by Joey W. Hill
Marcie wrapped her hand around his biceps, bringing him back to the present. When Ben glanced down at her and smiled, she returned the gesture, though her gaze was thoughtful as she studied his face.
“All right?” she murmured.
“Better than,” he returned, tightening his own hand over hers.
He was telling the truth. He didn’t walk back into the past like that often. But he’d noticed lately that when he did, he wasn’t trapped so much in a twisted labyrinth of dark memories. Instead he was thinking of things like Golda and the cooking, the landmarks he’d followed away from that darkness.
Max found a parking space several blocks from Ingredients, which was remarkable, since the shopping day was maturing, the tourists emerging to join the locals.
As they strolled toward the store, the women’s hair fluttering in the breeze, he had his arm around Marcie as she talked with Cass and the others.
New Orleans was always full of color and life. They paused at the open courtyard across from the Royal Sonesta hotel to listen to the musicians playing live music to a growing lunchtime audience. Marcie and Dana joined hands and executed a jazzy two-step, Marcie curling her arm around the other woman’s waist to take the lead as they spun and twisted. Then they descended upon him, Marcie seizing his hand to draw him to her as Rachel took over with Dana.
He was a good dancer, and his girl wanted to show him off, share his talent with her friends. He didn’t disappoint her. He cut an easy swathe through the milling crowd and foot traffic, spun Marcie under his arm, around his body and bringing her back, turning her toward Cass as he seamlessly grasped Savannah’s hands, pulling her into a dramatic spin that had her smiling. He took turns with the women, twisting cleverly in and out of embraces with each, to the delight of the nearby crowd. Marcie laughed aloud as a few threw dollars into the circle he’d created, as if they thought they were street buskers.
Ben took a bow and kissed the hand of each woman in a flourish, egging on the crowd. Then he caught Marcie against him with a forceful jerk and kissed her deeply enough to earn them a few more dollars.
When she pulled back, her eyes sparkled more vibrantly than any diamond he could buy her. If he could have one wish in the world, it was that she’d always look at him like that, proving that she was happier in his arms than anywhere else.
“Here,” Cass laughed, handing Dana the collected money. “More to add to your future child’s college fund.”
Which proved Cass, like all of them, knew about Dana’s dilemma. Dana elbowed her, but she tucked the money in her pocket with a smile. “We’ll tell the guys we earned it from that lap dance in Jackson Square.”
When they reached Ingredients, Ben held the door for the women, and Marcie touched his face as she passed him. He bent his head to kiss her palm. “Try not to fall asleep in there,” he teased.
She sniffed. “Cass said there are samples. That should keep me busy.”
Savannah was the last of the women to pass him. “When you get a chance,” Matt’s wife said, “I need your opinion on a better food processor. Our current one grinds up Angelica’s homemade baby food either too grainy or too chunky.”
“One kitchen consultant at your service,” he said.
She moved over the threshold. He didn’t immediately follow her, however, holding the door for a trio of older women who came in behind them. One had a stylish short cut of snow white hair, another was dyed strawberry blond, and the final one had a mix of gray and white strands through her shoulder-length brunette mane. Their relaxed and chatty demeanors, as well as the sturdy sneakers and practical though colorful casual wear, told him they were tourists, likely retirees. That, and the midwestern accents. One of them amused him by giving him a saucy wink. He heard her mutter to her friends as they moved into the store’s interior.
“They sure make them pretty here in NOLA.”
He flashed a grin at her and she chuckled, flapping a you-go-on-now kind of hand at him, before the store inventory had them buzzing off like bees after honey. He did a headcount of where each of his women had gone, and then made his own beeline toward new cookware. Once there, he divided his attention between examining a few pieces and watching Marcie, shaking his head and suppressing a fond sigh.
In a store full of items sure to delight serious cooking aficionados, the proprietors had figured out how to occupy any companions less culinary-minded. Bless her heart, she’d been drawn right to the display of holiday-shaped pastas and the wide array of cookie cutters.
