Shark Bait

I recommend reading this short after finishing Prince of Lies. Enjoy!

Joey

I’d never wanted to hate-fuck someone just to teach them a damned lesson, but the Sandwich Shark was skating on my last nerve.

One more do-do-do of his annoying jingle and we were going to have words.

“Fourteen double-cheesy beef-a-nados, please.” The customer in front of my food truck window repeated themselves for the second time.

I snapped my attention back onto them from the distraction across the parking lot. “Did you say fourteen? That’s a lot of freaking ‘nados, bro,” I said with a sigh.

“Got some killer weed tonight, y’know what I mean?” the kid snickered. “Makes me hungry enough to eat a… woah, is that the Sandwich Shark? Isn’t that the place that does beefy-cheese sandy smashers? Everyone’s been talking about them. Said they were a must-try on Food Truck night.”

Before he could get distracted and wander his high-as-a-kite self over to my arch-nemesis, I grabbed the kid’s debit card out of his hand and rang up the order.

“Next time, dude. Tonight’s beef-a-nado night,” I said, handing him back his card and yelling over my shoulder to Lenny to pick up the pace on the grill. “Next!”

Thankfully, Food Truck night was busy as hell, enough to keep me occupied the entire shift through. There was no end to the number of people in line which suited me fine. I’d make killer tips if Lenny could keep up with my pace. I’d learned early on that my cousin Rowe had a sweet deal with this gig. A good shift during Food Truck night and I could make more than three days at my catering and special events job.

“Joe, you working tomorrow?” Lenny asked after we’d closed the shutter and finished cleaning up. “If so, tell Lea I gotta go help my sister with something at her place out in Jersey. Won’t be back till Monday.”

“I’ll be here. Taking another one of Rowe’s shifts since he’s fucked off to the Hamptons like some kind of Kardashian.”

I followed Lenny out of the truck and fist-bumped him. “Safe trip to your sister’s, man. See you next time.”

He called out a goodnight over his shoulder as he took off in the direction of the bus stop. I turned back to lock the truck which took a tricky combination of jiggling and cursing to work since the truck was ancient and finicky as hell.

“Do-do-do-do-do,” sang the voice from my nightmares.

I turned to glare at the Sandwich Shark. “Zip it. Ain’t nobody here left to be impressed with your fancy-ass jingle. Just the dumpster rats and me. And I’m not impressible.”

The sound of the burrito truck’s lock jamming drew my attention back to what I was doing. I tried the jiggle-curse routine again and threw in a prayer for good measure.

No luck.

“Need some help, Bandito?”

I closed my eyes and added an extra prayer for the Sandwich Shark’s continued health considering there was now a death wish hanging over the man’s head.

“No thank you, shark-bait.” Oo-ha-ha, I murmured under my breath.

“Name’s Clark,” he said before coming closer. The nearby floodlight cast shadows across his face, but my memory served up a pristine version in which every angle of his handsome fucking self was clear as day.

I stared at him. “Clark the Sandwich Shark? That can’t be right. Please tell me you’re trolling me.”

He started laughing. “Okay, fine. It’s Mark.”

I sighed and turned back to the lock. “Har, har. Mark the Shark. Whatevs.”

The sound of his approaching footsteps made my skin prickle. So, fine. I’d had a teeny-tiny—possibly sandwich-based—crush on this guy. What could I say? The man made a damned good chicken parm. That was all it was. A crush on his sandwich.

His voice was low and soft behind my ear. I felt his warm breath on my skin and nearly groaned from it. “It’s Brandon.”

“Like I care,” I said in a way breathier way than I’d meant to.

I cared. I cared a whole helluva lot. More than I should have. More than I ever had for anyone, guy or chick. In fact, I’d never even looked at a guy like that before.

Until this one.

Now I couldn’t stop looking. And it pissed me the fuck off.

Brandon ran a fingertip down the center of my back, pressing the damp Burrito Bandito t-shirt against my spine in a lazy meander. Goosebumps popped up along my skin like little traitorous minions begging for more of his attention.

“‘Cause I don’t,” I said, hearing my voice crack. I swallowed thickly. “Don’t care about you. Don’t care about your name. Definitely haven’t been singing your song to myself for weeks and weeks.”

I felt the brush of his hip against mine. He smelled like fresh bread and a little bit like sweat. Why was that so freaking intoxicating? Maybe I had a second-hand high from that pot-smoking dude earlier.

“Come home with me,” he said.

I squeezed my eyes closed again and bit my lip against the groan that wanted to escape. This… confrontation shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me. Things had been getting tense between us ever since the impromptu food truck dance-off we’d had a few nights ago. Ever since I’d demonstrated my Sprinkler move, he’d been following me everywhere. It was inevitable we were either going to rumble or… rumble.

“I’m… I’m d-dating s-someone,” I stuttered. My dick was probably only hard because I was thinking of Chloe. Yeah, that was it. Chloe.

