by V. L. Brock
Feeling buoyant thanks to my much needed release, I flounced down the stairs and into the kitchen, turning on the sound system in the living room as I passed through.
The amount of equipment that was waiting on my island was quite daunting. Standing behind the counter, hands gripping the ledge of the oak surface, I studied the contents spread out on the area. Fuck…all this just for one fucking cake.
Trial and error, I knew full well that was what it was going to be, but with each trial I was to execute, it would hopefully spark a little something. And an accumulation of little things, always leads to a bigger picture, right? And I was on the clock.
With the leather-bound cover flipped open, I followed the instructions that were laid out for me, and precisely measured the butter and sugar before blending. I was sure I was going to end up with muscles the same size as Popeye, with all the action of fluffing it up.
I added the eggs and folded the flour. Damn, if I knew it was going to be this strenuous, I wouldn’t have used up all my energy in the shower.
“Is that right?” I asked myself, scooping the cake mixture and letting it fall from the spoon. “Fucking hell, Kady, why didn’t you take photos of what it’s supposed to look like?”
Eventually, I decided that my arm was going to be hanging off by the end of the night, if I continued to fold the mixture. I turned my attention onto the next task, and studied the two tins on the surface with the spoon in my hand. I silently debated which method was going to be safest. Eventually, I lifted the mixing bowl. “Pouring it is then.”
With the tins safely in the oven, and feeling rather proud, I flipped over the timer and pottered around, rinsing the equipment before placing it in the dishwasher, and jigging to the overly loud rendition of Toxic.
Turning away from the dishwasher, my heart lurched into my throat, my stomach knotted and my wits were scattered on the wind when I was met with the sight of the tall, alluring Irishman in my dining room, hands folded across his chest, his legs spread shoulder-width apart. His hair was hiding under the familiar black flat-cap.
As if holding it there was going to suppress my heart from lurching out of its cavity, a hand bolted to the center of my chest, as I shrieked and gasped.
“Don’t stop on my account, darlin’,” he purred with a twitch of his pale lips. He stalked toward the island.
“Walker, what the fuck are you doing here? I told you last night to stay the fuck away––”
Progression halted, he appeared rather flummoxed. “What, you actually meant that?” His brow crumpled, and once again, the Indian Ocean transformed into streams.
Arms thrown into the air, I rolled my eyes heavenward as he resumed his well measured pace toward me. “Of course I fucking meant it. Why would I say it otherwise? And how the fuck did you get into my house?” I hissed.
Showcasing an arrogant grin, he raised a silver key between his fingers.
“You have a key? Liam isn’t going to be impressed with that, at all.” I blatantly told him, flailing my head, during which I clutched the cloth and began cleaning the surface of the island.
“It’s just as well Liam doesn’t know then isn’t it. It’s not him that left it for me, after all.” That had my attention piqued. Dragging my eyes from the wood, I lifted my head to face a once again, sexy dressed Walker, who was honing a black V neck sweater that showcased his broad frame.
“I stand by what I said last night. I can’t do this Walker.” I shook my head.
“You’re ending this because you got jealous?”
“Ending?” I scoffed, setting my palms flat on the surface. “Walker, we never started anything to end in the first place.”
Eyes plunged and his sweater stretched as his chest expanded with his profound inhalation. “Okay, how about this,” he began after the briefest of seconds, raising his head back up to unite our gaze. He skulked around the left side of the unit. “Kady, I am very sorry for being a sexy Irishman, who was being polite to one of your friends.”
Air was shunted from my body in one, ferocious snicker. I couldn’t help it. My vocals finally ceased as I strived to bring to an end to my hilarity. However, my facial muscles were having none of it. I hollowed my cheeks, clamped my teeth into the inner flesh painfully, and shook my head in sardonic disbelief.
“I had no intention of making you jealous, but I’m honored by the notion that you were.”
God, he was being an arrogant ass. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a delight to bask in.
