Toeing off my shoes, I dropped my purse by the front door and closed it behind me. I walked around the corner and joined Wyatt in his real-life kitchen.
It wasn’t terribly different from Lilou. His appliances were all stainless steel and nearly as big as what we kept at the restaurant. His gas stovetop was gigantic and the copper hood over the top was one of the few bright spots of color in the whole space. But somehow it worked.
Again, there was that strange mix of modern and mountain, but everything that was modern was state of the art, and everything that was mountain cabin felt cozy and warm.
“You know you should warn a girl before you invite her over to your super secluded cabin,” I said as I sidled up across the island from him while he chopped green onions and cooked bacon. “So, she doesn’t assume you’re luring her to the middle of nowhere because you’re secretly a serial killer.”
He looked up at me and winked. “I didn’t want you to have the opportunity to decline.”
My gaze strayed to his tattoos, the bird on his neck, delicate and dainty compared to the hard, masculine design of him. I swallowed so loudly I was positive he could hear me.
“That’s exactly what a serial killer would say.”
He laughed and shook his head. “This once, try not to think the absolute worst of me.”
I stuck out my lower lip and explained, “But I’ve been doing it for so long. It’s like an irreversible habit now.”
His smile warmed. “I have faith you can manage. We’re way past fighting now, Swift. We’ve finally gotten to the good stuff.”
My eyebrow raised without my permission and my mouth blurted the dumbest question. “The good stuff?”
He set his knife down and leaned into me. “This, Kaya. You and me. What’s happening between us. This is the good stuff.”
I struggled to swallow again. How could he be this sweet? And this hot? And this totally, one hundred percent amazing person. Even though I would deny all of this if asked in public.
He waggled his finger back and forth between us. “You don’t realize it yet. But I’m telling you, woman, this is where it’s at.”
“I believe you,” I said quickly. “I do know this is good.” And I did. It didn’t only feel good in the carnal, greedy sense of the word. Although there was that. There was my lust and desire for him to touch and kiss me again, and do wicked, depraved things to my body again. And there was the infatuated good too. The kind that made all of my thoughts revolve around him, and my fingers itch to check my phone constantly to see if he texted, and my heartbeat speed up whenever he was around.
But then there was the deeper level of good. The wholeness of this, the healing in him. There was a lightness to this attraction that I’d never experienced before. My feelings for Wyatt didn’t feel heavy or weighted with impossible expectations. They were honest and genuine, fun and flirty, real and exciting. But most of all they weren’t holding me back. They weren’t… holding me under them.
His grin stretched across his face and my lungs forgot how to do their job. My heart also decided to throw its hands in the air and quit. I mean, honestly, how was I supposed to function when he looked like that? It wasn’t fair. And probably the reason he was so much further along in his career than me.
For real, if I could smile like that I would probably have my own Food Network show by now.
“Yeah?” he asked me. The insecurity in his voice was like two defibrillation paddles to my chest. All at once everything inside me kicked into high gear via his electric current.
“Yes, Wyatt. You’re the good stuff.”
“Mmm,” he hummed. “I like to hear that.”
Rolling my eyes in a last-ditch effort to hold onto my heart, I changed the subject. “Okay, since you didn’t bring me out here to kill me, what can I help with?”
He focused on cracking eggs into a mixing bowl. “Uh-uh. I’m cooking for you this morning, Ky. Sit down. Relax. But don’t try to lift a finger.”
Hiding my smile, I took a seat at one of the square-style wooden stools tucked into his island. “Gosh, you’re so bossy.”
He looked up at me from beneath thick lashes, his eyes turning stormy and electric. “Only because you like it that way.”
I sucked in my lip ring and let him see what I thought. My gaze heated, my cheeks flushed, my entire body screamed yes please! I took a breath and asked, “What’s on the menu, chef?”
Using his knife as a second hand, he picked up the green onions and bacon and tossed them into whisked eggs and then added sautéed spinach, mushrooms and peppers. “Quiche.”
