by Zara Chase
“Sure.” She snatched her hand from his, reacting to his innocent touch deep within her core. God, but she was pathetic! “Thanks.”
That seemed to be his cue to get at her again. Service was at its height by the time she returned to her station, and Ty was at his most demanding. With all of them, but especially with her.
“Stop yelling at the poor girl,” Tania said to him as she pushed into the kitchen with a pile of empty plates. “These were your appetizer specials,” she added, “and as you can see, they went down well.”
Hans and Marcel shared a high-five.
“I wasn’t yelling,” Ty said, winking at Tania. “I never yell. She’d know it if I did.”
“You sound like you’re in the school yard,” Tania replied, picking up two entrée plates and disappearing into the restaurant with an exaggerated wiggle of her substantial hips.
Jodie glanced at her as she went. There was something about the way she winced slightly when she moved too fast that got Jodie wondering. She had seen someone else move that way. Flavia, after she’d spent an evening submitting to her Dom, sprang to mind.
To Ty Vaughan, to be precise, although that wasn’t the name she knew him by.
Jodie was shocked to think that Ty might not be the only guy in this establishment into that kind of stuff. Although it made a weird sort of sense, she supposed. There was something that bound this motley crew together, an indefinable something that eluded Jodie and her fellow contestants.
Could it really be?
“Come on, people, let’s pick it up.” Ty’s voice snapped Jodie back to what she was supposed to be doing. “We’re falling behind. Jodie, we’re waiting on that new batch of soufflés.”
“You’ll have to wait then. They’ve not risen yet.”
“That would be, you’ll have to wait, Chef,” he said, coming soundlessly up behind her, pressing his large body against her back and whispering the words in her ear, his breath peppering the side of her face like a declaration of intent. She was furious when a shiver ran through her entire body. Standing so close, he can’t have failed to notice it.
“I’ll speak to you with respect when you’ve earned it,” she replied, moving out of range.
“Speak to me that way again,” he replied, dropping his voice several octaves until it became a deep, sexy drawl that only made the shivers worse, “and it’ll earn you a spanking.”
“The hell it will! Keep your hands to yourself.”
His rich, throaty chuckle almost made her drool. “Who said anything about using hands?”
He drifted away, leaving her hot with embarrassment for having joined in the conversation. She should have maintained a dignified silence, damn it!
The service carried on and she and the others got into a kind of rhythm. Even Ty stopped barking orders and got his hands dirty, working twice as fast as the rest of them without appearing to hurry. She might dislike him, but that didn’t stop her from admiring his skill and dexterity. Jodie was determined not to admire anything else about him, still wondering why she found it so hard to dislike him, so hard to disregard the gravitational pull she felt whenever he was anywhere near her, when she knew him for what he was.
It defied all reason.
Finally, just when Jodie thought she might collapse with fatigue, Ty called a halt.
“That’s it, guys. The last plate has just gone out. Well done. You did well, all of you, for a first attempt. Tomorrow we’ll have a shot at working as a proper team. Right, let’s get this kitchen cleaned up.”
So saying, he disappeared into his private living space, keying in the code so quickly that Jodie couldn’t see which numbers he pressed.
“By that, I guess he means we clean it up,” Hans said with a resigned shrug.
They all set to it and had the place gleaming within half an hour.
“I’m heading back to the hotel for a well-deserved beer,” Marcel said. “Anyone coming?”
Consuela and Hans said they were.
“You go ahead,” Jodie said. “There’s something I need to do here first.”
They sent her quizzical glances but didn’t argue. The moment they were gone, Jodie mopped at her brow, and ignoring the fact that she was bone-tired, pulled the ingredients for her hot fudge sauce from the fridges. Ty had been particularly scathing about the batch she’d produced during service. She hated to admit it, but he’d been right to slate it. It had been good, but not perfect, and she was determined not to give him reason to criticize it again tomorrow.
“Now, where did I go wrong?” she asked aloud, adding the ingredients to a pan and warming them, stirring and then simmering the mixture until it thickened perfectly. “See, I can do it just fine when I’m not distracted,” she muttered, removing it from the heat, ready for whisking. “I’ll show him.”
“Show him what?”
“Damn!”
She hadn’t heard anyone come in and jumped a mile at the sound of his voice. She dropped the pan, splashing hot fudge all over the spotless stainless steel freezer doors and across the previously sparkling floor tiles, as well as her bare legs.
“Ouch!”
Jodie glanced at the mess, then up and Ty’s face, and something inside of her cracked. She couldn’t do this anymore. It had been a mistake to have come to Nevella all alone and imagine she could play Nancy Drew.
Unable to control her emotions because she was so damned tired, she sank to her knees amidst all that chaos, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed.
Chapter Four
“Hey, come on, don’t get upset. No one died.”
She glanced up at him, the coppery glint of rage mingling with the tears flowing freely down her face. What the hell had he said now? He’d only tried to make light of her accident and she was looking at him like he was an axe murderer.
“Have you burned your legs? Here, let’s take a look.”