That was all right. His girl had superior investigative skills and could kick the ass of a guy three times her size, even though her fearlessness terrified him. Perhaps because with him she dropped all her defenses and craved the pain he could give her. And in those vulnerable moments, he saw the treasure that was her soul, and just how fragile it was.
Christ, he was standing in the middle of a store mooning over her. Getting a grip on himself, he responded to Cass’s call for assistance on the best Kitchen Aid mixer, and then moved to help Savannah with her food processor issue. Dana was picking up thinly wrapped gourmet chocolates to inhale the different scents, before she dropped her selections into the basket she had over her arm. He snagged one out of it without her noticing, but the crinkle of the thin wrapper gave him away. She turned toward him with a mock scowl. “Which one did you take?”
He bent close and puffed soft breath against her nose. She cocked her head. “The white chocolate truffle.”
“You’re better than a blood hound.” He fished a replacement truffle off the shelf and put it in the basket, leaving his wrapper in there to remind himself to pay for it. Not that he expected the store employees to get their panties in a twist over one chocolate, when he regularly visited and spent big in here. Yeah, he could get far better deals at the bigger stores, but he had the money to support New Orleans small business, and NOLA had been good to him.
He caught up with Rachel at the spices. She was stretching up on her toes to reach one on the top shelf, and as he stepped up to her, she steadied herself on his shoulder, his hand automatically sliding to her hip and waist to give her an extra boost. He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“You know, you can ask the tallest person in your party to retrieve things from upper shelves. That would be me, when Cass isn’t wearing stilettos.”
She chuckled and dropped the spice into her own basket, but bumped her body against his companionably.
The initiation into their inner circle meant he’d had his hands on each woman in an intimate way, helping to arouse and drive her to an unforgettable pinnacle for all of them. Though Dana was the only one he’d fucked, thanks to the threesome she’d fantasized about and Peter had granted, he’d touched their soft skin, smelled their hair, felt their bodies respond to the things he could do to a woman to make her helpless with desire. But just like when Savannah had sat on his lap, sometimes he enjoyed the casual intimacy that their inner circle permitted almost as much as that. Though he was sure he’d lose his man card if he admitted it to anyone.
“Which spice did you say you used on those fabulous green beans you made us at family dinner last month?” Rachel asked.
“This one.” He picked it up and handed it to her to examine. “But you can play with your preferences. The key to them is the cooking.” Moving further down the aisle, he found the bouillon cubes he preferred for fresh vegetables and handed that over. “Put the least amount of water possible in the sauce pan and flavor it with one of those. You have to stay right on top of them so they don’t burn, but it’s when they absorb that bare amount of water and still stay crisp that they turn out the best.”
Rachel was listening intently, but he noticed her gaze strayed past him, caught by something that made a little smile appear on her face. The three matrons were a few feet away and apparently had overheard him. One of them sighed.
“I want to take him home and just watch him cook.”
The one who’d winked at him scoffed. “I want t
o do more than that with him.”
Rachel chuckled and Ben grinned, nodding courteously their way. “I’m flattered, ladies, but I am taken.” He gestured toward Marcie, engrossed in a choice between Santa- and snowflake-shaped pastas. “That poor girl can’t boil an egg. She needs me.”
The third matron studied Marcie and harrumphed. “That girl doesn’t need to boil an egg. If you fall down on the job, she’ll have a passel of men standing in line to do it for her.”
Ouch. He couldn’t argue with the truth. He couldn’t stand on equal footing with the standard white knight, his stable background and normal wish for picket fences and two point five kids.
But Ben could use the darkness within him to reach down in Marcie’s soul and, through restraint and pain, open it up like a flower, give her the complete surrender she needed.
The white knight couldn’t do that for her in his pretty fucking world. Couldn’t understand the part of her that Ben had intuited for so long was there, but had made himself ignore it. Until Marcie refused to let him do so.
