Big Meat (A Recipe of Love Book 2)

by Paige Conners

  I close my eyes to double check my theory and find out I’m partially right, I can also faintly smell him and feel the warmth he’s generating. I roll fully onto my side and tuck my arms up under my chin and settle myself more fully onto his chest. I start drifting off almost immediately, but still manage to hear and feel him chuckle and the throw covering me being pulled up over my shoulder right before darkness claims me.

  6

  Lindsay

  Most days when I wake up, I’m up, I need a gallon or so of coffee, but I don’t hit the snooze button non-stop and try to convince myself I can have five more minutes. This morning when I wake up, I can’t tell what’s different, just that I don’t want to move, I want to stay just where I am and relish the feeling. At least until my pillow growls and moves under my cheek. I try to jump up from my bed and instead end up getting twisted up in the blanket tucked around me, I let out a short curse as I feel myself falling. I follow that up with a loud scream, as I’m caught by massive man hands, they don’t just stop me from falling but pick me up from the tangled blanket and set me back on my feet.

  “Let go of me! What the everloving fuck?! Why are we in my goddamn living room?” I know I’m overreacting and really don’t give a flying fuck. I have to, so that I don’t let myself dwell on how great I felt when I first woke up. “Why didn’t you wake me up?” I’m distracted mid rant when I turn to blast Anthony verbally again, he isn’t listening to me rail at him, but is stretching and the sight is enough to knock my hold on the English language out of my head.

  He has his hands laced together and inside out with his arms above his head reaching towards the ceiling, his big long torso is stretched out beautifully. What has stolen my speaking ability is his shirt riding up, showing his borrowed sweat pants riding very very low on his hips. I can see his sexy v and a dusting of dark brown hair, with a thicker trail disappearing into his pants. The material of the pants is on the thicker side, but it can’t conceal the size of the sausage Anthony’s packing. I gasp when I hear him chuckle and look up to see he caught me perving on him.

  I need coffee now!

  I spin on my heel and rush into the kitchen to start brewing the elixir of the gods. I open the coffee cabinet that holds all my different types of coffee from solid beans, to pre ground coffee, to the little cups I need for my machine and the one I gave Frankie. I hover moving my hand back and forth over my bags of Death Wish Coffee and the Valhalla Java Odinforce unable to decide which I need. I just know that this morning requires more than the normal cup of Joe. I grab the black bag with the skull and crossbones as I hear the bathroom door close.

  I deflate and let the full body shiver I’ve been suppressing shudder over my body. I know Anthony is hot. I’ve known it for years. I’ve seen him without his shirt. I’ve seen him in just a pair of boardshorts when we were at the beach, until now my favorite has been him in his jeans with no shirt on working on his bike or his truck. Thanks to this morning that image has been bumped to number two in the Jill Till and there’s a new number one. I can’t even pinpoint why exactly that scene did it for me, maybe it was his disheveled hair, his fuzzy tummy that I really, really want to rub or hell it might have even been the monster hiding in his pants that seemed eager to say good morning. In any case, I know what’s going to jump to the front of my mind the next time I double click my mouse no matter how many times I vow not to think of him anymore.

  I stare intently at the coffee machine mentally willing it to brew faster. I have my cup under the spout slowly filling with coffee and refuse to take my eyes off of it, not just because I don’t want to have to clean up a mess but to prevent me from looking at things my eyes have no business ogling. Stupid eyes need to remember who is off limits. Big bad-ass alpha men who can bench press twice my weight are definitely off limits. I have more important things to worry about anyways. I need to get caught up on what I missed yesterday, handle anything on the calendar for today and help out Anthony with whatever he needs. Thank God most of the shit with Frankie and Joe died down, at least until someone posts about them being engaged or knocked up. As soon as the cup’s filled, I yank it out and put the pot under the spout.

