Who’s The Boss?

by McCarthy , Erin

  “Sorry, I wasn’t clear enough. Yes, I want your opinion. Your ideas.” I had a few of my own, but she was going to be working side by side with me. There should be some elements of collaboration.

  Isla gave me side-eye as she worked. She was shorter than me but despite being petite had a large presence. When I stood next to her like this, I was acutely aware of her body. Hell, who was I kidding? I was twenty blocks away from her and I was aware of her body. We had unfinished business that unfortunately needed to remain unfinished. Indefinitely.

  As a result I was going to work extra hard to not let her know how much I really wanted to press her against the wall and bury myself inside her.

  “No chef wants his sous chef’s opinion. Or if you do, you’ll just steal my ideas and pass them off as your own.”

  In a lot of cases, she wasn’t wrong. I was mildly offended, but she didn’t know me and she was looking out for herself. I had to respect that. “That wasn’t my intention, seriously, but I get your hesitation. Here’s what I was thinking. Since we’re known for our East Coast barbecue style, we play with that. Pull seafood and traditional deli food into our concept. Elevate the clam, do a spin on a lobster roll. A brisket bagel. Really lean in to that angle.”

  Isla gave me a look of surprise. “I had similar thoughts,” she said. “I thought it was a reach to go Tex Mex last year when that’s not what we’re known for. It felt like a cop-out. Like when you think cookout you have to go street corn.”

  “Exactly. Are you on board with helping me plan the menu? Both our names on it.” That was certainly being nice to Isla. Nico would be happy. Besides, I was curious about Isla. As a person, as a chef.

  Oh, not to mention that Nico said if Isla quit, he was going to fire me. I wasn’t sure I believed him, but I sure in the hell didn’t want to take any chances.

  There was a slight pause, where she looked like she was trying to figure out my angle, but she just nodded and said, “Sure.”

  “Are you free next week to come in early? We can play around in the kitchen.”

  I had thought she would bristle just a little at my choice of words. Instead she gave me a smile. “Of course. I love to play.” She reached out and picked up a piece of mango.

  She slid her tongue over the fruit in a way that had my cock responding.

  Damn. She had turned the tables on me. Again.

  Isla was a hot little enigma and I had a feeling I was going to get burned before this was all said and done. Burned? Fuck. I was going to be fully lit on fire.

  Six

  The plan to drive Sean crazy was backfiring.

  Because mostly, I was just driving myself crazy.

  I liked flirting with him.

  I liked seeing his eyes darken with desire.

  I looked forward to seeing him every day at work. And like Dakota, I had suddenly found the name of my restaurant worthy of a giggle. Bone. It was all I could think about when Sean was in the kitchen.

  After days of me dressing like I was going out to dinner or a nightclub instead of going to work, Sean appeared largely unaffected. Occasionally, he offered an innuendo in response to something I said, but he didn’t look in danger of losing his cool or wanting to quit to prevent himself from ravishing me in the kitchen. The only comment he’d even made about my wardrobe was to tell me I should wear nonslip shoes.

  It made me irrationally and unreasonably angry at him.

  Chef Eight Dates. Pfft. He was probably boning half of Brooklyn. Unlike me, he probably wasn’t sexually frustrated, so he could handle being around a woman (as in, me) and control himself. Dakota’s strategy had done the exact opposite of its intention. I appeared to be the only one distracted. Which was bullshit. He could at least have the decency to be rattled, but nope. He was Chef Casual.

  He was also a talented chef, confident, with a balance to his food. I wouldn’t say he was the most creative chef that had ever existed, but he had a deft hand, a subtle flair, and an excellent palate.

  He was also standing outside of the door to my studio apartment.

  After my shift I had rolled out of work as fast as possible and walked home in a cold rain. Three quarters of the way home I’d realized I had left in such a hurry I had forgotten my phone in the break room, but since it was raining and I had to be back at work in the morning, I didn’t bother to return for it. I trusted no one would steal it. When my intercom buzzed I had jumped. Almost no one used that thing anymore. People usually texted me directly to request access to the building.

