They were showing teamwork, and pride in their skills and the food they put out. It was the most confidence he’d seen from several of them, and Dominic felt the strange alchemy he’d experienced in a few restaurant kitchens starting to work.
Glancing back to Colby’s stubborn chin and pleading eyes, Dominic set his jaw. He dropped the fresh tickets into the young man’s hands and said, “The window is yours. Make me proud.”
* * *
It was the most nerve-racking four hours of Colby’s life. A team of cooks she barely knew, whose skills she couldn’t completely trust or rely on, cooking an intense menu full of complex dishes they’d learned mere days before. This was her first chance ever at running a kitchen from the top spot by the pass, expediting the service...and Colby had to pull it all together under the hawk-like gaze of the toughest chef she’d ever worked with. The stakes had never been higher.
She wasn’t even thinking about the job anymore—she’d lost that the first time she introduced herself as a guy and lied her way into the interview. She could live with that, especially if it meant scoring a point with Eva Jansen. But suddenly, Colby wasn’t at all sure she could live with losing Chef Dominic Fevre’s respect.
Because, as the night wore on, she knew she’d earned it. Hard-won and grudging respect, maybe, but all the more precious because of it.
As the night closed down and the rest of the cooks dragged their exhausted, triumphant asses down the stairs to change into their civvies, Colby finally allowed herself to unclench. Putting her hands on the counter, she let her head drop below her shoulders to try to stretch out the unrelenting ache at the back of her neck.
“You made it,” Dominic said quietly.
“Barely.”
A light skim of callused fingertips along her exposed nape made Colby moan before she could stop herself. She froze, afraid if she moved or spoke, the touch would be withdrawn, but the moment held for an endless, breathless heartbeat.
Behind them, the dishwashers chatted back and forth in liquid Spanish murmurs, the spray of water and clink of cutlery overlaid by the tinny strains of Tejano music played from a portable radio. Dominic had sent the dishwashers home every night of the past week, forcing Colby to finish the stacks of plates and bowls along with the regular close-down duties, but tonight he was apparently feeling merciful.
Or...he didn’t want to be alone in the kitchen with her.
But he was touching her now, so softly that shivers broke out along her arms and all the way down her legs. Colby hung her head and reveled in it, every cell in her body thrilling toward the simple caress.
One of the dishwashers dropped a hotel pan with a shockingly loud clang and a fluent curse, and the moment was broken. Dominic stepped back and Colby forced herself to stand up and face him.
The way he looked at her... His face still and impassive, that sensual mouth firm and body tightly locked down...but his eyes devoured her with a hunger that left her breathless. The muscles supporting her knees loosened and she swayed toward him a bit before snapping herself out of it. They weren’t alone. She had to wait.
Colby clapped her hands together and headed for the cleaning supply closet. If spraying down the tiled floor under the rubber mats with a pressure hose didn’t distract her, nothing would.
To hedge her bets, she talked, filling the empty, throbbing space between them with words that needed to be said if they were going to go any further. “You and your brother don’t look much alike.”
“Interesting. Most people remark on the family resemblance.”
“Huh.” Colby thought about Marc’s dark curls and light, quicksilver gaze. “I guess you do have the same coloring, but somehow it looks different on you.”
“Marc was always the handsome one.”
Surprised, Colby stuck her head out of the closet to check Dominic’s set expression. “Fishing for compliments?”
A dull red flush tipped his ears. “Certainly not. It’s a fact, nothing more. When Marc described us as both irresistible to women, he was talking more about himself.”
Was Dominic trying to reassure her? To—awkwardly, stiltedly—let her know that he wasn’t interested in slutting around with the groupies who tended to throw themselves at high-profile chefs, these days.
Narrowing her eyes, Colby said, “Hey, Chef. Can you come here a sec? I can’t seem to find the sack of clean cloths.”
Dominic frowned and started toward the closet. “They should be just inside the door.”
With a discreet nudge of her clogged foot, Colby scooted the sack of clean cloths under the lowest rack of wire shelving and shrugged innocently. “Help me look?”
The instant Dominic strode into the closet, Colby whipped the door closed behind him and got right in his space, backing him against the door. All the air seemed to have been sucked out of the tight, confined space because Colby could barely breathe. Dominic’s huge presence, broad shoulders and wide, muscled chest, took up all the available room. She flexed her fingers where they were braced against the firm slabs of his pecs—there was almost no give, and her stomach fluttered with excitement.
But she couldn’t get derailed. “Dominic,” she said, savoring the sound of his name, the intimacy of whispering it mere inches from his lips—lips that were slightly parted in startled surprise.
“For the record,” she murmured, feeling the warm wash of his breath over her mouth. “Marc isn’t the one who’s irresistible. At least not to me.”
That big body shifted against her, huge hands coming up to cup the slenderness of her waist. Colby almost tensed up, ready to pull away if those hands drifted toward a discovery that the hardness between her legs was all plastic sports cup and not a real erection. But instead, Dominic’s hot fingers inched around back, skimming rough and sure under the hem of her baggy black-and-white checked chef pants to find the shivery skin at the top of her ass.