His answer surprised me for some reason. It was so… simple. “How French of you.”
He added handfuls of cheese and milk to his mixture and laughed. “Shocking, I know.” Pulling out a pie crust that I had a feeling he hand rolled himself, he added. “It’s worth it. I promise.”
I couldn’t help but ask, “Do you make quiche often?”
He shrugged. “I don’t make an entire one for myself, if that’s what you’re asking. But if the opportunity arises, I like to. It’s one of the first things I ever learned to make well. One of those dishes that kickstarted the whole love of cooking for me. You know, beyond my obnoxious need to keep up with Killian and Ezra.”
“My kickstart dish was a good roulade.” I confessed. “We learned how to make them in high school Home Ec and mine was exceptional. Ever since then, I always feel like a superstar when I pull off a good one.”
“That’s exactly it.” Adding more cheese to the top for good measure, he slid his secret signature dish into the oven and set the timer. “I’m not going to lie, I’ve been playing around with the idea of bringing one into the Lilou menu.”
“What’s stopping you?”
He splayed his hands across the island and leaned toward me, giving me his full, heart-stopping focus. “Because I know it would be totally gratuitous. It wouldn’t add anything to that menu other than I would have added something personally nostalgic there.”
“Isn’t that your right?” I asked him, leaning closer to meet him halfway. “If you’ve earned executive, haven’t you also earned the right to put your adorably nostalgic dishes on there too?”
Some of the light dimmed from his eyes. “That’s the thing about the executive chef, it’s all an illusion. You assume there will be all this freedom and control. But the truth is, you’re a slave to the restaurant and what the restaurant wants. It’s an almost impossible question to answer by the way, because the restaurant is fickle and picky. There’s an owner to answer to and the limitations of your staff. Not far behind are the thousand opinionated diners and reviewers and critics.” He dropped his head, hiding his expression from me. “It’s going to suck out my soul before I ever figure out how to please the greedy bitch.”
A sharp pain cut across my chest and it had nothing to do with me or my ambitions. I ached for Wyatt, for the struggle to make his place in this industry. For the pressure he felt and the constant fear of disappointment he had hanging over his head. “Is that why you took out your piercings?”
He nodded, still looking at the counter. “Yeah. I’m trying to be, uh, more professional. Besides, it was time. I’m thirty-one now. I should probably take life seriously. Not just this damn job.”
I smiled at his levity. “I liked them.”
His head lifted slowly, his eyes sparking with challenge. “And now you find me hideous?”
Laughing because I couldn’t help it, I shook my head slowly. “Completely. I can barely look at you.”
“Liar.”
My breath caught in my throat, trapped there by the butterflies swarming through my body like it was migration season. The look on his face was so adoring, so completely enraptured. He stared at me like I had always yearned for, like I was his sun and moon and morning star. God, it did things to my insides. It turned my hard edges soft and squishy. It melted my frozen heart and razed my impenetrable walls.
“Prove it,” I dare
d him.
He stalked his way around the island, his strides long and sure. I swiveled in my chair to keep him in my line of sight. Nerves fluttered inside me, dancing like windchimes in the breeze. God, this man. He did something to me. Without consciously deciding to, he made my nerve endings buzz and my blood rush through my veins.
My entire body came to attention under his dominating gaze. Like a sunflower reaching its face for the light, I stretched and preened and leaned toward him whenever he was around. I used to assume that was because he was my boss, and before that, my superior. I wanted to impress him. I wanted him to notice me. Now I realized it was more than that. Since I’d met Wyatt, he’d pulled me toward him. I had always reached for him. I had always wanted him. And now, I was finally going to get him.
“Challenge accepted, Swift.” His arms caged around me. His words were a rumble in his chest, a sweet temptation and wicked threat.
His mouth descended on mine like a gasp of breath. We connected in an open-mouthed kiss, our tongues tangling as our hands grappled to get to each other.