  It was after eleven, so I debated not answering it at all, but then curiosity got the best of me. “Yes?”

  “Hey, it’s Sean. You forgot your phone at work, so I thought I’d swing by on my way home.”

  I eyed my cat, Scott, releasing the button so Sean couldn’t hear me. “Is it a bad idea to invite my boss upstairs?”

  Scott, an impassive tabby, had no opinion. He was deep into a grooming session in his cat bed by the sofa.

  I hit the intercom button again. “Oh, great, thanks so much. Do you want to come up or should I come down for it?” I wasn’t wearing pants but I could rectify that quickly enough.

  “I can come up.”

  I closed my eyes briefly. This was such a bad idea. But then again, so had auditioning for Chicago when I absolutely can’t dance but that hadn’t stopped me. I had fake-kicked my way into the Bad Audition Hall of Fame, if there was such a thing. I hit the buzzer.

  “What?” I grumbled at Scott, who had briefly paused in his licking to toss me an expression of disdain. “You don’t understand. You’ve been neutered.”

  That seemed to offend my cat. He jumped out of his bed and did a leg stretch, then regally went over to the window ledge. I loved that furball. He was my constant companion and my number one cockblock. He did not like men. At all. He’d been known to inflict some serious flesh damage to my dates.

  The thought of Sean getting a swat to the nose or a nip on the ankle was more satisfying than was healthy. I really needed to let it go. So Sean wasn’t hot for me. That wasn’t the point anyway. The point was to secure my job.

  I glanced around my apartment as I unlocked my interior door for Sean. I wasn’t a messy person and tried to keep on top of tidying up, so it didn’t look bad. I lacked Savannah’s talent with decorating, defaulting to the easy route of ordering from Ikea and calling it good, but at least the space was clean. Not wanting to have my bed do double duty as my sofa, I had both crammed into the studio space. My closet had to act as a pantry because the kitchen cabinet space was so paltry, so my clothes were in a chest of drawers and in bins rolled under the bed.

  Normally, that worked, but it also meant that there was no quick grab and go of clothing items. Everything was elaborately folded and jammed into the drawers. I tried to rush grabbing a pair of joggers and succeeded in pulling out four other pairs of pants with it. I tried to shove them back into the drawer and close it, but it popped back out a couple of inches. There was no time to fuss with it further. I bent over and stuck one foot in my pant leg.

  “I have fantastic timing,” Sean’s voice said from behind me.

  I spun around and lost my footing. “Shit.” I clipped my hip on the corner of the chest of drawers and tumbled partially onto my bed. “You could knock.” I sat down and blew my hair out of my eyes. “How do you know where I live anyway? Stalker.” When uncomfortable, go on the offensive.

  He moved into my apartment and shut the door behind him. “I didn’t know it was a state secret. Besides, I’m your boss. Nico gave me your address when I showed him your phone. You left the door cracked open. I thought that was an invitation.”

  “I wasn’t wearing pants,” I said, stating the obvious. I still wasn’t, if you wanted to get technical. My foot was in a leg, but if I pulled them up I would have to raise my knee and then Sean would get a view he hadn’t earned the right to see. “So no, it wasn’t an invitation. I came home and wanted to relax.”

  “No doubt. You’ve been
wearing skintight pants all week. Your legs were probably in desperate need of air.”

  So he had noticed my outfit choices. Interesting. “I wouldn’t say skintight. They’re stretchy material.”

  “Skintight,” he said, tossing my phone back and forth between his palms. “Unbelievably skintight.”

  I narrowed my eyes. I couldn't read his expression. “I didn’t realize you were that aware of my fashion choices.”

  “Oh, I was very, very aware of them. And you wanted me to be.”

  That outraged me on every level. One, because he was right. Two, because he had figured it out.

  The hell with my pants. I kicked the leg off my foot and stood up in nothing but an oversized T-shirt that I’d stolen from a burly boyfriend I’d had for six weeks in college. It hung like a sack on me, which was its charm. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, with great dignity. “Can I have my phone, please?”

