by Camryn Rhys
“That was vague.” Leo leaned against the kitchen door, the stretch making his body look even more appetizing, as it lengthened his tight abdomen and drew her attention to the position of his hips.
“It was a private call.”
He crossed the kitchen, pausing at the sink to wash his hands. “You sound like a woman who doesn’t know what she wants.”
“I know exactly what I want.”
“Do you?”
“I do.”
Leo smoothed his hands on his jeans in slow, languid movements. His mouth twitched into a smile when she met his eyes after watching those hands skirt dangerously close to the crotch of his Wranglers. Shit. He liked that this bothered her, maybe a little too much. “Let’s get this bread into rolls.”
He reached just over her shoulder for the bowl they’d put in the window. His body crowded hers against the counter. The long, hard length of him covering her made her gasp. Leo froze.
The bowl was in midair; she was half-pressed between him and the warm sun, and she could feel that warm something unfurling between her legs.
And he wanted her. He’d gotten hard practically as soon as the air rushed past her lips. Just the thought that she could make him hard made her dizzy. The muscles deep inside her actually squeezed.
Leo backed away, the bowl in his hands. “I’m sorry, Min. I just…I can’t control the…I’m sorry.”
The outline of his erection strained against his tight pants. Part of her wanted to drop to her knees and worship it with her mouth. To wrap her legs around him and plunge it inside her.
Just sex.
That was the only way she could think about it. They were like animals, in their lust, and they needed to slake it. Otherwise, if they got into feelings and hearts and futures, it was just too complicated. And Mindy didn’t do complicated anymore.
He glanced at the front of his pants and colored. She’d never seen Leo blush before, but it was really beautiful—a deep, dark mahogany color that spiraled through his face in patches.
“It’s okay, Leo. I want you, too. You just can’t see it.”
His eyes traveled down her body and rested on her chest. “I can see it.”
Self-consciously, she grabbed her breasts and felt the pebbles underneath her bra and shirt. Leo hissed and closed his eyes.
“Do not do that, Min. Please, God, don’t do that.”
She looked down at her hands, cupping her small-ish breasts, pressing them up into her ribcage. It wasn’t a sexual movement, but obviously, Leo wasn’t being discriminating at this moment. So she released them.
His gaze didn’t move from her breasts, and they tightened under his watchful eyes. The charge in the air left her without breath. All she could do was picture Leo stretching across the counter, and her jockeying his hips like a bronco rider at the rodeo.
If he was having similar fantasies, he didn’t let on. “Can we just make these rolls so they can rise? Then I’ll get out of your hair, and we can both walk this off?”
“Do you have to be here while I do it?”
He laughed. “No, you’re right, I don’t. I’ll just…let me do one, and then you can do the rest by yourself.”
Leo walked around the edge of the kitchen, careful to keep his distance from her. He pulled one of the flat cookie sheets from under the counter and took a paper towel from the roller next to the sink.
“You want to make sure to grease these pans. Dad probably would prefer butter, but I think lard works the best.”
Mindy resisted the urge to ask if his mother taught him that. Last time, he’d shut down so quickly after she mentioned May. And she was secretly hoping that his lust wouldn’t abate, and he’d just throw her up against the counter and pound into her.
She could use a good pounding.
“Wait! Pounding. Aren’t we supposed to pound them down first?”
“Who said…pounding?” Leo’s eyes almost glazed over.
“No one…I just. Never mind, I thought we were supposed to pound them.”
“You mean ‘knead’ them?”
“Sure, Leo, I mean knead. Isn’t it all the same?”
He narrowed his eyes on her, then turned so that his erection was hidden by the angle of his body against the counter. But hiding it didn’t help her forget it. “You know it’s not the same, Mindy. Are you trying to blue-ball me?”
She laughed. If he could see inside her mind right now, he would know what she was trying to do to him. And he might not like it.
But she was pretty sure she would.
Chapter Four
“Dad just radioed in. Said he wants dinner brought out to them.”
Mindy finally looked at him. His dark eyes shot desire straight through her, but the wrinkled frustration on his face made his choice as evident as if he’d spoken it.
The last time he’d been in close proximity, she’d felt how much he wanted her. And how much she wanted him. But rules were rules, and as much as it frustrated both of them, this was the best decision.
“What’s he expecting for dinner then?” Conscious of every move she made, Mindy attempted an arm-cross that covered her small breasts instead of accentuating them. But Leo wasn’t looking anyway.
“Something that doesn’t suck would be my guess. Sandwiches?”
She eyed the stove, where the beginnings of a stew had been cooking since Leo left her to mold the rolls. “I’d started dinner already.” Mindy gestured to the covered cookie sheets strewn around the kitchen. “And it’ll take another hour for me to finish all this.”
Leo turned for the door, rubbing a big, thick hand across his jaw. “Well, I can go out and find something to do until you’re ready. I’m sure Dad will be fine.”
“Actually, if you don’t mind…” She took a few steps toward him, thinking of grabbing his retreating arm, then stopped. Touching wouldn’t lead to any thing productive. “I mean, I could use the help if you could stay.”
