moves on their part costing him a few million, he’s looking to switch his portfolio.

Huffman Financial is just the place he needs to be.

He just doesn’t know it yet, but he will. They always do.

Raven would know my lap is where she needed to be, given the opportunity. Bouncing up and down. My cock is swelling just thinking about it, and I know I shouldn’t be, but I can’t help it. I’m completely captivated by a damn waitress. What the hell is wrong with me?

My breath hitches as she approaches, her hips swaying confidently from side-to-side. Dropping the check on our table without saying a word, Raven steps away, briefly catching my eye in a deadpan stare that’s as cold as ice, yet underneath it there’s a fire blazing bright in a woman that’s managed to consume my every thought in mere moments. Most girls I know gravel at my feet to make me happy. Not her. She’s confrontational. Sexy. A challenge.

Something I haven’t had in a long time.

“You paying?” Alan asks.

“Don’t I always?”

After flipping the bill for the fifty-five dollar tab with credit, she brings back my card and receipt and I take it from her. Brushing my fingers briefly with hers, I smile and say, “Thanks.”

“Sure,” she growls, giving Alan the fiercest glare I’ve ever seen.

I don’t want to say it’s her own fault, because I know the type of person Alan is, but dressed the way she is, and looking the way she does, she has to expect men to salivate from time to time. I mean her hair, those tattoos, her tits on display for all the world to see…she’s just asking to get hit on in this dive.

Putting my card back in my wallet, I remove a gold pen from my jacket and twist it open. Signing for the bill, I stare down where it says Tip and think on how much to leave her. Etiquette says the correct amount should be $8.25. 15% of the total bill.

The gentlemanly thing to do would be to just leave the tip and walk out.

But I was never one for etiquette, and no one’s ever accused me of being a gentleman. Not with a girl like her in a place like this.

Let’s have a little fun, shall we?

I scrawl something on the receipt and place it under my plate, grinning proudly to myself. Chances are I’ll never see this girl again in my life, but I’m not going to lie. I’d love to be a fly on the wall when she reads it.

Raven the waitress got exactly the tip she deserves.

“Come on,” I tell Alan. “Let’s go.”

He blinks and before I know it, we’re back in my SUV being ushered uptown by my driver. I stare out the window, completely ignoring Alan’s gibberish, because all I can think about is Raven’s breasts, and how much I’d love to suck on them.

God, April’s going to get the fuck of her life tonight.

- 2 -

Raven

I step off the tube and catch my shoe, falling head over heels to the dingy floor traipsed on everyday by thousands of New Yorkers. It’s bad enough I have to stand next to them on the subway. I don’t need a bird’s eye view of everything they’ve frolicked in all day.

But it’s indicative of how this afternoon has been.

Going in to work on my day off after Hugo called in sick. Again!  I swear, that bloke is sicker than an Eli Roth movie. Not to mention all the guys I had to serve that couldn’t stop staring at my tits. They think they’re being all secretive about it. Stealing glances and being all fancy, but I know. I see them all looking. I’m not blind, and I know that’s one of the reasons Chase hired me. My tits and my British accent.

But the definite winner of the day has to be those two suits I served at lunch. They’re burned into my brain for all eternity. I know it’s just a job, and I shouldn’t care so much, but when you make your living relying mostly on tips, what they did to me was downright bollocks! I don’t care how good looking you are, and believe me, the guy who paid the check was a definite hottie.

He may have been checking out my tits, but while he was doing that I was busy admiring his chiseled frame. Every last inch of it poured like solid gold into that custom fitted suit of his. For sure. A suit off the rack doesn’t look like his did. This one was formed to fit his body. Accentuating every curve and bulge.

And his face.

My God, it was perfect. His lips, his brow, his nose. Peppered with just the right amount of stubble that feels good between the thighs.

But still, just because he looks like a movie star doesn’t give him the right to treat people the way he treated me.