  I walk into the living room and grab my phone from the end table. Instead of sitting down where Anthony apparently spent the night I walk over to my window and perch on the sill sipping my coffee. I look down at my phone and see I have over one hundred notifications just on my personal accounts, I don’t want to even think about how many I have on the accounts for various businesses I handle. There’s not really any type of day off for me, but I can do my work in my office or wherever I can find internet access. I sit with my back on the side of the sill and angle my body the way I need to so I can look through the small gap between the buildings and see the street. I freeze at the sight that greets me.

  I jump up and leave my cup of the life giving elixir of the gods in the window. I grab the remote off the end table and hit the live TV button taking it out of sleep mode. As I flip through the channels, all the headlines add up to a grim picture. We apparently got a near record snowfall overnight with the total being somewhere around 23” of snow. The city is still in shutdown mode, all the schools are closed and as I watch all the announcements track across the bottom of the screen I see that a lot of businesses are as well. It’s a good thing we woke up as early as we did, I’m going to need to hustle to get emails sent out and updates about closings posted for any nearby brick and mortar businesses. I’ll also need to check on if there’s any messages about shipping delays for those that are online.

  As I sit down on my coffee table with my legs practically in the lotus position I absently hear the bathroom door open and the glug of coffee being poured. I am too busy shooting off emails to different clients verifying if they’re opening or not, while answering anything I need to on my personal accounts. I pull open the drawer on the side of the coffee table and pull out one of my iPad’s and start multitasking like a mother fucker. I mumble a thank you when Anthony brings me my cup of coffee from the window and sip while typing away.

  “I’m going to go ruin Joe’s morning and make him help me shovel. Do you think you can talk Frankie into making breakfast for us all?” I turn and see that while I was distracted Anthony changed into his clothes from yesterday. The bottom of his jeans are still white and crusty from the salt and snow that got on them. He has his black thermal on and is holding his boots in his hand.

  “Give me a minute, and I’ll come down with you!” I run into the bathroom and quickly brush my teeth and run a comb through my hair. One good thing about having such short hair is that it’s really easy to manage, if I’m having a bad hair day I can just wet it down and start over and only lose a few minutes. I know I won’t have time to do a full makeup, and truthfully with no plans to leave the house I don’t need to. I grab a messenger bag from my coatrack bench thingy by the door and a knit cap while stomping my feet into black slip on fur lined suede boots. Then I pull an oversized sweater on over the leggings and tank top I slept in, thanking God that my tits are tiny enough I don’t need to bother with a bra. I shove my phone and iPad in the bag before making my way to where Anthony’s standing waiting for me.

  “Here, I got this for you last week.” Handing Anthony the plain black knit cap I found last week I try to stand still and observe his reaction. I can feel my phone vibrating in my bag but do my best to ignore it. It’s not that I don’t have any manners. It’s that I normally choose to ignore them. I watch his eyes get the soft and warm look in them that always gives me butterflies. He pulls it on and bends down to look at the mirror I have by the door, making sure it’s straight and checking out how it looks. He looks just like the dock worker I thought he would.

  “Thank you Micina. It’s very warm and soft. Are we going to talk about what happened last night and your over reaction this morning?” He gently cups my cheek with his hand and rubs the apple of my cheek with his thumb. His giant hands combined with my tiny head means he could e
asily palm my entire head like a basketball, it’s slightly disconcerting to feel the base of his palm by my chin and his fingers in my hair at the crown of my head.

  “Nope! My crown still fits perfectly.” Indulging in one quick nuzzle of my cheek against his hand before pulling away, I lead the way to the door. I glance at the clock and see it’s only 7am and know Frankie will be a pain in the ass about feeding me since it’s before 9.

  “You know I have no idea what the fuck that means right?” Anthony growls from my left. I somehow manage to contain the shiver that tries to make itself known. I have plenty of practice ignoring my body’s reaction to Anthony, as long as I’m not tired, distracted, overwhelmed or anything else along those lines. Basically, I was fucked if I let my guard down in the slightest.