My legs opened in an invitation, one that he gladly stepped into. His hands landed on my cheeks, while mine curled into his t-shirt, tugging him closer.
I loved the taste of him, and the way he kissed around my lip ring and then scraped it with his teeth just when I’d forgotten about it. I loved that his tongue dominated mine, leading the kiss in every way. I loved that his hands held me in a way that made me feel cherished and adored, but his mouth was anything but soft. Greedy, hungry, all-consuming, he kissed with fire and passion—the same way he cooked.
Our mouths separated so we could explore the rest of each other’s skin. He kissed my jawline and toward my ear. I nibbled his earlobe between my teeth and pressed a kiss to his temple. My hand slid beneath his shirt and when I touched his bare skin, he shivered.
“Fuck, Kaya,” he mumbled in my ear. “It’s been too long since I’ve touched you.”
I laughed against his skin, loving the feel of his stubbled jaw against my lips. “Not that long.”
“Any amount of time is too long with you,” he countered, always arguing, always needing to be right. And I loved that about him because I was the same way.
He kissed up the column of my throat, forcing my head back. His teeth grazed against the underside of my jaw. I gasped when his hand palmed my breast, his thumb brushing over my nipple, making it peak, bringing it to life like every other part of my body.
“I want you all the time,” he murmured. “I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop wanting you.” His head lifted so he could meet my gaze and drown me in desire and feeling and him. “You’re my weakness. I see you across the kitchen and I crumble. I lose my train of thought and I forget what I’m in the middle of doing. I see you and there is only you. You’re going to get me fired.”
My lips lifted in a love-drunken smile. “Then I could have your job.”
He stole the desire straight from my lips by kissing me to oblivion. His fingers tugged at the thin straps of my flowy, floral maxi dress. “Why am I not surprised this is your play?” He laughed against my skin, his scruff tickling my throat. “But the joke’s on you. If you would have dangled sex in front of me months ago, I would have gladly handed it over to you.”
I pulled my arms free from my dress and it slinked to my waist. He didn’t bother to wait for me to acclimate, his hands moved to the back of my strapless bra and deftly flicked it open. I tugged at his shirt, not wanting to be the only one topless.
“Now who’s the liar?” I asked, totally breathless.
Forcing my eyes to stay open, I took in the sight of him and all his glorious tattoos in the natural sunlight from his big kitchen windows. God, he was breathtaking.
I traced my fingers over the very realistic eye drawn over his right pec, a single tear welling up in the corner of it. On the other side, an anatomical heart had been reimagined with fissures snaking out in every direction. It looked so real, except it was shattering, breaking apart into little, destroyed pieces of itself. The words forgive, focus, and fear made a triangle beneath his ribs. And all of it was connected by intricate designs and meaningful swirls.
My fingers traced over the word triangle curiously. “What does this mean?”
“My mom,” he rasped, his eyes intently watching my fingers move over him. “It’s a reminder to forgive the people that have hurt me, focus on the things I want most and rise above the fear.”
I made a sound in the back of my throat, feeling oddly convicted by the words he chose to live by. I could learn a thing or two from them.
“And the bird?” I asked, trailing my fingers to his neck.
“More of my mom. It’s like a memorial to her.”
My throat dried out until it was sandpaper and gravel. “You were close to her?”
He jerked his chin once and it seemed like the one simple movement took everything out of him. “She had her demons, but she loved me. She wanted to take care of me, she just… couldn’t.”
Tears wet my eyes. I laid my hand over the broken heart on his chest, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that it symbolized the real one hidden beneath skin, muscle, and bone. My voice was a strained whisper, grating against the rocks in my mouth. “I’m so sorry, Wyatt.” The words were so inadequate, so completely wrong. I was sorry, yes. But I was more than that too. I was devastated and grief-filled and angry on his behalf. I wanted to take him back in time and shake his mom until she got it together, until she saw how fucking precious her son was and how desperately he needed her to take care of him.