His shoulders rolled and he expelled a deep breath. “I thought we decided—”
“You decided.” She lowered her eyelids and peered at him, pointedly. “I always wanted you to stay.”
“My dad never makes rules without intending to enforce them.”
“I just need help making the stew, Leo. I’m not going to take my clothes off.”
His generous lips rolled into a smile. “How can I help, then?”
Too bad he only smiled when she offered not to disrobe. He should do that more often. She put him to work on the potatoes while she searched the kitchen for sandwich makings. Leo ditched the peeler she’d given him and reached into his back pocket. When he pulled out his pocket knife, Mindy cocked her head.
“What are you doing?”
He put his thumb on the edge of a blade and pried it up. He settled the knife in his right hand, a potato in his left, and started to cut the skin away in one long strip. “Peeling potatoes.”
“You can’t do it with a peeler like the rest of us?”
Although his concentration was obviously on the sharp blade in his hand, he managed to smirk at her without meeting her eyes. “You have your ways, I have mine.”
Still, something about the movement of his reaching into his pocket and retrieving a carving tool thrilled her. It felt primal, earthy. Like men had been doing it for millions of years in exactly the same fashion.
Like sex. Get a grip, girl. Your job is on the line. She busied herself with finding baggies, counting them out into piles, two for each man, including her and Leo. Then she filled one of each of the bags with potato chips and gathered all the baggies into a pile.
“You’re doing it the hard way, Min.” Leo had a puzzled look on his face when she met his gaze. He pointed to the bags. “You could just bring the big bag and we can all share.”
“You have your ways, I have mine.”
He laughed. “You do like to twist my words back on me, don’t you?”
Ignoring his baiting, she pulled one of the white towels off a pan of
readying buns and waved them in front of Leo. “Do these look ready?”
“Do you have the oven pre-heated?”
“You said to leave it heating and put the buns on top so they’d rise faster.”
Leo chuckled . “I’m surprised you listened to me.”
“Well, I don’t want to lose my job.” She waved the pan again. The little white balls had almost tripled in size since she put them under the cloth over an hour previous. “So, are they ready?”
He nodded slowly, surveying the lot with careful attention. His gaze traveled to her hand, up her arm, then lingered on her chest and at last made it to her face. “Looks perfect to me.”
The heat from the oven as she put the first tray in wasn’t even close to the heat that roiled inside her at his comment. The man couldn’t make up his mind. Well, truth be told, neither could she. As much as she wanted to keep her job, Leo was looking more and more appetizing.
All he’d need to do would be pull another knife out of his pocket, and she’d be about ready to knock herself over the head with a big stick and let him drag her off to his cave and have his way with her. And then she could have her way with him.
Or maybe she’d have her way with him first.
Either way, there would be having. And much of it. Probably a lot of coming, too. And having, and coming.
God, it was hot in that kitchen.
***
Mindy stood in front of the oven, fanning herself and watching the buns bake. It provided him with a delicious view of her backside. And the fact that she regularly bent over to look into the oven didn’t help the already tight confines of his pants. She had no interest in making this easy on him.
“You know what they say about a watched pot, Min?” His voice was lower, huskier than he meant it to be.
“I don’t think it’s the same with bread.” She pointed to the oven window, bending deeper. The jean shorts rode up the backs of her thighs, perching just high enough that he knew what they were hiding, but low enough that her tan lines weren’t even showing yet. “I can see them getting brown on top.”
“Still, you don’t have to watch.”
Mindy stood, the globes of her butt shaking a little with the quick movement. It was almost like she knew her ass provided an enticing target for his lapsing attention.
“I just want them to be done.”
Leo concentrated hard on the last potato, peeling the last of the brown skin off in one long strip. “We both want to be done.”
“You don’t like spending time with me?” Her voice had that innocent-but-not-quite-innocent quality to it, as though she knew perfectly well why he wanted to be done, but wanted him to say it.
If he’d looked up at that moment, she might even have had a little pink finger at the side of her mouth, and those big blue eyes open wide, mocking his pain. That would have sent him over the edge.
“You don’t have anything better to do?” he finally said.
She crossed the kitchen to stand beside him and the sheer physical presence of her was like a magnet for his sight.
He placed the peel on the pile with the others and slid the white potato into the water. The plop it made when it settled into the liquid was almost as loud as the thudding of his heart with Mindy so near.
She leaned over him. “I could help you.”
“I’m finished.” He pressed the blade against his jeans, cleaning the potato juice from it, then flipped it over and repeated the movement.
Her eyes followed his hand. She was weirdly obsessed with that knife. With a quick flick of his wrist, he sheathed the blade and slipped it into his pocket.
The pocket not far from his growing erection.
Leo shifted uncomfortably in his seat as she reached for one of the potatoes, her other hand on his shoulder. Mindy examined the white globe, turning it nimbly in her fingers and keeping her body close to his.
“I can’t believe how smooth this is, Leo. You’re a little too good at this.”