Stay out of your head, he told himself, remembering Savannah’s far too insightful yet gentle reproof. Stay out of the dark places.
With a nod to the women, and giving Rachel’s arm an affectionate stroke, he moved toward Marcie. When he reached her, he pressed against her back and plucked the pastas from her hands, putting them back on the display. “Novelty pasta is as horrific as novelty chocolate,” he informed her. “It’s not entering my house.”
She gave him a pouty look. “But the Santas are so cute. I was going to make Angelica mac and cheese with them when I babysit her near Christmas. I already put dibs on the night Savannah and Matt go to that big holiday charity bash they attend every year.”
“Sure, play the Angelica card.” He sighed and put the Santa pasta back in her hand. She tossed him a triumphant look, but tilted her head to look around him at the trio of older women. They were examining hand towels and pot holders. One put a cow-shaped one on her hand and mooed at the other ladies. Marcie grinned.
“So, they want to take you home to cook for them? And do other things?”
“Donkey ears,” he said.
“Maybe you should see how well off they are,” Marcie said practically, ignoring the jibe. “You could be a kept man, only required to cook and look pretty. A lot easier than your current job.”
“Are you kidding? I know women. They’d be three times more demanding than Matt.”
She sniffed. “Janet claims nothing is more demanding than Matt.”
“Which is why she’s paid twice what we all are, to put up with him.”
“She wishes,” Marcie said. “I’m going to tell her you suggested it. Who does get the most obscene salary? I know Matt’s is the biggest, since he’s top of the pyramid. Salary, that is.” She shot him a mischievous look and he snorted.
“Who says we get paid? We come to work purely for the orgasmic joy of it. And that is an entirely inappropriate question, Marcella.”
She dimpled, but he saw her bemused reaction when he used her full name and said it in mock stern tone, which wasn’t far off from his actual stern tone. Both of which could catch her attention in intriguing ways. Most of the time. Her gaze had flickered past him.
“Ooh, more samples.”
He shook his head with a smile and followed her over to a crescent-shaped buffet of dip samples, coupled with the store’s recommended cracker selections. He put his hand on her arm, stopping her before she reached for one, and did it himself, swirling a cracked pepper and wheat cracker in the Cajun-style dip and offering it to her. She picked up the cues immediately and didn’t reach for it, instead parting her lips so he could place the quarter-sized cracker on her tongue.
He brushed her lips with his fingers as she closed her mouth and tasted the mix. Her brown eyes were thoughtful. “Pretty good. Spicy in the right way, not enough to sandblast out the flavor. May I have another, of that kind?” She gestured toward a ranch-style dip.
He used a ruffled chip to scoop it out and bring it to her lips. She licked at his fingers, getting his flesh and the salt of the chip, and he slid a knuckle along her soft cheek, the curve of her chin. She was gazing up at him. As incredibly ridiculous as it might seem, everything literally disappeared for him but her. Just her. He leaned in and spoke against her ear.
“I want to be inside you right now.” All the damn time.
She rested her hand on his chest, fingers curling against his shirt, so he felt the bite of her nails through it. There’d been times he hadn’t restrained her during sex, had allowed her to put her arms around him, and she’d damn near left furrows down his back. He took them as a performance review. He wasn’t exceeding expectations if she didn’t leave scars.
He moved his hand to the side of her throat, folding his palm over it. As always, he was struck with an odd mix of emotions at the slimness of her neck, the large size of his hand. How delicate she seemed, against how strong she had proven herself to be. Strong enough to take anything he needed to do to her, and fucking ask for more.
“I want you inside me, too, Master,” she whispered. “I want that all the time.” An echo of his own thoughts, no surprise.
He put his forehead against hers, his hand tightening, thumb sliding over her windpipe. Just a light pressure stroke, but enough to make her catch her breath, her pulse accelerating.
