By early evening, the club slowly filled with patrons ready for the week’s end. The bar area itself was mostly full of customers who wanted to chill; others watched on while the rest were seated throughout the bar at tables or booths—or getting their groove on with strangers on the dance floor. The music wasn’t blaring but loud enough to get you to want to try out a few moves, and the clientele was a mix of locals and city slickers that wanted to experience the small-town life for a few hours.
Temperance grinned a little as she overheard the chatter. “I love this. The music, the lights, it’s fresh. Not janky.” A young hipster ordering another round had told her earlier.
And then in the next turn an older man was ranting to her as she poured his 12-year-old scotch neat, “Tempest is the beginning of the end as this young generation throws all caution to the wind.” The irony of his complaint did not go unnoticed as she watched him nudge closer to the young ladies seated next to him whose cleavage was boosted up and on full display.
She noticed many of the older patrons were the town’s aristocrats and had multiple generations tied to their land and power, yet, here they were, tasting a bit of the forbidden.
“Can I get an old fashioned?” One middle aged man came to order after sniffing around the table of an early-thirties blonde dressed in a tight navy pencil skirt, red heels, and sheer crème button-down. She appeared uninterested, but he took no notice of her brush off.
“May I offer you a different concoction?”
“What’ll ya suggest?”
“I’ve got some tonic with a sprinkle of just what ails ya. Have you been here for a while?”
“Since maybe two. I cut it early before I had to make it home to the wi—” His eyes looked down for a moment when the realization of his truth countered his actions.
“May I call you a ride home?” Temperance cleaned the area in front of him as he nodded affirmatively.
She had practiced witchcraft long enough to know how to change the mind of those trudging the immoral path, and if words would not suffice, her potions would.
“You look a little lost?” a deep voice whispered in her ear.
She went still, butterflies dancing in her stomach as she tilted her head back to meet Raiden’s eyes. “No, just keeping track of the clients and their preferences.”
He nodded, standing close to her and casting his gaze about. “You’re good.” She had a distinct feeling he didn’t give out compliments easily.
“Thank you, but I’ve been doing this for a while,” she murmured, watching his profile. “So I should be pretty good at it…”
“And she’s also modest. I like that.” He smiled, turning his head and assessing her. His smile slowly faded away but not the intensity in his eyes.
“What?”
“I shouldn’t say this but—you’re very beautiful, Temperance.” The way her name floated off his tongue warmed her as if he’d caressed her whole body.
She had this odd compulsion to touch him, and these sudden, powerful feelings for a man she just met unnerved her. She bit her lower lip, trying to regain a sense of herself. Was there something special about this club? Or was it just Raiden that tugged hard on these acute sensations that confused and flustered her?
She finished shaking a drink for a customer to keep her hands busy, and then handed it off to a server. She noticed how his eyes kept zoning in on her lacey black bra then darted away when she caught him staring.
He slid his hand around her left side and grabbed a loose sprig of mint. The shift to the right side left her senses firing as he rubbed the mint along the top of the stainless chalice. “Mint oil, then a nice coating of sugar around the lip always enhances not only the sweet of the sugar but the spice of the mint and the whole fresh aroma of the mint julep experience is heightened.”
Temperance was normally soothed talking shop, but the way he spoke about sweet and spicy seemed to hover around something more. Her brain stumbled over his word, ‘lip’, which just made her think about his mouth. Which had her mind in a place she’d never been before.
“…and the customers come back for this little added bonus,” he concluded.
When he brushed a hand against her arm, she finally snapped out of it. She cleared her throat and took a slight step back, needing distance, space, a bucket of ice dumped over her head. But that small step away from him helped. “I’ll, ah, keep that in mind.” She caught his gaze and stilled, a touch frazzled. “You can never leave a customer unsatisfied, right?”
Her voice came out low and husky, a little dark, and Raiden froze. “Right.” He watched her for a second.
But after one last look at her, he backed away from the bar and sauntered off to the kitchen. She caught herself staring at his backside and once again, her brain went into the gutter, imagining—
“Ow!” Temperance rubbed the sting on her right butt cheek. She scowled at Candi who’d just popped her on the ass with a towel. “What the heck?”
“The boss is hands-on, but he’s really been very…attentive toward you,” she noted, grinning. “Better watch yourself, sweetheart, ’cause that man always gets what he wants.”
Temperance rolled her eyes, grabbed a cleaning towel and scrubbed a sticky ring on the bar top. “He’s just being nice.”
“You mark my words,” Candi continued in a teasing voice, “he is hunting and you’re in his sights. I haven't seen him like this in a long time. Centuries maybe!”
He’s hunting…and you’re in his sights.
She shook her head and grabbed another drink tab. From the corner of her eye, she caught a leggy brunette strumming a finger down the buttons of Raiden’s shirt. Of course, a man like Raiden probably had lots of women under his pall and with no effort either.
“It’s all in the eyes, do you see them?” Somehow Candi had crept unnoticed behind her.
“What do mean?”
“He isn’t focused on her. Look at him.”
She peered up and met the intense stare of Raiden and his baby blues. They spoke to her and the zip of wanting more with him filtered through her.
Now, she found herself both annoyed and conflicted by putting any thought into Candi’s words. It meant nothing, and yet, she couldn’t ignore the intense look in his eyes either.
Under her breath, Temperance mumbled, “Yeah, well, if he needs a potion to control his hormones, I’ve got just the right mixture coming up.”