“Of course I’m good at it, I used to do it every day.”
“You were in the army?”
Leo chuckled. “No, I was the cook here, after Aunt Linda moved to Denver.” He swallowed as she put the potato back. “Before you.”
Her high, tight little breasts hovered inches from his chin. He could easily have dipped his head and made her right nipple his chew toy. The very thought of having her breasts in his mouth again made the blood flow even faster to a certain rapidly hardening organ in his crotch.
It didn’t even have a mind of its own this time. Nope. This time, he was ready. Desire clustered in his throat. He tried to swallow it away, but it wouldn’t move.
Mindy rubbed her fingers together, the potato water coating them, making them look pinker than they were. She looked down at her trendy, fitted pink shirt, then to his grease-stained T-shirt. With unbelievable slowness, she reached for him.
He had no idea what she was about to do, but he was ready for whatever she planned. This was enough. His dad be damned. He wanted to be with Mindy again, and she wanted to be with him.
Leo gasped as her hand made contact with his shirted chest. The wetness on her fingers seeped through the thin cotton and onto his skin, mirroring the spreading warmth underneath. But instead of fisting his shirt and pulling him toward her, as he fantasized she would, she benignly wiped her hand clean of the water.
Leo groaned. “God, Min.” The rhythmic motion of her hand rubbing his chest sent shocks of anticipation through his body. If he didn’t kiss her now…
The friction stopped and she met his gaze. Her blue eyes widened into two pools of recognition and desire. “I’m sorry, Leo,” she whispered.
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her down to him. “I’m not.”
Her lips were tight at first, almost unyielding as he met them with his own. She made a tiny sound of struggle in the back of her throat, but the vibration against his own heated breath was more encouragement than deterrent. When he released her wrist and wrapped his arms around her, a tiny sigh escaped her lips.
This was all the encouragement he needed. He grazed his tongue against her partly opened mouth. Her arms snaked underneath his and her palms pressed to his back, bringing his body flush against hers.
When her nipples grazed against his chest, her mouth opened wider and she whimpered, an invitation for him to go even deeper. This was just how he remembered her. Hot, insistent, almost wanton. He was harder for her than he had been for anyone else, before or since. And he wanted her more than he had even the first time.
Mindy’s tight little ass wriggled in his lap, providing the most exquisite jolt through his cock. If she moved against him like that any longer, things were gonna get a whole lot messier.
Chemistry hadn’t abandoned them. Just the pressure of her body on his, the feel of her lips against his, he wanted to part those sweet little legs and burrow deep inside her.
Consequences be damned.
Chapter Five
Mindy loved the way Leo groaned when she pressed herself into his erection. It reminded her of the first time they were together, when she’d teased him about being a screamer. She’d been waiting all these years for another screamer, and finally found one again.
The fabric of her jean shorts started to feel wet, which made that itch come back again. It was worse than it had ever been.
Just need to get laid, Min. That’s all. Well, if they were gonna do this, it’d better be now, while she knew the rest of the men would be gone.
Without breaking the deep, searching kiss, Mindy reached between them and pulled up Leo’s T-shirt, purposefully scraping her nails across his chest as she did.
“I know you want me, Leo,” she said into his mouth, as he paused to breathe. His hands left her back and stopped her progress with his shirt.
“Doesn’t take a rocket scientist, Min.”
In her deepest, most sultry voice, she said, “You’re hard for me.” When he stopped pushing at her, she moaned, “
Please.”
He pulled his head back, meeting her eyes. “You know what my dad said. He’ll fire both of us.”
“This isn’t fraternizing.” She placed an open-mouthed kiss on his stubbled neck, loving the scrape of his whiskers. “We’re just friends.” She kissed his jaw, near his ear, then whispered, “And we’re only going to do it once.”
“I can’t do this at all.” Leo pushed at her hands again.
Instead of fighting him, Mindy released his T-shirt and went for the button of his Wranglers. “I need this as much as you do, Leo. Please.”
His hesitation told her he warred between doing the right thing by his dad and doing what he wanted. Right now, she only cared that he wanted her.
She pressed her body into his, keeping her hand on the button of his pants and sidling into his neck so that her head was next to his. She wanted to remind him of how perfectly they fit, almost like they were made for each other. Her knuckles grazed her sensitive clitoris as she stroked against him, moving her hand lower.
Mindy rotated her pelvis against her hand, groaning into his neck. The smell of his skin, the smell of hot bread, and the smell of their arousal tangled in her nostrils and sent a shiver through her. Leo was assault enough on her senses, but being in the kitchen, with the bread baking, it was like a full-out war, driving her appetites mad.
“I want you inside me,” she whispered.
From somewhere deep inside him, a roar erupted. Almost caveman-esque. He grasped her shoulders and wrenched her mouth toward his, frenzied and wild. She smiled into his ravaging kiss.
One of her hands slipped into the feathery hair at the nape of his neck, and the other started unbuttoning his pants. Then undid his zipper. And instead of pulling off his pants, she reached into the waistband of his boxers and put her hand around his cock.