It was raining, he realized, at the same moment Marcie registered the mist of water hitting them. Her lust-fogged eyes cleared, and she started laughing as she saw Rachel squirting them with a spray bottle, probably snagged from the storeowner’s cleaning supplies.
“Dana told me to do it,” Rachel said to Ben hastily, holding up both her hands, the bottle in one. “It’s her fault.”
“I did not,” Dana said. “I’m blind. I can’t even see them getting all hot and bothered with each other over at the dip samples.”
“Right.” Ben snagged the bottle and lunged at them in mock retaliation. The two women scattered, Rachel catching Dana’s arm to guide her escape.
“Yeah, you better run,” he said, chuckling. He returned the bottle to the storeowner. “I’m sorry. I can’t take them anywhere.”
The woman, about sixty with bright blue eyes and a lovely riot of dyed brown hair, chuckled. “I handed her the bottle willingly. I was concerned the heat you and your friend were putting off were going to melt the cheese cake samples.”
“There are cheesecake samples?” Dana asked. “Where? Point me in the right direction.”
Ben angled her shoulders toward that compass point and nudged her that way, barely restraining the urge to give her a healthy slap on the ass. Rachel, too. But as indulgent as the storeowner was, Ben figured that would be over the line. He’d wait for the lingerie store. Hot Toddy had a nice BDSM section, complete with paddles. Or a switch. It was totally appropriate to try those out before buying, he was sure.
He returned to Marcie. She was considering the dips again, but now his girl had an endearing little frown on her face. She looked up at him as he joined her.
“I really am sorry I’m such a bad cook. It’s so frustrating. I think I’m doing it right, and then it goes wrong. Cass always says it’s just a matter of following the directions, but you don’t do directions at all. And it doesn’t matter, because I can’t do it right either way.”
He couldn’t argue with it. She’d learned to be a decent sous chef in ingredient prep, but entirely under his direction. She just didn't have the soul of a cook, but that was fine, and he told her so now.
“It’s kind of a relief that you’re bad at something else. Because you’re damn near perfect. Just like that woman said when I was with Rachel. And she wasn’t just talking about how beautiful you are.”
Marcie’s eyes narrowed. “Something else? What else am I bad at?”
He should have left that word out, he knew he should have, but he had to give her an honest answer. “Listening to what’s good for you.”
“
I listen.” She stepped closer, laying her palm on his chest once more. He saw the steel in the set of her mouth. “And what’s good for me is something just the right side of bad.”
He gripped her face in fingers that held her a little too hard. “Do you ever behave?”
“No.” She lifted her chin in his grasp. He could see the challenge, and she knew what that did to him.
“Keep goading, little girl,” he muttered. “You’ll know what it feels like to be caned two nights in a row.”
Something he’d never do, because it would break those welts open on her backside and be too much, but she didn’t need to know that. There were other things he could do to punish her, things that captured his mind way too urgently for their public environment.
Hell, he’d meant what he said in her ear. She had him looking for a bathroom, a broom closet, a freaking alley. Yeah, he could see how that would go. Soon as he had her bent over a sturdy surface, Dana would pop up like a jack-in-the-box and say something like, “I need to buy this. Can I grab your credit card?” Sure. It’s in the pocket of my jeans, halfway off my ass.
His lips twisted. Marcie must have seen the flicker of humor, because her brown eyes glinted with a reflection of it. She slid her arms around him, nestling her head under his chin. He sighed when she pressed her lips to the base of his throat. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I should have asked if it was okay to do this, but I just love it when you hold me.”
She was so young sometimes. So impulsive, so open. Those very qualities somehow leapfrogged her over his walls of jaded cynicism, so he could feel and act almost the same way. Closing his arms around her, he inhaled her scent once again. He might just stretch her out on the bed tonight and move over her flesh an inch at a time, detecting the lingering scents of all the places they’d visited today. This store. The candy store. The limo. Her soaps and lotions. That unique and addictive honey between her legs, the intoxicating scent of her aroused sex. Himself, because she always bore his scent in some way.