  * * *

  I am sitting at Frankie’s island in her kitchen working on my iPad an hour later. I posted closed messages on all the companies social media feeds. I also took notes for myself to update some of the photos for different accounts. I love this new modern age we live in. It used to be good enough for a business to get a couple good reviews and be great at whatever it is they do. Now everyone just goes online and searches for a business, and the businesses need to have an attractive slick social media presence to pull them in. That’s where I come in.

  When I was in college, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to focus on, my soul needed photography but I knew how hard it is to make a career out of it. I decided to take advertising and marketing classes and maybe go into advertising like a lot of artists do. Then I helped Frankie’s Gram with the social media and website for her restaurant and realized I was good at it. I didn’t want to work for some company in turn making ads for other huge companies, but I could work for myself and have a bunch of small businesses. I finished up my business degree and took a couple of computer classes. I started building a client base and gaining a reputation while I was still in school and by the time I graduated, I had a full fledged business.

  I still have a bunch of local small businesses, but a large part of my clients are like Frankie and run online businesses. They have to be constantly maintaining their popularity and staying one step ahead of their competition. I even have a few authors that hire me to do their artwork and help them with their social media. I stay on top of trends and what is hot, what went viral and what was poised to next.

  I double check my lists and make sure I had the most recent geographical list. I have all my clients broken down into several different categories; product, location, target demographic, etc. Today, I need my location spreadsheet so I can double check who was snowed in, it wouldn’t due to post a snow day meme for a SoCal clothing company. Next, I pull up my folder of snow day images, some of them were funny, some sweet and some very adult themed and naughty. I spend the next thirty minutes scheduling posts with the different images matched to the companies they were suitable for. I made sure to move each image to a used folder when I was done so that I didn’t accidentally post it for two different companies, also so that I didn’t use it for the same company on the next snow day.

  I am completely absorbed in my work, so I startle when I reach for my coffee cup and find it full of fresh hot coffee, not the cold dregs I was nursing so I didn’t have to get up. I look up from my work and see Frankie at work at the stove making something that smells delicious. “Are you sure you want to marry him Frankie? We could run away together and elope. It’s legal now you know.” I half tease as I sip my cup of coffee and moan at the pleasure. There’s nothing better than hot rich coffee, okay maybe there’s a few things better but they were off limits to me so the coffee would have to do.

  “Why would I do that Lindsay? He’ll change diapers, and you won’t,” she answers as she continues cooking without even turning around to look at me. I laugh so hard I almost choke on my coffee. She’s completely right, it’s not for the reason most people assume, though. I love babies, and I can handle anything else baby related, it’s not even the ick factor for me, it’s fear plain and simple. Some babies are tiny, and I worry about hurting their tiny little legs. Give me a porker with more rolls than Kings Hawaiian and I have no issue.

  “How is the little womb squatter doing? You seem to finally be over the morning sickness.” I shake my head looking at her as she turns towards me. Frankie’s a lot curvier than I am but she’s still fun sized. Joe is very, very not fun sized, as a result my hetero lifemate at twelve weeks looks like she is close to 22 weeks instead. She hasn’t made a formal announcement yet, but if she doesn’t soon the next time someone catches a photo of her and posts it the cat might be out of the bag.

  “Yeah, thank fucking God, I can only worship the porcelain god so many times before I start redesigning the bathroom mentally from the floor tile up. It’s not even like a hangover where I can feel like I earned it. Are you done working for now?” Frankie asks as she reaches into the cupboard for bowls. I laugh when I see the step stool tucked into the corner. I guess Joe has banned counter climbing since she’s got knocked up.

  “Yeah, I’m done, for now. I cancelled any meetings that weren’t over Skype and updated or scheduled updates for everyone that needs it,” I answer as I put my stuff back in my bag. I’m glad I had the laptop in the bag already when I came down with Anthony, he would’ve just rolled his eyes at me if he watched me pack it. The man owns more knives than I even knew existed but mocks me for my tech that I need to do my job.