He was standing just ahead of me, his hands grasping my shoulders lightly. I closed my eyes for a fleeting moment, secretly savoring the contact of the hands which I craved to roam my body.
“I promise you, that if I’m in the company of your friends again, I will be a complete prick.”
Attempting to mask my smirk in hope to terminate his haughtiness, I shook my head once again. A silent spell passed along pouting lips, while pleading, puppy dog eyes were successfully mined into my conscience. I conceded. “Fine, but I mean it Walker; you’d better be one big prick.”
Legs bent, he tipped himself back a fraction so we were eye-level. He breathed my name with a calculating grin. “I promise I’ll be the biggest prick you’ve ever handled.”
Chapter Eleven
As the unruly part of my sexually frustrated mind twisted the words which fell from his mouth in a rich, deep intonation, my eyes subtly grazed over his body, subsequently halting at the southern site which was mere seconds away from being pressed into my stomach.
Without forewarning, strong, thick arms were coiled around me, my body completely eclipsed by the size of his. My head was nestled against his taut chest, allowing me to feel and relish the bulge of his pectorals against the side of my face. I breathed him in, a rich, masculine, heady scent that hijacked both my rationality, and my hormones.
“I’m sorry, darlin’,” his muttering in my hair was followed by my head rising along with his chest as he sucked me in. As crazy as it sounds, in that moment, I felt as though we were almost on the same page: both desiring something forbidden, yet secretly terrified of letting it win.
Unpeeling my face from his chest, I peeked up and scrutinized him with narrow, incredulous eyes. “Would you really do that for me?”
I watched as steady lines turned to deep creases across his brow, and his mouth seemed to open and form his word in slow motion. “Do what, darlin’? Be a prick?”
I nodded.
He answered me not only verbally, but physically, as he rubbed his hand soothingly up and down the length of my spine. “Kady, I would do anything, and everything I could to help you in any way possible. I have done. Just because you can’t remember it, doesn’t mean I’m going to stop doing what I’ve been doing. Understand, darlin’?”
As I whispered my appreciation, his head dropped substantially, his forehead only a few inches from my own. The atmosphere was intense. Sweet, heated breath melded and plastered on the others flesh while a super-charged desire had us both gently panting. Concentration was limited to that of one another’s lips, our tongues peeking every so often to lick the parching flesh.
He was killing me. The visual in my head was killing me. The imminence was inciting; even I could attest to that, and that was killing me, also. Closing his lips, I studied the small twitching of his facial muscles under his gruff, the rutted breaths he drew from his nostrils, along with the strained, wounded look on his profile when he forced his eyes shut. My body countered his as he shuddered against me.
When I forced myself to step away from his hard, God-like body––which I’d only seen the back of––he clasped hold of the corner of the island, it was as though he was saving his body from crumbling before me. His bloodless fingers flexed painfully into the wood, the other hand balled into a fist at his thigh.
“Thank you,” he breathed, his eyes gingerly scouring from his fingers, up the stretch of my body.
There was no need to ask what he was grateful for, because I wa
s thanking myself, for the exact same reason, too.
We were sitting at the dining table, sipping coffee. Being placed in a medieval torture device would have caused fewer afflictions than what I was causing myself when I asked what he and Liv got up to the night before, after I left. I was dreading the answer which was mere seconds from being voiced, when Walker’s nose upturned.
“What’s the matter?”
“What’s that smell?” he asked, holding his head high in the air, sniffing every direction like an inquisitive canine.
“You better not have trampled dog mess through my house,” I replied, craning my head around the table to check his feet. Thankfully, his boots were absent.
“You do know that trampling shite through the house is supposed to bring good luck, darlin’.”
My eyebrows rose cynically to meet my hairline. “For the cleaning company who would charge several hundred dollars to sanitize it, maybe…” I retorted dryly. When I’d finished, I was soon matching Walker’s canine, sniffing imitation, as a God awful stench floated around the room.
“You can smell it, too, right?”