“No you’re not.” His nose pushed gently into my hair. My ball cap tumbled to the pavement at our feet. “I saw you with her at the Glass Elephant. That girl went home with someone else.”

His voice did things to me. Shuddery things. “Yeah,” I admitted, “but…”

Brandon’s lips brushed the back of my neck as his hands moved to my hips. “Come home with me,” he said again.

I took in a shaky breath. “You’ll sing that fucking song.” It was a weak argument, but I wasn’t dealing with a full brain-deck at the moment.

“Mm, possibly. But if I do, you can do your little dance for me, toe-kick and everything. What do you say?”

I turned my head to rub my cheek against his nose. Every skin cell I had was on fire, edging closer to this man as if he had magic beans in his pocket.

“Do you have magic beans in your pocket?” I breathed. Damn him for smelling all sandwichy and delicious. I was hungry. Maybe that explained it.

The deep rumble of his laughter went straight to my belly and tightened it with need.

“I’m not going to make the obvious joke here, Joey. I’m too crazy for you right now. I can’t fucking think. All you do is tease me with your dimpled chin and your sweet fucking face. Your messy hair and your ability to make everyone around you smile. You drive me up a fucking tree, you know that? Can’t get enough.”

I turned to face him fully before brushing my mouth over his. By accident mostly. He tasted minty, like he’d deliberately popped a Breath Saver before approaching me.

I tried it again, just to make sure I’d correctly identified the taste.

Brandon let out a growl and wrapped a strong arm around my lower back before pulling me hard against his front and turning my taste into a real kiss. The hard press of his dick against my hip made me even harder and the tight hold he had on me made me dizzy. His kiss was everything I’d never had before. I felt possessed… owned.

And I fucking loved every minute of it.

“Come fucking home with me, dammit,” he growled into my mouth.

“Promise me you won’t sing the song,” I demanded without pulling back from his minty-sweet lips. My dignity was hanging on by a thread. I didn’t want to seem too easy. A man had standards and mine was the stupid shark song.

I imagined doing very, very dirty things with this man. Naked things. Begging things.

But I would not be a party to the shark jingle.

He moved his mouth down to my neck and pressed his teeth into the side of it. “No.”

“Oh fuck.” The whimper wasn’t dignified. Mostly it was because my dignity was clearly gone, like hanging laundry in gale force winds.

Brandon’s mouth moved up to my ear. “I want you. And I will do just about anything you want. But I need to make one thing absolutely clear to you, Joseph.”

“Oh god.” My breathing was coming so fast I worried I’d need medical attention soon.

“I am in charge. I make the rules. And I think that’s what you want. I think you want me to put you in your place and tell you what a good little boy you are. How good you’re going to be for me when you’re on your knees begging to suck my hard cock. I think you’ve been waiting for someone to come along and give you exactly what you need by taking away all of your decisions. You may think you want to lay the ground rules for this, but you really don’t. Do you?”

My knees wobbled and I started to slide down his body. His strong arms held me up.

My voice was breathy and broken. “Gonna come. Want to come.” I was too turned on to even be embarrassed anymore.

Brandon’s teeth clamped onto my earlobe and bit down. “You will come when I tell you to, and not one minute before. Do you understand?”

I nodded. “Mmhm. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yes. Mmhm.”

He pulled back and cupped my face before leaning in slowly and giving me a devastatingly tender kiss. “So good for me. Give me the keys so I can lock the truck. I already texted Lea and told her you won’t be able to work tomorrow.”

I stared at him for a few beats before my stare turned into a glare. Who the hell did he think he was?

I stepped back and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I beg your pardon.”

The sound of his laughter split the night air. “Begging already. Such a good boy.”

I pulled back a fist to punch him in the gut but he grabbed my wrist and pinned it above me against the side of the food truck. The laughter fell from his face.

“Lea is my sister,” he said gently. His eyes caressed my face like a tender touch. “Of course I’ll text her back and tell her otherwise if you prefer. But, Joey?”

His touch, his attention, his incredible tenderness toward me… they were all so damned mesmerizing. “Hm?”

“I’ve wanted you for a while now,” he admitted softly, moving one hand down from my wrist to brush the side of my face with the back of his fingers. “And I’d really like to spend some time with you this weekend. Let me have this. Please. Let me show you how I feel about you… and who I am… and who we can be together. Maybe it won’t work. Who knows? But maybe it will. I’m really hoping it will.”

I leaned forward and kissed him again. His arms wrapped around me and held me tight. Everyone I’d ever been with had wanted me to be the strong one. The one who took charge. I wanted someone who’d challenge me, call me on my bullshit, tease me, joke around with me, flirt with me, and want me more than anything else on earth.

“No shark song,” I said, tilting my head back and deciding this was the hill I was willing to die on. He needed to know I was no pushover. Even if I did want him to take control.

“No shark song,” he agreed with a grin. “Unless you beg for it.”

I let out a huff of laughter. “Fat chance. That will never happen.”

Never say never. Five hours later I may or may not have begged him to sing me the shark song.

But it was nobody’s business but our own.