by Rexi Lake
The sound of the bell over the door made her turn and her stomach dropped even more even as her guard immediately went up and her body tightened in desire.
“I guess the baking isn’t going so well?” Tucker asked, approaching the counter.
She glared at him. “There’s no pies today,” she stated.
“None at all?” he asked.
She tried to keep her gaze over his shoulder, out the window behind him, on her fingernails, anywhere but on him directly. Those damn sexy muscles of his and those laughing blue eyes were going to make her want to let him fuck her again. And she did not need that to happen. No way. No how. Once was enough. Despite her body’s treasonous response to his presence, she did her best to remain firm in her conviction.
But damn he looked good. That tight black t-shirt stretched over his chest like a second skin. She swore she could see his muscles rippling as he breathed.
“Red?”
“Huh?” she looked up and got caught by his eyes. He was staring at her like he was waiting for something. “What?” she snapped.
“I asked if you could make me a sandwich? And a glass of cider?” He sent her a bemused smile.
Shit. She’d spaced out while checking him out and the damn cocky ass knew it. She nodded, reaching below the counter to open the cooler and grab one of the gallons of cider. “Why do you buy it when you’re the one who delivers it?” she asked. It was a question she’d pondered before. She’d seen him pay, even doubling what he laid down to give Lola a decent tip, each time he came in. If he supplied it though, why pay?
“It’s the right thing to do,” he answered. “I don’t expect to get my sandwich for free just because I brought the apples. The cafe purchases those so they can sell their products.”
“But they bought the cider and aren’t changing it like how a sandwich is built. Don’t you have your own cider to drink or something? Why get it here and pay extra?”
He shrugged. “Why not?”
She stared at him, mouth slightly agape at his answer. That was his reasoning? She’d known plenty of guys who used their status and celebrity to gain freebies. Everything from a hotel room to a bottle of champagne at a top club in the city could be had for free if someone had the right name or connection. But this man not only had the connection, he had the product. And he was still paying for it?
“Can I have my drink?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she answered, handing the cup over to him that she’d just filled. She shook her head and frowned, trying to wrap her brain around him. “Same sandwich?” she asked.
“Yep. I’ll go sit down and try not to distract you too much. At least the smoke seems to be clearing.” He winked at her before he went to a table.
She looked around and realized he was right. She and Lola had propped open the back door when the smoke had started to fill the place. It seemed the smoke was actually clearing out, along with the burnt apple smell that Olivia would swear was stained into her clothing. Taking a breath, she started on Tucker’s sandwich. She might not have gotten anywhere with baking, but at least she could pour a drink and make a sandwich.
After delivering his sandwich, Olivia went back into the kitchen and asked Lola to watch the front while she got some air. Sitting on an upturned milk crate in the back, she pulled out her phone and tried for the umpteenth time to call her father.
“Elias Marsten’s office.” The cool, crisp voice on the other end answered on the second ring.
“Megan, it’s Olivia.”
“I’m sorry, Olivia. Your father has put his foot down. He’s not answering any calls until you can show him you understand the value of working hard.”
“Still?” Olivia wanted to scream. It had been a solid week. He’d grounded her before, but it had always been with her Park Ave apartment and access to her things. This was just beyond anything. “But, Megan, I didn’t do anything but defend myself.” She tried to argue with the woman.
“I understand your frustrations, dear. Unfortunately, your father has expressly forbidden anyone to transfer your calls to him on penalty of immediate censure and possible dismissal.”
“Dismissal?” she asked, suddenly feeling defeated.
“Prove you can work, just like he did. Remember what your father likes to say?”
“You mean that thing about hard work being a reward or some such?” Olivia asked on a sigh.
“Yes,” Megan’s tone was rebuke enough. “Hard work is its own reward. When you work hard, you know that what you gain was worth everything you put into earning it and makes the payoff that much sweeter.”
“Did he give you a plaque or something with that?” Olivia asked with a groan.
“Or something,” Megan answered.
“Fine.”
“Maybe you should just try to find something to enjoy while you’re out of the limelight,” the older woman suggested.
“But I like the limelight.” Olivia argued.
“Well, maybe there’s something better you’ll find if you let yourself.”
Olivia sighed. There would be no talking Megan into transferring her call and arguing with the woman who’d been on a national debate team was probably not going to end in her favor.
“Good-bye, Olivia.”
“Bye,” she muttered just before the click that ended the call sounded in her ear.
She dropped her phone onto her lap and put her head in her hands. There really was no getting out of this.
“Lola said you came out for some air. Thought it might be the smoke, so I brought you some water.”
She looked up and saw Tucker standing just inside the doorway. He was leaning there like he’d been waiting for her. “How much did you hear?” she asked warily.
He held out the bottle of water toward her. “Enough,” he answered.
She took a long sip and eyed him with consideration. “Give me your phone,” she said when she lowered the bottle.
He raised a brow, but handed it to her.