Imagine, the nerve of him telling me that people don’t respect my tattoos. If anything, they respect me
more
for them. The people that matter do, anyway. Everyone else can just bugger off.

Do you know how much it hurts to get inked? It’s no walk in the park, let me tell you. And I’ve got two whole sleeves, not to mention the numerous ones placed elsewhere on my body.

And fun bags? Who calls breasts fun bags? Fucking Americans, that’s who.

I make my way up to street level and immediately I’m hit with the sights and sounds of the big city. I’ve been here two years and it still never ceases to amaze me how alive it is at every hour of the day. When I was a little girl growing up in London, I always dreamed that some day I’d make it to New York City. I don’t know why, but seeing it on the telly all those years ago—it just felt like home. Like I was born in the wrong part of the world and it was calling for me to come back.

Now that I’m here, I’m not as enamored with it as I was when I was five, but I still get a kick out of everything it has to offer.

Even if what it has to offer doesn’t tip me.

Come on, you can’t tell me that guy didn’t have money. That suit, those looks. It was oozing out of every pore on his hard body. Not that money means all that much, but I’ve always believed that if you have it, share the wealth, you know? Especially to someone who serves your ass food for lunch. $8.50 for a tip isn’t going to break the bank.

Not his bank, anyway.

I’m still fuming by the time I get home, which is a little brownstone apartment building in Queens that I share with my roommate, Tito.

Out front on the steps, Ricky and his little sister, Sonya from 2D, are in a heated debate over Pokemon cards. I give both their heads a scruff as I step between them and make my way inside.

“Hey Raven,” they both echo in unison.

“Hi, kids,” I say, not bothering to turn around as the front door closes behind me.

Upstairs on the third floor, Tito is already talking at me before I can even get inside the apartment and set down my purse.

“Rave, you’re not gonna believe the kind of day I had. I got—”

“No,” I interrupt. “
You’re
not going to believe the kind of day I had.”

That shuts him up real quick. Normally I just let him go on and on while smiling and nodding, so when I have to interrupt his banter, you know it’s serious.

Puzzled, he cocks his head to the side like a Labrador. I reach into my purse and pull out a copy of the receipt suit guy left me.

Huffman, Grant. No idea who that is, but it even sounds rich.

Tito takes a look at it. Reads the note Grant left instead of a tip.

“Get rid of those tattoos and maybe people will respect you more?”

His eyes snap up and meet mine, which by this point are accepting, though I do raise my eyebrows. “Yeah,” I say. “Can you believe that?”

“Oh no he didn’t!” Tito shouts, checking the receipt once more as if to validate its authenticity.

“He did,” I say, brushing past him and heading for the kitchen. If there was any day that warranted a drink, this was that day.

Tito’s hot on my heels, sitting me down before I can reach the fridge. “I’ll get it,” he says.

I laugh, loving how he knows me so well.

Tito’s a hoot. Totally gay, Spanish, with a heart of gold. I met him shortly after arriving here. We took classes together over at Columbia. Both going for our Bachelor’s in Art. I thought I wanted to be a graphic designer, and Tito thought he wanted to be a famous photographer. A year in and we both realized that neither of those things were what we wanted, so we dropped out and joined the working class citizens of the world. Now we’re both trudging through life until we can figure out just what is it we truly want. It’s a good thing I have him, too, because without him I don’t know how I’d be able to afford New York’s exuberant rental prices.

He lowers a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Watermelon Punch in front of me and I snatch it off the table to guzzle a quarter of it down. The alcohol warms my system. Calms me slightly. I put the bottle down and sigh as Tito takes a seat across from me, still holding the receipt.

“Huffman,” he says. “I recognize that name from somewhere.”

“Yeah, well, who cares, right? Story of my life.”

“Was he hot? I bet he was hot. No ugly guy would do this.”

“Yeah,” I smile and take another swig. “Totally hot. Like, monumentally hot.”

“Maybe you should track him down,” Tito grins.

“Are you kidding me? I’m not going to sleep with someone like that.”