Finding myself with a few minutes of solace allowed my brain to regain function. I looked in the mirror, almost not recognizing the uninhibited sex goddess looking back at me. What have I become? I knew taking Jesse up on his “offer” wasn’t supposed to be about anything more than sex. And I went into this situation with my eyes wide open, in complete accord with our arrangement, not expecting anything more. At least I understood how he managed to get as many girls as he did. Jesse emitted sex at every turn. I tried to deny his appeal for upwards of an entire year, but I knew all along that sex with him was an inevitability. But the idea that I was just another one of Jesse’s whores kept niggling at the back of my mind, and I wasn’t sure that I liked how it felt.
Then again... maybe we were more than just fuck buddies. It was hard to believe when he said I was the first person to visit his lair, but I got the impression he was telling me the truth.
What did that say about us? We saw each other at work every day, so I guess you could say we’d kind of been friends for the past sixteen months, try as I might to deny it. And now, here we were, getting ready to sit down and share a meal together. Being in his house suddenly felt like we were... dating. What else can you call it?
I WAS QUIET AS I came back out to the kitchen, but Jesse’s busywork kept him from noticing. He plated our steaks as I grabbed the sides, hauling everything to the dining room and depositing the dishes on the table.
I placed my napkin across my lap as Jesse filled my plate. “I’m impressed, Mr. Miller. Everything looks fantastic!”
“It sure does, Ms. Keefe,” he replied through a smirk. I cursed the heat rising in my cheeks as he readied his own plate and took his seat.
I loaded my fork with some salad and took a bite. Delicious. “Are these the heirloom tomatoes?”
“Yep.”
“I’m kind of glad we didn’t defile them this morning. They’re really good!”
“What can I say? Produce is my life. Believe it or not, I do know how to run my business.”
His pronouncement reminded me of our conversation from yesterday. “Yes, you certainly do.” I cleared my throat before steering him back toward the subject of Smoochycakes. “In fact, it would seem you know my business, too.”
Jesse put his fork down and looked at me cautiously. “I wasn’t trying to insult you when I said that, you know.”
“No, I know. I’m actually curious to hear your ideas.”
“Oh, I’ve got ideas, Sugar,” he said, sliding a deadly perusal along my person.
I couldn’t help but snicker. The guy had such a one-track mind. “About the bakery, Jesse.”
He chuckled. “Stef, I already told you. The bakery needs you working your magic in that kitchen. God, the stuff you used to come up with. What were those titty cookies you used to make?”
“Titty cookies?”
“Yeah, the ones that looked like tits. The chocolate ones.”
I started laughing. The “titties” were nothing more than Hershey’s kisses nestled in a chocolate-peanut-butter dough. I guess they did look like boobs. “Do you mean Biddies?”
“Yeah! Those were awesome. Why’d you stop making those?”
Biddies were my grandmother’s recipe. I’d been baking those things my entire life—and they were yummy—so of course I put them on Smoochycakes’ menu. But after I left the kitchen, we had to take them out of the lineup. “I didn’t want to share my grandmother’s secret recipe, so I was the only one who could make them. I guess I just didn’t have the time anymore.”
“Well, there you go. That’s kind of what I was trying to tell you. No one you hire is going to have your passion. You were the one that made everything delicious,” he said, eyeing me appreciatively.
He was right about my “passion.” I did love to bake. Shame that I didn’t get much chance to do so, but that was only because I couldn’t be a baker and a store manager at the same time.
And that was the moment that the answer to my problem suddenly became crystal clear: I’m a baker. I’d been such a control freak about the wrong thing, been delegating the wrong job. It was such a simple solution to hand over the office and take back my kitchen. It was exciting to think about.
I’d already come to the conclusion about what I needed to do, but now I just needed to act. I leaned across the table conspiratorially and winked. “Know anyone who’s good with numbers?”
Jesse smiled, pleased to see that I was taking his advice to heart. “How is it that a beautiful girl like you is still single?”