She typed in her number, added her address to the contact info, then called herself to save his number to her phone. Megan had said to find something to enjoy. She might as well enjoy the muscles on this man some more. Standing up, she handed his phone back to him. “My place, seven o’clock. If you show, we can have some fun. If not,” she shrugged and left the rest of the sentence unspoken.
His jaw dropped a little. “So now you want more than a single afternoon of fun, Red? What gives?” he asked.
“Let’s just say a little birdy told me to find something to enjoy while I’m in exile. I’m choosing to enjoy you.”
“I’m not just a piece of meat, Red,” he warned.
“I think I’m well aware of that,” she countered. “But I happened to enjoy your meat the last time.” She winked.
He walked toward her as she stood up. Instead of being able to brush past him back into the kitchen, she found herself backed against the brick wall. His hands came down on either side of her face and he leaned in close. “I might have enjoyed our encounter last time. And I might have considered that we could have a few more between us. But I am not at your beck and call, Miss Marsten. If you want to enjoy me, you’ll need to ask politely and treat me like I’m more than a fucking pet for you to play with when you want. Got me?” he growled. He backed off with a snarl of disgust and disappeared back into the cafe.
Her eyes widened as she looked after him. She hadn’t thought about how her words might sound to him. She’d just been pissed about everything in her life. No way had she intended it to sound like she was going to just use Tucker. Except... He was right. That’s exactly what she’d planned. Fuck him until she could go back home. She swallowed hard. Was she that condescending? That vain?
She shook her head. No. It had to just be because her father had tossed her down into the gutter. She grimaced. Okay, maybe she was that full of herself. Tribeca wasn’t the gutter. In fact, had he really wanted her to suffer, he would have dropped her on a street corner in the
Bronx or just pushed her out of the apartment with nothing but the clothes on her back.
She started back into the cafe, but Lola stopped her with a glare.
“I don’t know what you did, but nobody is allowed to make Tucker angry like that. He’s the sweetest man I know and even though he’s got a few problems with being cocky and arrogant, he’d give the shirt off his back to help someone in need. And you, Livy, just sent him out of here like he had the hounds of hell after him. Fuming, he was. I haven’t seen him pissed off like that since the incident when Mary Agnes went off on the crazy Italian chef down the block.” Lola huffed and threw her hands up in the air. “You better apologize to him. I don’t want to get rotten apples in tomorrow’s delivery because of you.”
Olivia bit her lip and looked away. She’d never felt shamed like that before. And guilt.
“Go home, Livy. Just, take the rest of the shift off.” Lola turned her back on Olivia and returned to the front counter.
Olivia blinked back the strange stinging in her eyes. She crossed her arms over her stomach and turned to go back out the door. A week and she’d probably just done exactly what her father had expected - failed.
Chapter Seven
Tucker drove straight home. He made the hour drive in under forty-five minutes, which told him just how much he was pissed off. Slamming the truck door, he stomped into his house - the one on the other side of the original barn. The home was a small two bedroom farmhouse with a large porch that wrapped around half of the house.
Usually he would go to the main house and spend time with his mother, but he had no intentions of being around people just then. Instead, he headed upstairs, changed into a pair of sweats and a tank, and then went to the basement where he had set up a solid gym for himself. He grabbed the free weights and started pumping his arms in a rhythmic routine. He needed to work out the aggression before it consumed him.
He was not just a farm boy for her to pick up when she wanted some fun. Damn woman could have said any number of things and he’d have happily found himself at her place, ready to give her another taste of what she wanted. But she had to treat him like an inferior instead. Someone at her beck and call.
I’m choosing to enjoy you.
The words - her words - played over in his head. Like a broken record that kept skipping back to the same line. He pumped his arms harder, faster. Twenty-five pound weights were barely a warmup, but at least his heart was pumping. After two sets of fifty, he switched to the bar he’d secured in the beams of the house and began a set of pullups. Maybe if he worked himself into a decent sweat, he might forget about those words.
Unfortunately, he didn’t think there’d be any forgetting of her for a while. Not when his cock was hungry to be back inside that tight, wet pussy of hers. Definitely not when he was wondering if she tasted as tart as her tongue or as sweet as her figure. He groaned and shut his eyes, trying to block out the thoughts that plagued him. Damn her. Damn Olivia Vivienne Marsten and all the society princesses like her that thought others were beneath them and only fit to enjoy when they had no other choice.
FOUR HOURS LATER, AND one long cold shower, Tucker pulled out his laptop and settled at the kitchen table with a glass of cider. He still had work to do before he could call it a day, specifically he needed to check on the orders that were scheduled. While he handled the deliveries into the city, they also had five other drivers that handled driving as far out as Philadelphia and even north into Canada at times. Local deliveries were smaller and more frequent, but the shipping they did to the rest of the country was their big business. Twice a week they sent out loads in refrigerated trucks to be delivered from the East Coast to the West Coast.
Hart Farms wasn’t a small operation as it had been for his great-grandfather; it was now a thriving business with nearly ten thousand acres of land, most of it covered by fruit trees. Apples were their business. But they also grew a small section of other fruits that they used when producing their products. Apple butters, jellies and jams, and their famous cider were also sold. The cider was what put Hart Farms on the map in the first place. His great-grandmother had made the recipe for herself and entered it in the town fair one year after purchasing some of his great-grandfather’s apples. She’d won the blue ribbon, and the heart of Gerald Hart.