She looked as though she was debating whether or not to tell him to go take a hike. In the end, she somewhat ungraciously thrust her legs toward him. Well, that was something. He gently wiped away the sauce with a cool cloth. She sure did have shapely calves and it was beyond Ty’s limited powers of control not to run his hand up and down each of them in turn—only to check for signs of damage, obviously.
“Enjoying yourself?” she asked sarcastically.
“You have no idea.” He offered her his hand and pulled her easily to her feet. “No harm done,” he said.
“Thanks,” she replied curtly.
“The only damage will be to your pride.”
She sent him a quelling look. “You don’t say?”
“Go and get yourself cleaned up, darlin’,” he said.
Ty really wanted to know why she didn’t like him, even if she was a royal pain in the ass and it shouldn’t matter to him what she thought of him. She looked as though she wanted to argue but in the end disappeared into the changing room without saying another word. Ty cleared up the mess she’d made and was leaning against the sparkling freezer door, arms folded across his chest, when she emerged, dressed in her street clothes. She did a double take when she saw him, presumably thinking he would have cleared off again.
“Oh, you cleaned up,” she said, glancing at the again pristine floor. “Thanks.”
“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“What wasn’t?”
“Playing nice.” She opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again without speaking. “Wanna tell me what you were doing?”
“My fudge sauce. I needed to get it right.”
“It was right—”
“Ha, that’s not what you said during service.”
Ty tilted his head to one side, taking a moment to consider his response. “True, but you obviously agreed with me, otherwise you wouldn’t have been working on it after hours.”
She sent him a stubborn look. “I don’t like being criticized.”
“Then you’re in the wrong business.” Ty pushed himself away from the freezer and took a step tow
ard her. She immediately backed up, like she couldn’t bear to share the same air as him. “One man’s meat…literally in our business. Feed your menu to ten different people and you’ll get ten different opinions. You’ll never satisfy everyone because we all like different things. What you can do is make sure that your food is perfectly cooked, attractively presented, and that you don’t keep the customers waiting all day for it.”
“And if you have a good reputation, people will say they like the food even if they don’t?” she asked, a sarcastic edge to her voice.
Ty shrugged, trying not to let her attitude rile him. “Being well-known helps. I’ve worked my nuts off in a profession I’m passionate about and have earned a reputation for good food at reasonable prices. No law against trading on my name now that it’s established.”
“Your name?” she asked icily.
“What the fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
He rolled his eyes. “Obviously.”
Ty was getting totally pissed by her brashness. If he had to guess, he’d say she’d been hurt badly by some jerk in the past and now didn’t trust anyone, or let them get too close. Even so, she needed to cut him some slack. They had to work together, and technically speaking, he was her boss. It wasn’t like he was trying to get into her panties, or anything.
Like hell it’s not!
Okay, he’d admit it to himself. She’d gotten his interest. Every time he looked at her, when his eyes lingered on her enticing curves or her plump, highly-kissable lips, it was like he was waking from a five-year sleep and was ready to risk living again. Of all the women to reignite his interest! Anyway, it wasn’t going to happen. He didn’t need that sort of complication right now. She wasn’t the only one who’d gotten burned. Besides, he’d already decided she had the potential to be a player, and taking one of his temporary chefs into Hadleigh’s dungeon would be as inappropriate as it would be unprofessional.
Get over it, Vaughan.
“People are like sheep,” he said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “A restaurant’s in fashion, so everyone flocks to it, regardless.”
She nodded but wouldn’t look at him. “Yeah well, thanks for helping me just now.”
“What I’m trying to say is that your fudge sauce was good but “good” doesn’t cut it in my world. Everything needs to have that X-ingredient, an original twist if you like, to make it memorable and get it talked about so people come back for more. All the chefs who work for me need to strive for that, and it’s good that you’ve accepted there was something missing from your sauce.” He fixed her with a probing gaze. “You do accept that?”
She nodded, seemingly reluctantly, and still wouldn’t hold his gaze.
“Good, now we’re getting somewhere. But it’s a bad idea to try and put something right at the end of a long day. Especially when you’re not used to working the sort of hours you’ve put in today.” He pointed to the clean floor. “Accidents happen.”
“Don’t patronize me.” She finally looked at him, moist eyes flaring.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” Ty was all out of patience with the infuriating female. The way he saw it, he had three choices. He could tell her to clear out and not come back, throw her over his shoulder, carry her up to his rooms and screw her senseless, or… “Come on.” He grabbed her hand. “You need a drink. Something…anything to make you drop that attitude.”
He keyed in the code and pulled her into their private lounge. He thought she might protest, but for once she didn’t fight against an order of his. Instead he watched her as she looked around the room, seeming to take it all in. No one else was about. They wouldn’t be, Ty thought. At this time of night they’d either be in the dungeon, in the bar or in their rooms. Ty walked across to their private bar, poured her a large glass of white wine, and handed it to her. He opened a beer for himself and swigged it straight from the bottle.
“Have a seat.”
She remained standing. Of course she did! How could he imagine she’d ever make a player? A good sub took orders and obeyed them without question. She would fight him every inch of the way.