“You’re one to talk about irresistible,” he growled, fingers pressing hard enough to bruise. “Fuck. Colby. I swore to myself I wouldn’t touch you again, but you were so damn sexy tonight, running that kitchen like a pro...I thought I’d go crazy if I didn’t get my hands on you.”
Liquid heat pooled at Colby’s core, hunger beating sharp and achy through her blood. With a muffled gasp, she leaned back into the pressure of his fingers and savored the strength of his grip. Dominic’s head dipped, his sinful mouth skimming down the side of her neck to the tender spot where it joined her shoulder. When he shoved the collar of her chef’s whites aside and set his teeth to her skin, she unraveled into a deep moan.
Her head was swimming, her attention split between the sharp, careful bite into the sore tendon and the invading creep of callused fingertips, closer and closer to the crack of her ass. A thrill of forbidden pleasure set fire to her body, the risk she was taking by letting him touch her there, so close to the part of her that wept and begged and would give her away as female rather than male—Colby tipped her head back to give Dominic’s mouth access to more of her throat, and panted for air.
He thinks you’re a man, her brain burbled giddily. Of course he wants to touch your ass. He probably wants more than that.
What would it be like?
Damn it. She hadn’t meant to let things go this far, she remembered hazily. As much as she wanted to let Dominic have his way with her, she couldn’t. Not only would Dominic having his way with her end in tears when he figured out she was a chick, but they had things to sort out. Something she’d wanted to ask him, to find out... Colby sucked in a breath and fought to get her brain back online when heavy pleasure kept fritzing it out.
For a guy who hadn’t intended to take things any further, Dominic was doing a damn good impression of wanting to go all the way...and there it was. She needed to slow things down and get her head on straight.
Colby shoved at his chest,
just enough to put some distance between them. “What...what are you doing?”
“Wondering if olive oil would make a decent lube,” Dominic muttered hotly against the sensitive underside of her jaw. “And how fucking young you are, that you don’t have even a hint of five o’clock shadow.”
The chilling fear of discovery went a long way toward clearing her head. “I’m a natural blond,” she said defensively. “All I’ve got is peach fuzz. And that’s not what I meant.”
Dominic lifted his head enough to frown down into her face, his hands retreating back to her waist. Colby didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you said you swore you wouldn’t touch me again. So what is this? A one-time thing you’ll regret in the morning?”
He dropped his hands and stepped back, leaving her cold and definitely disappointed. “What do you want, a commitment? We’ve known each other for a matter of days. You’re...God...working in my kitchen as part of a job interview.”
“And we already agreed that has nothing to do with this,” she said sharply, gesturing between their bodies. “I’m not saying I want a relationship. I don’t do relationships—but I don’t do regret, either. And if what we’re doing is going to make you feel like shit or freak you out, I don’t want any part of it. I have no interest in ruining your life.”
As the words tumbled out, Colby realized exactly how much she meant it. Cold gripped her insides. If she was truly serious about not wanting to hurt Dominic, she’d open her mouth and tell him the whole truth, right now.
But before she could screw her courage up to do it, Dominic was rearing back like a startled stallion. “That’s dramatic. I don’t know what makes you think you have the power to ruin my life.”
“Maybe not your whole life,” Colby amended absently, heart still pounding out a steady tattoo of will you won’t you will you won’t you. “But I know about messed up families, and something’s up between you and Marc. You couldn’t get away from me fast enough yesterday morning at the café. If you’re not out to your brother, that’s completely cool and your choice—we already agreed to keep this on the down low, for plenty of good reasons. I guess I just want to make sure you really want this. That you really want me. Because I’m trouble, Dominic. I mean it.”
Her heart ached with the truth of that statement, but she forced herself not to duck her head or hide from him. She wanted as much honesty between them as possible, especially about this.
Maybe she didn’t deserve it, but Dominic did.
Chapter Eight
The single fluorescent bulb illuminating the cleaning supply closet should have washed Colby out, leeching the color from his fair skin and harshly highlighting any flaws, but Dominic despaired as his gaze roved over Colby’s face. The unadulterated downward-directed light painted Colby’s skin with shadows and mysteries, casting his blue eyes into glittering darkness and obscuring the lines of his slim body.
Dominic looked at him and ached. His cock was an iron bar between his legs, stiff and angry that Dom wasn’t touching Colby, kissing him, testing the supple give of his muscle with lips, teeth, fingers...
But Colby was staring at him, all stubborn silence and the same defiance that had attracted Dominic from the beginning, and he found himself wanting to open up.
Because Colby was right. If they were going to do this thing, there was no room for regrets.
“You are trouble, but I want you anyway,” Dominic admitted, the words dragged from his chest like a bullet being extracted from a gunshot wound. Damned painful, but there was relief there, too. “I’ve been trying to deny this part of myself for a long time.”
Colby moved away, but only far enough to grab an empty bucket and overturn it so he could sit down. Staring up attentively, Colby prompted, “Because of your family?”
It was uncanny how he zeroed in on that, and Dominic couldn’t help but shake his head in disbelief. “I don’t know how you can know that.”