My brain was already busily figuring out the logistics of revamping my entire business, so his question caught me off guard. I almost choked on my mouthful of steak. I swallowed hard before answering, “Single again, you mean.”
“Uh oh. Sounds like there’s a story there.”
I shrugged, twirling my fork through my mashed potatoes. “Yes, but not a new one, I’m afraid.” When Jesse stayed silent, I added, “Girl meets boy. Girl marries boy. Boy proceeds to fuck everything with a pulse.”
Jesse leaned back in his chair, scrutinizing me. “You’re a woman with a past.”
“Every woman has a past.”
“I’m not interested in other women.”
Ha! Yeah right! “Jesse, I’m perfectly willing to talk about myself, but please don’t pretend that I’m so unique when I do. We both know what your deal is.”
“My deal?”
Talking about my ex reminded me that I was currently sitting across the table from yet another man-whore, and I started to fire up. Would I ever learn? “Yes. Your deal regarding your complete aversion to monogamy.”
“My deal is that you have no idea what you’re talking about. My deal is that I got burned once, too. You don’t hold the patent on broken egos, Stef.”
Interesting that he didn’t say “broken hearts.” Because that was the thing: My ex hadn’t broken my heart. He’d broken my spirit. Jesse was able to recognize that I was a wrecked woman, apparently because he’d been hurt once, too. It was an unspoken ability of damaged people to find each other. It’s like we could sniff out any fellow humans who were also carrying around their own ton of extra baggage. I’d sensed this in Jesse from the start, but never had a serious enough conversation with him in order to explore it.
When I returned nothing but a silent gaze, he explained, “Five years. High school sweethearts. She kept pushing to get engaged; I felt we were too young. Finally had a big blowout about it, where I learned she’d been screwing her boss for the past eight months. They ended up moving to Florida together. I haven’t seen her since. And yeah, it fucking sucked.”
His confession calmed me down a bit, especially once I registered genuine hurt in his eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Misty obviously wasn’t the right girl for me. I’m a one-woman kind of guy and I don’t like to share. I’m sure you think that I’ve just been screwing everything in my path for the past six years to run from my feelings. So, yeah. You want to judge me for going full-slut after that? Go ahead. But you’d be wrong.” His eyebrow dipped as he added, “The fact is, my whoring around had nothing to do with feelings about my ex.”
I didn’t know what he was getting at, but was unsettled by that small taste of his squishy cream filling. I didn’t like to let my guard down when it came to Jesse Miller; it was easier to have a no-strings arrangement when I could think of him as nothing more than my sex-idiot. But there he was, exposing the chink in his armor, reminding me that he was an actual person with actual feelings.
It made me like him even more, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about it.
I bypassed the interrogation and changed the subject instead. “So, um, the steaks are perfect.”
Jesse collected his thoughts in the extra beat it took for him to respond. “Thanks. I can only take so much credit. Pete’s the one who suggested this cut.”
“Who’s Pete?”
“The new guy. Runs the butcher shop a few stores down. You haven’t met him yet?”
/> My eyes tightened as I tried to place him. “He the scruffy hottie with the shaggy hair?”
Jesse lowered a brow in my direction. “Don’t test me.”
His reaction caught me by surprise. I tried not to laugh as I sputtered out, “Holy crap. Are you jealous?”
“Not hardly.”
Regardless of what Jesse said, I could tell that he was full of it. His envious response had me revisiting the questions I’d been asking myself earlier. “Hey Jesse?” I started in cautiously. “What exactly is this?”
Jesse stopped chewing, looking at me as if I’d grown a second head. “Dinner.”
“No. I meant what are we doing? What is this?” I asked, motioning my finger between him and me.
Jesse’s head dropped as his shoulders sank. He mumbled to his plate, but I was still able to make out his words: “Twenty. Four. Hours.”
“Huh?”
He looked up to meet my eyes, a smarmy tone in his voice as he answered, “Congratulations. That’s a new record.”
“What is? What are you talking about?”