My eyes bulged, my mouth agape. I slammed my coffee to the table and pushed out my white leather seat, the legs groaning under protest as I shouted, “Fuck! My cake!” and staggered to the range, whipping the tea-towel off the corner of the island as I did so.
“You were baking?” he asked while I lowered the black door. The heat instantly pasted itself to my chest as I lowered to retrieve the tin.
In a rush to get them out of the oven, my forearm accidentally connected with the hot metal frame. I gasped and groaned as the searing heat stuck to my flesh and caused a profound sensitivity, which soon proceed to tingle.
Turning and dropping the tins to the counter, I found myself concentrating on the section of my wounded arm which was bright red and already starting to shine. Muscles constricted throughout my body, making a beeline to my pelvis at the same time as I succumbed to a wince as my finger skimmed over the raw surface.
“God, darlin’, are you alright?” Walker was already trudging toward me. Warm, calloused fingers took possession of my hand, and he stretched out my arm to inspect the damage. “Put it under some water.”
My head shook as I adapted to the sensation it prompted. “It doesn’t hurt too much. It was just the initial shock. It’s fine.” I pulled my arm away then studied my crispy creations in the tin. “Cake?” I offered with a humorous grin.
He frowned apologetically. “Pass,” he stated, but made it sound like a question.
“That’s what I thought.” I hung my head, and felt that globe of exasperation solidifying in my stomach and travel up to my chest. I tossed the cloth aside and scoured my forehead.
“What’s up, darlin’?”
Lungs filled to capacity, I ousted all oxygen in one overly-long groan. “I was really hoping that this was going to help me.” I slammed my hand down onto the work surface and risked a peek up at him. “You have no idea what it’s like to feel you’re on a time limit to get the answers you need before something awful happens. And I know, something awful will happen…but when he’s here with me…” My sigh was instantly appeased when Walker wrapped me up in his arms, his one hand softly combing through my hair as he held me to the hard warmth of his chest. “Never mind; I’m being silly.”
After a trice, he pulled away. Peeking under the lip of his flat-cap, his eyes were wide and keen. “You know what they say, ‘if at first you don’t succeed’––”
“Give up?”
He grinned, his pearly-white teeth dazzling me along with the tiny, tiny dimple in his left cheek. “No, Kady. Go and have some fun. Today I am your fairy-Godfather. Go and get some shoes and your jacket.” He released me from his arms.
“Fairy-Godfather? I think I could possibly use a leprechaun instead if you have one spare.”
“Okay, I’ll be your leprechaun instead. And I’m making your first wish. You need some fun, Kady. You gotta let that amazing head of hair down.” I smiled and cocked my head feeling fairly embarrassed. “Shoes and a jacket, now.”
During the time it took us to slowly pull out of the driveway in Walker’s black and silver pick-up, I saw Mrs. Steinbeck being her typical nosey self, and bopping up and down on her porch way, searching for the best position to stick her two cents in over the trimmed bush.
“Watch out, Mrs. Steinbeck’s on the prowl,” I muttered.
Walker reversed a little so we were outside the chocolate colored, detached building. Poking his head out of my window, he leaned across the bench seat and my body. “Is there anything we can help you with, Mrs. Steinbeck?” he shouted out as I cursed him under my breath.
Peeking up at the building, the middle-aged woman with eyes like a hawk simply shook her head.
“Are you sure there’s nothing we can get for you?” he called. “Apart from a gossip column in one of Boston’s top magazines,” he whispered to me and a slight chuckle escaped my throat.
She boosted her red football helmet of a hairdo up with the palm of her hand and began to turn to her front door. “No thank you, young man, I am fine. I’ll pop around later Kady to see how you are.”
“There’s no need to put yourself out. I’m okay, honestly.”
“No, no, no,” she wobbled her index finger left and right. “I told Mr. DeLaney I’d keep an eye out to make sure you’re okay. I’m a woman of my word.” She grasped the doorknob and pushed open her door before yelling, “Bye, Kady,” and disappearing inside.
