by Nicola Marsh
I couldn’t help it. Remembering the soft curve of her cheeks. The way they felt beneath my hands. How she’d squealed when I’d bitten her.
She paused at the door to the storeroom and glanced over her shoulder.
Damn, sprung, as I dragged my gaze upward but not fast enough.
With a raised eyebrow, she said, ‘If your foul mood is a result of what happened between us and you’re feeling awkward, forget it.’ Her gaze turned glacial. ‘I have.’
I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d flipped me the bird as she stalked into the storeroom and slammed the door.
‘Fuck.’ I dragged a hand through my hair and resisted the urge to kick the nearest counter.
I should leave her to her snit in peace. But that was the thing about never backing down; I couldn’t stop my feet from following her even if I wanted to. And I didn’t. I wanted her to take back that last remark.
She hadn’t forgotten our steamy encounter any more than I had. So she must’ve thrown it out there in hurt.
And I hadn’t wanted to hurt her.
I’d apologise for acting like a jackass. Smooth the way towards a better working relationship. Yeah, that was the plan.
A plan that imploded the moment I entered the storeroom and saw her braced against a table, chest heaving, eyes flashing, chin tilted up in defiance.
‘Get out,’ she yelled, her hands balling into fists, and she thumped the table.
In response, I kicked the door shut.
Locked it.
‘Don’t you dare come near me,’ she said, not moving a muscle as I advanced on her. She squared her shoulders the closer I got, staring me down. Even when we stood almost toe to toe, she didn’t flinch. ‘You’re a boorish, idiotic, moody—’
My mouth slammed onto hers. Our teeth clashed a little, our noses bumped. A disastrous kiss from an experienced guy like me but I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but savouring the sweetness of her mouth again. Taunting her tongue to match mine. Exploring the crevices of her mouth like I’d never get enough.
Her hands clutched at my shirt, like she wanted to push me away. She hauled me closer, clawing at the cotton, wanting skin.
I knew the feeling.
At my apartment two nights ago, I’d worshipped her body. Taken my time. A leisurely exploration that had imprinted on my brain. Every dip and curve. Every ticklish spot. Every erogenous inch that I’d licked and stroked and caressed until she’d been mindless with want.
Now there was no time for finesse.
‘Hurry up,’ she growled in my ear, nipping at the tender skin below it, her teeth grazing my skin with short, sharp nibbles before she licked her way along my jaw towards my mouth.
Sensual Abby was back and I couldn’t be happier.
I made short work of her zipper. Pushed her panties down. And slid my finger into moist heat.
‘More,’ she murmured, and I was only too happy to acquiesce to her demand.
I fished a condom out of my wallet, unzipped and sheathed myself in record time.
I had to be inside her. Now.
With her pants around her ankles, I couldn’t spread her legs wide so I spun her around and bent her over the table.
Exposing that gorgeous ass.
‘You like doing it doggy style, don’t you?’ I slid a hand around the front, fingering her clit as I nudged at her slick folds. ‘Two times the other night.’
‘Too much talking.’ She glanced over her shoulder, her eyes flashing indigo fire, taunting me.
I entered her in a smooth thrust that made her gasp.
‘Better?’ I whispered, leaning over her, making our fit even snugger.
She moaned in response and wiggled her ass.
She wanted more? I’d give it to her.
I slid in and out. Slow at first. Wanting to drive her as mad as she drove me. But I couldn’t hang on. Not when I’d been fantasising about this for the last two days. Not when she felt better than I remembered.
My cock pulsed with every thrust, the pressure building, and my finger picked up tempo on her clit until she was pushing back at me as hard as I was pushing into her.
‘So good...’ She stiffened, a moment before she let out a long, satisfied groan, as her pussy clenched around me.
I came so hard I saw spots.
This time, when she glanced over her shoulder at me, her smile was smug. Satisfied. I knew the feeling.
‘Hope that puts you in a better mood,’ she said, straightening a little so I had no option but to pull out and take care of business.
‘We shouldn’t have done that.’
I knew it had been the wrong thing to say when her face fell, but she masked it quickly with a fake smile I was growing to hate.
‘Seems like we shouldn’t do a lot of things that are bad for us, like eating leftover croissants, but we do it anyway.’
She sounded flippant but I heard the hurt lacing her words.
Damn, I’d done it again. Caused her pain when it was never my intention.
‘Look, we need to talk this out—’
‘From where I’m standing, there wasn’t much talking involved, just the way I wanted it.’ She pulled up her pants and zipped up, elegant and nonchalant, whereas I felt gauche doing the same thing. ‘We don’t need to talk about anything.’
She spun away from me and I grabbed her hand, tugging her back to face me. ‘I’ve handled this badly and I’m sorry. But we do have to work this out, Abby, otherwise it’s going to be a tough few weeks.’
To her credit, she eyeballed me, trying to stare me down. ‘What are you really sorry for? Being a douche the whole day or not being able to keep your hands off me?’
She packed a punch. I liked that. Liked straight shooting.
‘Both.’