“I’m okay,” he told me. And I believed him. “It was a long time ago. But I… I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing her.” He blinked against glassy eyes. He pointed to the toque next, the giant chef’s hat tattooed on his side. “I got this the week Killian left Lilou. It was my promotion present to myself.”
And just like that we’d moved on so effortlessly. His eyes cleared, and his voice steadied. He’d slid back into his comfortable skin. His hands caressed up my sides and settled on my back, bringing us closer together.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” I leaned to the side, to get a good look at it. “I’m surprised there isn’t an ‘I Hate Kaya’ tattoo somewhere on you.” I checked around the other half of him. “Or something like ‘Sous Chef Must Die’…anywhere?”
He shrugged, nipping at my collarbone with his teeth. “Again, I feel as though you’re missing how much I rely on you. How I’ve always relied on you.” His head lifted, and our gazes slammed into each other in a head-on-collision that would shut down an interstate for hours from the force of the impact. “How much I’ve always liked you.”
My belly flipped. “Lies,” I accused.
Shaking his head slowly, he pressed a sweet kiss to my lips. “Day one, Kaya. You walked into the kitchen—all cotton candy blue hair and sharp teeth—and I lost my fucking head. I had never seen someone so cutthroat and sexy all at once. I burned everything I touched that night because I couldn’t concentrate on anything but you.”
I remembered that night. I had been a ball of nerves, ready to puke at any second, but my own screwups had been ignored because Wyatt’s mistakes were way worse. Killian had chewed his ass all night.
“You’ve never said anything until now.” My words were a whisper of disbelief. I thought about all the times I’d been mean to him, snapped at him, challenged him unreasonably. God, I’d been a vindictive bitch all these years.
I thought about our texting through the years. And our recent make outs. I thought about the way I let him win sometimes. How I’d practically killed myself working so he could transition to EC easier.
Okay, maybe I hadn’t been horrible the whole time.
“You had a boyfriend,” he reminded me. “Or I had a girlfriend. Or God, you were sleeping with fucking Charlie.” His face wrinkled with disgust. “The timing has always been off for us.”
It still was. He didn’t want to admit it but wo
rking together and sleeping together was a bad idea. And then there was Sarita… This was what I would call a pickle.
And he was right. For all these years, we had missed each other. Now, at least we were both single. And what we had was too good to let go. I needed to explore it. Explore him.
“The timing isn’t exactly awesome now…”
His biceps flexed around me and his jaw ticked in that way I liked so much. “You think I’m going to let working together stop this?” He shook his head, determined. “Kaya, finally.” His breath snuck out of him in this relaxed, delicious way that forced my body to react. I felt him in my bones, down to my toes and the places beyond my physical body. He was settling into something permanent with me and I was helpless to stop him. “Fucking finally.” He grabbed the sides of my head and tilted it back, forcing me to meet his intense, consuming gaze. “This is real, yeah? This is fucking deep. And if you’re in, then let’s fight for this. Work, our friends, your parents, whatever is out there that wants to get in our way is just noise. We decide what we do, what we want. We decide how hard we want to work for this and when we want to walk away.”
After all these years, I had to admit that I wanted this as badly as he did. Maybe I’d wanted it as long as he had too.
“Do you think you will?” I cleared my throat, old fears and insecurities resurfacing. “I mean, walk away?”
His smile reappeared, lifting the corners of his mouth slowly, in that way I loved so much. “Kaya, I’ve been trying to walk into this relationship for five years. The plan is to figure out how to get you to stay forever.”
“Forever?” The word rushed out of me in a whoosh of disbelief.
The look on his face devastated me, tore apart my heart and stomped on my soul and then somehow pieced it all back together again. His brown eyes twinkled, and his smile brightened and everything about him radiated permanency and hope.
“You’re such a chicken,” he taunted. “I’ve known you for all these years and I can’t believe I’m only just now realizing that you’re one huge chick-en.”
Opposites Attract: The complete box set Page 87