  I watch as she starts ladling some kind of oatmeal into the bowls and shake my head. I have oatmeal in my apartment, the type you pour hot water over. It might as well not be called the same name based on the fantastic smells and what hers looks like. I see she’s filled four bowls meaning we’re waiting for the guys so I get up and set the table. I grab the placemats and cloth napkins from the drawer in the island. Everyone can pick on me about my OCD all they want but it just makes it easier to clean up, plus it looks pretty.

  “So, Anthony stayed the night. Did you guys play hide the sausage? Is he more a Vienna or summer sausage?” The tiny bitch keeps her back to me after asking her bombshell questions. I would bet even money she is biting her cheek to keep from laughing.

  “There was no playing hide the sausage. Just because we slept together…” I don’t get a chance to finish answering before she spun around to face me, her face full of shock. She looked half amazed and half terrified which made me laugh hysterically. At least one person understood how shocking it was that I actually slept next to a man for the night. Something that I have never done one on one. In our wild and crazy youth, there were many nights where we just passed out in platonic puppy piles, but even then I was normally the big spoon to Frankie’s little.

  “You SLEPT together?" Her voice rises up like it does when she’s working herself into a state. She likes to joke about how much I mother her but the poor girl is a mother hen in her own right. We met in college and bonded over panic attacks, then she pretty much dragged me home and declared me her sister and no one even questioned it. She decided no one could live without family and since I didn’t have one I could share hers. When she lost hers for the second time, we just held on to each other tighter.

  “Yeah, it wasn’t on purpose. We must have dropped off while watching the news. I woke up in the morning and freaked out. Then I refused to give in and talk to him about it.” I hang my head as I line the placemats up perfectly even with the edge of the table. I precisely place the silverware on the placemats on top of the folded cloth napkins.

  “You need to talk to him, Lindsay. I know how you feel about him but I admit I missed the way he feels about you, until recently. You can’t just keep ignoring it hoping it goes away, babe. The chemistry between the two of you is just getting stronger. Anthony’s a great guy, and I know he’ll understand and work with you, so you guys can figure something out.” Frankie softly states as she puts the bowls down on the placemats. Before going back to the kitchen to get the fruit and sausage she reaches over and runs her hand down
my arm and wrapping her hand over my closed fist on the table.

  “How great of a guy is the problem, Frankie, I don’t want to destroy him. I don’t want him to bend and bend for me until he breaks. I know how many things are fucked up with me, I don’t want him to put up with it simply because he’s too good of a guy to bounce when he should. You know he needs to protect and fix everyone, there’s no way he would let himself walk away. Also, I don’t want him to see me as a victim.” I ignore the tears slowly rolling down my cheeks. I guess it’s a good thing I skipped the makeup this morning.

  “Bitch, you’re a survivor, not a victim. You should be proud of who you are. I hate hearing you talk about yourself like this. Besides, you’re forgetting what you always told me was the most important thing when it comes to a potential love interest.” I look up into her smirking face beside me and rub my face against my shoulder to get rid of the tears on my face. “What’s the orgasm potential?”

  I start laughing like she wants and rest my forehead on hers and take a deep breath to get my boiling emotions under control. “Okay, I’ll talk to him but not right now. He has enough on his plate with his dad, at the moment. He doesn’t need me adding to his stress. Once we get everything sorted, I promise to tell him about my past.”

  “Until then, are you going to keep rocking your crown as the Queen of Denial or are you finally admitting there’s something there?” Frankie asks as she grabs her phone from the counter to let the guys know the foods on.

  “Keep rocking my crown of course. I always thought I should be royalty, and this is my only chance.”

  7

  Anthony

  I’m still sitting on the stairs with my fists clenched trying to get myself back under control when Joe comes inside joining me. He tilts his head at me probably trying to figure out what could have gone wrong in the two minutes since I came in before him. We just finished up shoveling but Joe wanted to go clean his truck off so I came in first. I was about to go into the apartment when I heard the girls talking.