  Which was a miscalculation. I should have just gone up to him and reached for it. Now I had to stand in front of my bed and watch him walk toward me, slowly, the corner of his mouth turned up, his steps more stalking than strolling. There was nowhere for me to go, so I stood my ground, refusing to feel intimidated by his ridiculously masculine movements. I put my hand on my hip, then dropped it because that felt too much like a pose.

  The neckline of the T-shirt was so enormous it had shifted so that my entire left shoulder was exposed. I shivered from the cool air coming from the window I had opened a crack. I was in a constant battle with the temperature in my studio. The radiator cranked out way too much heat, but the nights were too cold not to run it.

  It was entirely possible the breeze wasn’t the only reason I was shivering.

  Sean got very, very close to me. He took my hand. His calloused fingers stroked over my palm. I shivered again, staring into his pale green eyes. It was really rude that he had such pale and enigmatic eyes. It gave him an air of mystery I wasn’t sure he deserved. It was pretty obvious what kind of guy Sean was.

  The guy everything came easily to. The guy who had it all.

  He put my phone into my hand.

  “Thanks,” I murmured, waiting for him to back up.

  He didn’t. His gaze dropped to my lips, which parted in invitation for him like the Red Sea for Moses. Annoyed with myself, I pressed them together again.

  “Is there something you need?” I asked him, when he didn’t back up. He was firmly in my personal space and I wasn’t wearing pants. I was starting to feel desperate. He looked like he was going to kiss me and I really wanted him to but I also knew that was a very bad idea.

  It was one thing to confirm that he was attracted to me, it was another to allow him to act on it.

  I should have listened to my gut and gone downstairs to get the phone. Sean in my studio was dangerous. He seemed to fill the small space with his broad shoulders and tall frame. He had beard stubble and he was wearing a flannel shirt with jeans that looked like they had been tailored to fit his muscular thighs. I could smell him. He smelled like rain and something earthier. Man. He smelled like man.

  “Need?” he asked. “Or want?”

  But then he seemed to come to his senses and he took a step back.

  Unfortunately, he stepped on Scott’s tail, who had come to see what kind of human shenanigans were going on and if he approved of them. Scott let out a howl. Sean swore and jerked to the side, off-balance, flailing his arms. Scott followed up the howl with a hiss and promptly let out his claws.

  On Sean’s leg. Right through his jeans.

  He just latched on and climbed Sean’s leg like a tree, hissing and spitting the whole time.

  “What the fuck?” Sean tried to kick his leg out but Scott clung like a burr.

  “Stop! It’s just my cat, I’ll get him. Stop kicking!” Concerned about Scott’s safety, I reached out and tried to haul him off but he dug in.

  Sean roared. “That fucking hurts, Isla! Get him off me.”

  Something about his outraged growl gave me the giggles. Not exactly an appropriate reaction but I couldn’t help it. I tugged harder on Scott to no avail.

  “This isn’t funny!”

  “I know, I’m sorry! I don’t mean to laugh.” I reached out and disengaged Scott’s claws from the denim. At first, he dug right back in but then I figured out how to yank, then twist his body, before unhooking the other paw.

  Of course, I caught some back paw swipes on my bare arms, but they were more rabbit thumps than full-out scratching. My galley kitchen had a French door, which I had thought was odd when I first moved in, but had quickly learned served its purpose when a cat is determined to demand food from a sleeping human at four in the morning. I did now what I did then. I set him in the kitchen and closed the door before he could scramble back out. When I turned back, Sean was sitting on my bed, rubbing at his calf.

  “That cat is evil,” he said.

  “That cat doesn’t like men. He was protecting me.”

  “He’s a dick.”

  I was too entertained to be offended. “Don’t be a baby. It can’t hurt that bad.”

  “It does,” he said, sounding very surly.

  I pressed my lips together to prevent smiling. “Do you want to show me? I can get you a bandage.” I looked at his jeans. “Oh, wait, your skinny jeans are too tight to roll them up.”

  “They’re not skinny jeans. I beg your fucking pardon. These are straight leg, slim fit. Very expensive, very on trend.”