As each generation took over, the farm grew a little more. When his grandfather ran the place it had grown to supply other areas of the state first, then trickled out a little farther as people came through and wanted deliveries when they moved away. By the time his father, Steven Hart, took over, the business was thriving and primed for bigger and further delivery service. Tucker had received his MBA from NYU while working shorter shifts on the farm. When he’d finished earning his degree, he and his father had sat down and discussed Tucker’s thoughts on the business and the future of Hart Farms. One thing Tucker wanted to get them involved in was a specialty line of apple wines and hard ciders. He’d convinced his father to let him take the acre of land that sat beside his house and build a building to house the equipment needed to produce the beverages.
The building had been erected in less than a year. The equipment had taken a bit more time to procure. For the past two years, during his time off, Tucker had been experimenting. Wine-making and cider-making was not as easy as following a recipe. Each batch made could be different from the one before if the ingredients weren’t identical. And trying to replicate the famous Hart Farms Cider into an alcoholic version was even harder. But he was close. The last batch he’d made had been just a little too sour. He needed to tweak the recipe again.
But before he could do that, he needed to finalize the schedules for the other deliveries and ensure he was still free for the day to spend on his project. Sighing, he pulled out his phone and set it beside the laptop. It barely hit the wood before it started ringing.
Olivia.
He hit the button to send her to voicemail. He’d just barely managed to work out his anger. He didn’t need to repeat the process by speaking to her just then. Throwing the phone onto silent, he turned on the laptop and pulled up the spreadsheet his father did each week for the delivery schedule.
Damn. He thought to himself with a groan. One delivery had been placed. And not just any delivery. It was for the Bad Apple Cafe. He stood and walked away from the table, running his hands through his hair as he fought back the deep-seated anger that was still churning in his gut. He looked toward the ceiling and grimaced. He’d have to do it. No way would he let down Lola when she was counting on those apples for her pies and other treats.
He sighed and went back to the table. Sitting down, he checked the time of the delivery. Seven in the morning. Well, at least that meant he wouldn’t be likely to run into the redhead that made him crazy angry and hot all at the same time. And he could be back at the farm by nine. That gave him plenty of time to work on another batch of hard cider.
He shut the laptop and finished the cider. He’d need something a little stronger after the day he’d had. He grabbed a beer from the fridge, as well as the pack of steaks he’d bought the day before. Heading out to the grill on the back patio, he lit the flames and settled the steaks over the heat before popping the top off the beer bottle and taking a long swig of the cold liquid. He planned to enjoy his dinner and watch a bit of television. He refused to let the red-headed vixen of his dreams turn his evening as sour as his afternoon.
“TUCKER, PLEASE CALL me back. I’m sorry for acting like that.”
He tossed the phone to the passenger seat of his truck in annoyance. That was all she had to say? It was a half-assed, non-apology apology. He should have known better than to let himself get involved with her. He knew she was a tabloid princess. He knew she would consider herself way above him. That was the world she lived in. The penthouse princesses of Park Avenue. Living in the Plaza, partying every night, shopping on Fifth Avenue, people bowing and scraping to her because she had the money and the status of being one of New York City’s elite
families.
He was almost to the Bad Apple. The drive into the city was quiet. He’d barely hit any traffic until he was within five miles of the city. Then things had slowed down, but even that wasn’t enough to diminish his frustrations. He pulled into the spot he usually unloaded from and took a deep breath. He refused to take out his anger on Lola. The woman had enough on her plate, especially with trying to teach baking to someone with no regard for -.
No. He wouldn’t think about her. Closing his eyes for a moment, he took another deep breath before opening the door and heading to prop open the cafe door.
“Lola!” he called into the kitchen.
He turned and went back to the truck, opening the tailgate to pull the boxes from where he’d secured them for the trip.
“Hi.”
He stilled at the single word. It wasn’t Lola’s voice. He refused to acknowledge her and set his mood back again. Instead, he grabbed the first box and hefted it from the truck. Walking around her, he went into the kitchen and set the box on one of the prep stations. When he went for the second box, he found his way blocked by the petite redhead he wanted nothing to do with and everything to do with. Damn her.
“Please, Tucker,” she said softly. “I messed up. I know I did.”
He crossed his arms and waited. He knew if he opened his mouth, he was likely to end up forgiving her just to appease the woman. Why he cared about her feelings over his was a mystery, but he did.
“Are you going to talk to me? Or just keep staring at me?” she asked.
He arched a brow and leaned back against the counter behind him.
“Okay,” she blew out a hard breath as she spoke. Her fingers twisted together and she bit her lip. Those bright green eyes were looking at him with a pleading shine. “I’m sorry. I was angry after my phone call and instead of accepting what I’d been told, I reacted like a bitch. You got caught in the crossfire of that and I should never have implied that you were only there to be my plaything while I was in exile.”