“What’s so funny?” she asked when Ty chuckled.
“I was just wondering whether I should tell you never to take your clothes off in this room. Far as I can see, that would be the quickest way to get you naked.”
“So you brought me in here to get me naked.” She sent him a quelling look. “Typical.”
“Nah, you’re not my type,” he lied.
“Good to know.” She put her drink aside and prowled around the room. “In case you’re unaware, I don’t like you.”
Ty leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest, beer bottle dangling from the fingers of one hand. “You’ve made that abundantly clear,” he replied calmly.
“So, that’s what this is all about? You and me…here, now.” She waved her arms in the air. “The mighty chef has met a woman who doesn’t cream her panties at the sight of him and his delicate ego’s taken a hit.”
“Sure about the panties?” he asked, raising a challenging brow.
“Oh, you’re insufferable!”
Ty was amused rather than offended by her petulance and permitted the fact to show. “And just so you know, there ain’t nothing delicate about my ego, sweetheart.”
She swirled to face him. “I’m not your sweetheart.” Now she folded her arms defensively beneath her breasts. “And I’d say it was a case of mutual dislike. You’ve done nothing but pick on me all day.”
“You were falling behind.”
“So was Hans. You didn’t bawl him out.”
“Hans was doing the best he could. You weren’t.” When she scowled at him, he responded with a teasing smile. “That was a compliment, in case you didn’t realize it.”
“Thanks for the clarification. It was pretty hard to tell.”
“Look,” Ty said with an exaggerated sigh, taking another swig of beer and moving to stand directly in her path, preventing her from pacing or looking anywhere other than at him. “Hans is German. You work for the EU. You don’t need me to tell you that Germans are pedantic to the point of obsession. If I hassle him too much, he’ll screw up. But you…well, you’re a Brit, you’re more adaptable by nature, and you have the flare and talent to become an exceptional chef if you decide on a career change. But working fast under pressure is almost as important as method and skill. I don’t think you actually know it, and you needed to be pushed.” He sent her a killer grin. “You’ll thank me for helping you to see what you can really do. One day.”
“Don’t count on it.” But Ty could sense a slight lessening in her hostile attitude and was amused to see her cheeks redden. It seemed she could take arguments in her stride but had a hard time dealing with compliments. Interesting. “But thanks.”
“My pleasure.”
They continued to stand close to one another, battle lines drawn. Ty somehow managed to resist touching her but found it easier to avoid breaking the brittle silence with idle chatter. Her breath was coming in short, irregular bursts and her expression had gone from being hostile to astounded. Her eyes flared with a flicker of recognition and she didn’t look any happier about the sexual tension fuelling the atmosphere than he felt about it. She was either struggling to ignore it, or like him, to make sense of it.
“How long have you lived here?” she asked, turning away from him, breaking eye contact and physical awareness with one gesture.
“Five years.”
She prowled around the room, restless, picking up items and putting them down again without appearing to see them. Nervous. Agitated. He waited for more questions about his living arrangements, about his reasons for leaving the States. Predictable questions. The ones people always asked. Somehow he wasn’t surprised when they weren’t forthcoming. He was convinced she hadn’t come to Nevella just to cook. She was looking for something or someone, but he couldn’t figure out what or whom.
“You�
�re wasted here,” she said, making the admission with evident reluctance.
“Why, thank you, ma’am, but it suits me for now.”
She picked up her glass and downed the contents in one swallow. “I ought to get going.”
“All right. I’ll let you out.” But she made no effort to move. “Changed your mind?” he asked, flexing a brow, taking a step forward at the same time as she did.
Their torsos collided and the explosion of sensation that ripped through Ty at the simple contact was cataclysmic. He reached out a hand to grasp her forearms and steady her when she rocked on her feet. Somehow that meant she stayed pressed up against him. Ty couldn’t decide if his reaction had been instinctive or deliberate. The moment he touched her, an organ situated several feet south of his brain twitched into life and started to do the thinking for him.
Shit, this was so not a good idea!
He looked down at Jodie and saw the same uncertainty reflected in eyes that glowed with confusion. She looked so darned vulnerable, an unpredictable mixture of ideology and passion, affection and anger, and in this mood he found her irresistible. Instinct trumped common sense and all thoughts of professionalism. With a low, throaty growl, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her, savoring the treat of her sweet mouth as his tongue teased her lips apart and started to explore.
He expected her to pull away and slap his face but she remained passive in his arms, not returning his kiss. Not doing anything. Ty wasn’t into one-sided romance. If this wasn’t what she wanted…if he’d gotten the wrong signals.
On the point of releasing her and apologizing, still not sure why he’d gone against his strict code of conduct, her arms worked their way around his neck. She plastered her body against his and kissed him back in an unashamedly carnal manner—sensual and provocative—setting off firecrackers of awareness between them. Now it was starting to make sense, Ty decided, as he took charge and deepened the kiss. All that not liking him baloney was precisely that—a crock of shit. She was attracted to him but had been hurt before and didn’t want to take a chance again. Join the club, lady. Like her, he seemed powerless to resist the strength of the gravitational pull between them.