  His defensiveness amused me. “I stand corrected. Your straight leg, slim fit jeans are too tight to roll them up. Can I offer you a to-go bandage?” I stood in front of him, hands on my hips, hating that I was very conscious of the fact that he was sitting on my bed.

  “Isla, you’re bleeding,” Sean said. He pointed to my forearm. “Are you okay?”

  I glanced down. I had a scratch. A narrow ribbon of blood streaked the skin. It stung a little but not noteworthy. “I guess I got caught in the crossfire. Collateral damage. Scott doesn’t like men.”

  “Your cat’s name is Scott?” Sean stood up and crossed the room. He disappeared into my bathroom.

  Before I could answer or ask what he was doing, he had returned with a towel in his hand. “Sit down.”

  I obeyed, for whatever reason. It must have been because I’d just spent the week listening to him bark orders at everyone in the kitchen. He hadn’t bossed me around, but he still had a commanding voice and presence and him being in my apartment was unnerving. Without question, I just plopped my butt down on the bed.

  I realized the towel was damp. He sat down next to me and cleaned my scratch. His touch was surprisingly gentle as he wiped away the blood. He was concentrating on my cut, which really wasn’t a big deal, and not looking at me. I suddenly felt like I couldn’t breathe. The mattress was sinking slightly from our weight and I was very aware of how long it had been since I’d had a man in my apartment. Too long. Sean seemed to fill the space entirely, his arm brushing mine, his thigh pressed against the bare skin of my leg. I wasn’t wearing a bra and his proximity made my nipples tighten.

  “I’m fine,” I said, trying to pull away. “Thank you. I think you took the brunt of it.”

  When Sean looked up and met my gaze, I knew I was fucked. Literally.

  His pale green eyes were filled with desire.

  I knew with certainty I should stand up and walk him to the door.

  I also knew with certainty I wasn’t going to do any such thing.

  Common sense was screaming at me to get the hell out of Isla’s apartment. To shove the damp towel at her, stand up, and go home and sit in the dark with a glass of bourbon.

  I’d never been one to listen to common sense.

  Isla was staring at me, her chest rising and falling with breathing that was elevated enough to show me she was as turned on as I was. We haven’t even touched each other yet and we were both aroused. It was because we’d been engaged in verbal foreplay all week. All those tight
jeans and innuendoes. Her tongue sliding over fruit, her smile sly. It was the memory of that kiss.

  She was sexy and explosive and intriguing. She fascinated and infuriated me.

  “Tell me to go home,” I demanded. My voice was low and rough.

  “Screw you,” she said, in the most predictable Isla fashion. “I’m not going to save you from your poor choices. That’s on you.”

  She was right. It only made her even hotter. She held no punches. She told it like it was. Always.

  “Are you going to save yourself?” I asked, tossing the towel in the direction of an end table.

  Isla shook her head slowly back and forth, waves softly bouncing. “No. I forgot my life vest today.”

  “And your pants.” She had amazing legs. Strong, firm. Pale, creamy thighs that made me want to bend over and drag my tongue across her flesh.

  “And my pants.”

  “This is a poor choice, isn’t it?” I asked, reaching out and running the pad of my thumb over her full bottom lip. “Because of work.” It was my final life raft, tossed out to her.

  She nodded. “It’s a terrible choice. The worst. We shouldn’t do this.” She leaned in closer to me and put her hand on my chest. “But we are.”

  “We definitely are.” I erased the inches between us and kissed her.

  It was like the first time, in the hallway. Our lips were barely touching and yet the chemistry was explosive. I meant to take it slow, to have an easy exploration of her taste, her mouth. But once I made contact, and she gave a soft low moan, I wanted more. She wanted more. It was a hot frantic kiss of tangled tongues and questing hands.

  Damn, Isla just did something to me. She smelled sweet, like body lotion. She tasted like toothpaste, minty and fresh. As I kissed her, I knew full well this was why I had stopped by with her phone. I’d been hoping for this. Wanting this. Fucking needing this.

  She pressed her body against mine, the fullness of her tits brushing my chest as she gripped my biceps.