Jesse put down his fork and leaned back in his chair, eyeing me impatiently. “Stef. We’ve been fucking for exactly one day and you’re already asking me relationship questions?”
“Oh my God, no! I didn’t mean—”
“Sure as hell sounds like it.”
Of course it sounded like I was fishing for a label. But only because he’d been throwing out mixed signals since Day One. “I was just wondering, I mean, I thought we were just going to be having lots of crazy sex. But now we’re talking about our personal lives... with steaks on our plates... dessert waiting for us... This just seems an awful lot like a date.”
“I like you, I like to eat, and I like to fuck. That’s all there is to it. If you’ve got a problem with any of those things, the door’s right there.”
I couldn’t get a read on his tone. It was as if his words and his voice didn’t align. Was this another test? “What a douchey thing to say.”
“Pardon?”
“Douchey. As in, spoken like a douchebag.”
“Well,” he said menacingly, “since you think I’m such a douche, what the hell are you still doing here?”
Not one minute ago, I was getting all melty and gooey from seeing his vulnerable side. The dude could be hella charming when he really wanted to be.
He could also be blunt and insulting.
I stood up, slapping my napkin to the table as I spat out, “It’s been a fabulous night, but I really ought to be going.”
Jesse almost knocked over his chair in his dash to the front door. He whipped it open and gave an intimation of a stately bow. “But of course, madame. And make a point to lose my address, will ya?”
“Gladly!” I started to stomp out of the room when I saw my lemon chiffon sitting on the serving buffet. Fuck him if he thinks he’ll ever get a taste of my “goodies” ever again. “And I’m taking my cake with me, asshole!”
I grabbed the platter off the server with all intentions of going home, planting my ass on my couch with a fork, and eating the whole thing by myself. He didn’t deserve any of it.
On second thought...
Before I was fully aware of what I was doing... I smashed the thing right into his smarmy face.
We both froze in that second, the two of us in disbelief about what I’d just done. The aluminum platter fell to the floor along with the bulk of the mashed cake as Jesse wiped a sizable chunk of it off his face. And then his fingers swiped across his eyes to reveal two malicious chips of brimstone, staring me down in a lethal glare.
Oh shit!
I figured I’d better make a run for it. But before I could, Jesse squished a cake-covered hand into my hair.
“You bastard!” I spat, as bits of lemon custard dripped down my face.
Jesse looked rather pleased with himself as he flicked his other hand in my general direction, landing a splat of gooey frosting against my middle.
I had cake dripping into my eyes, but for some reason, it was that splotch on my new white dress that made me snap.
My hand sliced through the air on its own, itching to make contact with his smirking face. But it was stopped on its way to its intended target when Jesse grabbed my wrist in a sticky vice. His hand tightened as we stared each other down—our teeth bared, our chests heaving—until I caught a glimmer of mischief behind those topaz orbs. He was enjoying this!
My brain was a frantic jumble, trying to come up with a scathing remark... when I suddenly found myself slamming against his body and crashing our lips together.
Lemon custard smushed between us as our mouths clashed viciously. Angel food and buttercream squished between my fingers as my hands knotted into his hair. Jesse’s frosting-covered hand grabbed at my breast as his other palm smeared up my thigh, palming my ass and pulling me into direct contact with his hardening cock.
I was breathless and infuriated and completely covered in decimated baked goods.
Oh, and also... incredibly turned on.
I dropped to my knees and undid his zipper, pulling him out and coating his thick cock with frosting from my hand before sliding my mouth over him. I licked his girth clean, sucking every trace of buttercream from his sweet stick.
“Does it taste good?” he asked. “You like to lick my cock?”
I moaned around it, answering, “Mm hmm.”
He dropped to the floor over of the cake mess and pulled me on top of his body to straddle him. My knees squished into the slippery goo as I stripped off his sticky shirt and smeared it across his chest, finger-painting his beautiful bumpy abs with pulverized cake before dropping my head to lick it off.
My mouth moved back to his as my silky panties rubbed against his bare cock, and Jesse grasped my hips to increase the friction, aggressively rocking himself into me.