As we headed south towards Wellsmere Road, my hand made sharp contact with Walker’s thigh. “What?” he spat at me, pulling his focus from the road in an affronted pretense.
“You got to stop riling her up. God only knows what she is capable of.”
“God help us, darlin’, she may get the binoculars out, make a little diary of events, with times and descriptions of our attire to tell your precious boyfriend,” he chortled.
“Fuck off,” I laughed. Nevertheless, my face plummeted along with my considerations as I secretly panicked over the degree of involvement our nosey neighbor had in my relationship. I suddenly didn’t feel like an adult anymore. I felt like a child being minded by the evil babysitter, who was more than ready to get me into trouble.
When we stopped at the lights opposite Bricksdale Square, Walker leaned forward and popped the radio on, killing the uncomfortable silence which had seemed to be manifesting. His fingers beat rhythmically against the steering wheel as he spoke the words to a Linkin Park song alongside the lead vocal.
Risking a glance, I peered to my left and watched as his delicious mouth formed the words, his jaw taut, and the gathering of the small V between his eyebrows when he concentrated on the lyrics. I giggled inwardly when he started softly banging his head, along with his fingers to the rhythm.
That was it; I couldn’t suppress the humor any longer. I extended my arm and switched the station. I was shot a confused, insulted glare before his hand met the console again, and switched back to the genre of music, which was a fast track to giving me a migraine.
Resuming his beating fingers against the wheel, his head bopping, his shoulders juddering, I switched it again.
Raptly studying me, he gingerly switched back, stating, “Hands off darlin’. My car, my music. When we’re in yours, then you can have free reign.”
Pushing myself farther into the bench seat, I knotted my fingers and rolled my lips. “I don’t think I’ll ever be confident enough to get behind the wheel again,” I confessed, then fell silent.
A hefty sigh and a hammered growl left Walker’s throat. He tossed his head back against the rest. “Fine, you can turn it over. But I bet you, you’ll be the first one to turn it back.”
I rolled my head to face him and scoffed, “I don’t think so.”
“No?” his eyes flared expectantly. “Wanna make wager on that?”
I arched my brow cynically. There was no way in Hell was I going to survive listening to
rock music, or heavy metal, whatever kind of music that was, for the entire journey. “Fine.”
He spat on his palm and proffered his hand. I frowned with tangible distaste at his offering. But, you only live once, so I reciprocated, spitting in the center of my hand, and clasping onto his. “Deal.”
The console was waved at by Walker’s hand as he gave me free reign. I switch through several channels, finally deciding to stay on the one playing Ironic.
With a satisfied grin splashed over my face, I rested back in the seat, when I unexpectedly became aware of fingers rhythmically beating against the wheel once again. My mouth dropped along with my stomach as I heard the man beside me humming along to the tune.
You got to be fucking kidding me. He likes Alanis?
Craning my head in his direction, I flushed beet red as he spewed along with the chorus at full pelt. He was an amazing singer, I couldn’t deny that, and he was singing along to Alanis Morissette’s Ironic, with the window rolled down, totally unabashed.
Mortified, I sunk down low into the bench, when a group of women pulled up alongside us in a baby blue convertible. Walker peeked down at them, lifted his right hand to the lip of his hat and gave a gentlemanly nod, as he continued speaking along to the second verse.
Oh, my God, I could die.
He took a left turn, still brazenly singing away. God, his voice was phenomenal, deep, and rich with that indie style tone. Nevertheless he was killing one of my favorite songs. I had to admit defeat.
“Okay, Okay, you win. Have your radio back. Knock yourself out.”
With a haughty, gratified smirk, I thought he was going to switch channels, yet, he just resumed singing. Ah, I knew what he was doing. He said I would be the first one to turn it back; he’s not going to turn it. Overthrown, I changed the station.
“Hey, I liked that song,” he smiled at me.
I rolled my eyes heavenward. “So did I. What’s my forfeit then?” I queried.
“Hmm…I’m not wasting this opportunity. This could take a while…”