“I told you, I recognize the signs.” Colby glanced away, a spasm of something that looked like pain tightening his features. “I left home when I was sixteen, not entirely by choice. There’s nothing you could tell me about your family that would shock me or make me judge you.”
The sudden eruption of volcanic rage in Dominic’s belly surprised a rumbling growl out of him. “Your parents threw you out of the house when you came out.”
Colby went still, his face still averted. “No. But my father...I couldn’t be who he wanted me to be. And I was afraid if I stayed and kept trying, it would grind me down to nothing. Until I lost myself completely. So I left. My parents didn’t try to stop me.”
Closing his eyes against the burn of recognition, of kinship, Dominic forced himself to admit that Colby’s wound wasn’t exactly the same as his own. But it was close enough that he felt a new bond forming between them, there in the after-hours kitchen where they huddled, literally, in the closet together.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he rasped, meeting Colby’s shadowed gaze when the kid finally looked up again. “I was a bit older than you were when my dad found out. I was twenty-one. He was grooming me to take over running the family restaurant in Paris. He’d been grooming me my whole life, for what he called my birthright, but that didn’t mean it was mine for the asking. I worked for it and he was a demanding taskmaster, but he’d finally decided I was ready.”
Dominic breathed out, caught in the memory of the moment when it all changed. “And then he walked in on me fooling around with another guy, one of the kitchen porters.”
He remembered the searing shock and embarrassment, the scramble to put space between them, the smell of the dank alley behind the restaurant, where he and Alain used to meet for their furtive fumblings. The worst part of the memory, though, was the barely acknowledged relief he’d felt—that his secret was out. No more hiding.
Mouth twisting bitterly, Dominic shook his head. “I thought—maybe it was a good thing. I was always my father’s favorite. I think he saw himself in me, always forgave my mistakes...but he couldn’t forgive this.”
“When you turned out to be your own person instead of just like him, he couldn’t handle it,” Colby said softly, the words hitting Dominic like a pillow to the side of the head.
Colby got it. Their situations weren’t identical, but they’d still found common ground. Dominic took another step onto that ground, testing for quicksand and hoping to find it sturdy beneath his feet. “I didn’t handle it well, either. A switch was flipped—Marc was in and I was out in the cold. My father never shouted at me; I wished he would. He never even looked at me. So I started drinking too much, skipping work and staying out till all hours...and I slept with a lot of women.”
He was watching for Colby’s reaction, which was the only reason Dominic caught the hitch in his breath. Other than that one, tiny, cut-off sound, Colby’s expression never changed from open and accepting. Relieved that he didn’t have to explain his sexuality when he didn’t even completely understand it himself, Dom relaxed a bit.
“Did it work?” Colby asked.
“You mean, did my father take me back into the fold? Or did I start desiring only women and forget that I’d ever been attracted to my own sex?”
Colby shrugged. “Either. Both. Whatever you want to tell me.”
The complete lack of judgment or demand in every line of Colby’s body sent a wash of warmth through Dom’s bones. Here in this small, dark space with this man he barely knew but who knew more of his secrets than anyone alive, Dominic felt safe.
“It was a slow process,” he said hoarsely, his throat swollen nearly shut with an emotion he couldn’t name. “My father began to look at me and speak to me, to include me in the discussions he’d have with Marc about the family restaurant, and I knew that in time, he would forget what he’d
seen. Because he wanted to forget, and it was easier...”
“But you couldn’t forget,” Colby whispered, his eyes gleaming in the shadows. “So you left Paris and came here, to start living your own life. To be yourself.”
Dominic nodded, but the purity of the moment forced him to tell the whole truth. “That’s what I said, what I told Marc yesterday to justify how far we’d grown apart.”
Breakfast with Marc had gone well, even after the shock of running into Colby outside of Maison. Dom had apologized for their rift, but he’d also been firm about not going back to Paris. Marc hadn’t tried to argue with him. They were going to talk some more before Marc went home, but Dom thought his brother probably understood better than anyone how much Dom had needed to strike out on his own.
“It’s what I told myself,” Dom continued. “But it hasn’t worked out exactly like that.”
“Because even though you left your dad and his rules behind, you’ve still stuck to dating women.”
Dom wished he could parse the unhappy tilt to Colby’s lips. “I’ve always liked both. Women and men, but for me, women are easier.”
In the short silence that followed, Dom heard the echo of the accusation he’d leveled against his own father. Something shifted inside his chest.
“Funny,” Colby finally said, breaking the silence with a short laugh. “That’s not what society says, about the differences between men and women. Men are supposed to be less complicated than women.”
Dom ran a hand over his head, grimacing. “Not when you make sure never to see the same woman more than once. When you leave before she wakes up. When you forget her name before you’ve made it back to your apartment because she meant nothing to you.”
He expected Colby to flinch finally, to show some dismay at the cold, callous way Dominic had lived the past decade. Instead, for the first time since he’d started this confession, a hint of a smile brightening Colby’s face. “You never let anyone get close. Everything’s easy if they don’t know you, and you don’t know them.”
Under Her Clothes Page 7