There was a tortuous rumble vibrating in his chest as he bit my bottom lip, gave me a sharp smack against my ass, and announced, “My turn, Sugar. I want to suck your tits.”
He rolled us both over and pulled my dress over my head, grabbed a handful of cake from the abandoned platter and slapped it to my chest before licking the frosting from my breasts.
It felt naughty and delightful, but I wasn’t able to get caught up in the ministrations of his talented tongue. Angry fucks were great, but wouldn’t change the fact that we still had some stuff to sort out.
“Hey Jesse?” I asked warily. “I think maybe we should talk first.”
He popped his mouth off my nipple and traced a finger around its rim. “About what?”
“About the fact that you were a bit of a dick.”
He stopped and met my eyes. “I know. I’m sorry. I get a little defensive whenever it comes to relationship talk.”
“I wasn’t trying to get you to declare your intentions or—”
“I know you weren’t. I freaked out anyway.”
“I get it. I appreciate the explanation. And truly, I’m sorry, too.”
His lip curled into a roguish grin as his eyes tightened on mine, teasing. He planted a quick suction-kiss on my boob before changing the subject. “Mmm. I think I need to get you in the shower.”
“Yes, please!”
We were chuckling as he stood and hauled me to my feet, allowing me to assess the damage. We were both covered in cake and his floor was a disaster. Thank God for tile.
I grimaced at my once-beautiful work of art, now an unrecognizable smush. “I worked hard on that, dammit.” I gestured a hand along my body from head to toe as I added, “On this, too, for that matter.”
Jesse led me down the hall, shooting a deadly grin over his shoulder as he slithered, “And. Both. Were. Delicious.”
JESSE’S BATHROOM WAS PRETTY huge, decorated in dark gray marble. A large, glass-enclosed shower area took over a sizeable portion of the far wall, and it was there that we stripped off the last of our sticky clothes.
Jesse ran the water, and it spewed from all directions, quickly stea
ming the glass. He ran a finger across my collarbone, swiping a smudge of buttercream off my skin and placing it on his tongue. “Just one last taste...”
He slipped an arm around my waist and pulled our naked bodies together to brand his mouth to mine, walking me backwards into the shower stall. My back pressed against the cool tile wall as he kissed me into oblivion, the hot water saturating every inch of my skin.
I was starting to get a little too used to this.
Just the mere proximity of Jesse Miller was enough to get my heart racing; a simple kiss was enough to throw my entire world into a tailspin. I’d never experienced anything like this. I knew our “relationship” wasn’t supposed to be about anything more than sex, but when he held me like this—with his arms wrapped around me so tight, sending warmth across my skin—it was hard to remember I wasn’t supposed to be falling in love with him.
At least now I knew better than to try and tell him that, however.
He separated our lips and turned me toward a spray of water, allowing me to rinse my body from head to toe. Jesse deposited a dollop of shampoo into his palm and massaged it into my hair, working his fingers across my scalp with intimate care, and I leaned back against him, purring like a kitten. “Mmm. That feels amazing,” I mewled, closing my eyes and getting lost in his pampering.
“Oh yeah?” he snickered. “Just wait until I start in with the soap.”
I giggled as I turned to face him, dipping my head back into the flow of water and rinsing the suds from my hair. I don’t want to overhype the situation or anything, but I totally porned it up. How often would I ever find myself in the position to put on a sex show? I closed my eyes and tipped my head back, lifting my arms to swipe the hair from my face, jutting my chest toward Jesse, the suds slipping between my tits.
He took the bait, grasping my breasts in his hands and closing his mouth over one of them. The water rushed over us both, and let me tell you, the showerhead wasn’t the only thing hot and dripping at that moment.
Jesse kissed his way over my shoulder, stepping behind me, cupping my tits in his hands as he sucked at my neck, peppering hot kisses across my skin. I reached behind me to pull his head in closer as his hips pressed into my backside, his hot, hard dick sliding along the crack of my ass.
Food Fight - Final Page 5