To my relief, I saw the corners of her mouth twitch. A mouth I remembered doing wicked things to me a few nights ago and just like that I was hard again, ready and raring to go.
‘You don’t have to apologise for the...sex.’ Damn, she was cute when she blushed. ‘I like it. In fact, I think we should keep doing it.’
‘Pardon me?’
I could’ve sworn she’d just said we should keep having sex. Nice in practice, terrible in theory.
‘A fling. Short term. No strings.’ She eased her hand out of mine before I could react. ‘It’ll be good for me. Purging my past once and for all.’
Bitterness made my jaw clench. So that was all I was. A fuckable solution to her yearlong celibacy. A way to get back on the proverbial horse. I should be flattered. Instead, all I could think was how I’d never been good enough growing up and I wasn’t good enough now for anything more than a short-term fling.
Every guy’s dream, having a woman articulate no-strings sex. In reality, how often did it turn out that way? Women tended to want more. More emotion. More commitment. More.
But Abby seemed different. She hadn’t been mooning around all day. She’d been nonchalant. All business. Like she didn’t give a shit I’d been a grouchy ogre determined to keep her at bay.
So maybe she meant it when she said a no-strings fling. I should be ecstatic. Instead, I couldn’t help but feel like yet again I’d come up short somehow. A hollow, empty feeling I’d spent years trying to conquer courtesy of dear old Dad’s shabby treatment.
‘So I’d be your walk on the wild side? Slumming it before you head back to the real world?’
Guilt shifted in her gaze before she shook her head. ‘We’re very different, so, yeah, part of the appeal is that bad-boy edge you’ve got going on. But I like you.’ Her blush was back, staining her cheeks a vivid pink. ‘I never knew sex could be that good, so call me greedy but I want more.’
Defiant, she took a step towards me and placed her hand on my chest. ‘A lot more.’
I grit
ted my teeth against the urge to bend her over the table again. ‘Just sex. No muss, no fuss?’
‘I’m not a muss, fuss kind of girl.’ She lowered her hand, using it to gesture around the storeroom. ‘This place is my life. I want to complete my apprenticeship, become fully qualified, gain as much experience as I can with your brother, save like the devil and hopefully have my own patisserie one day. So you and me? A side benefit I’d never anticipated, but no way would I let it interfere with my dream.’
‘Fair enough.’
She’d said all the right things. Talked the talk. But when it came to ending things, would she walk the walk?
‘What about Remy?’
Confusion creased her brow. ‘What about him?’
‘My brother will bust my balls for tangling with you.’
‘Does he have to know?’
‘We don’t bullshit each other. He’s always had my back and I owe him.’
Damn, why had I spilled that? I should keep my distance. Sex, I could handle, but there was something about Abby that snuck beneath my defences and made me want to confide. Disconcerting when I’d never told anyone the truth, not even Remy.
Another side effect of putting up with Dad’s shit for so long: I was ashamed. Ashamed of who I was around him, ashamed of the years I’d tolerated his crap, ashamed at the possibility of anyone ever finding out how much of a goddamn coward I’d been.
‘I admire your loyalty.’ She tilted her head, studying me with that penetrating stare that made me squirm a little. ‘Family should stick together.’
The slight quiver in her voice, underlined with a healthy dose of vulnerability, slayed me. ‘What about you? Any siblings?’
‘No.’
One syllable laced with unspoken pain.
‘Hence my parents’ high expectations of me. Which also explains why they cut me off the first and only time I went against their wishes.’ Her harsh laugh was devoid of amusement. ‘Didn’t matter that I didn’t want a princess party as a ten-year-old. Or a formal ball for my sixteenth. Or to do a business degree.’ Her breath hitched. ‘Or to marry a guy more a friend at twenty-one. I always did the right thing. The expected thing. Until I walked away.’
She cleared her throat. ‘I envy you your bond with Remy.’
‘Don’t ever envy me,’ I said, sounding gruff. ‘Remy and I are close from necessity.’
Curiosity sparked her eyes. ‘What does that mean?’
Shit. There I went again, giving away too much.
‘Nothing.’ I made a big show of glancing at my watch. ‘We need to get back out there.’
Other women would’ve badgered me for answers. Thankfully, Abby had more class. Or she really was serious about keeping things between us strictly physical.
‘You’re right.’ She hesitated, a shy smile making something in my chest twang. ‘After we finish work, do you want to come up to my apartment? I make a mean fettuccini carbonara.’
I should say no. Because Abby wasn’t just inviting me up for pasta and we both knew it. But she’d been honest in asking for what she wanted, blunt in outlining the terms. Considering how much of a jackass I’d been today, dealing with my rampaging lust for her and not being able to have her, I’d be better off agreeing to her very adult arrangement than having another few frustration-filled weeks.
‘I am partial to pasta.’ I stepped in close and rested my hand on her waist, my thumb strumming the sliver of bare skin beneath her pants and shirt. ‘And you.’
‘Good. Glad that’s settled.’ She kissed me on the cheek, a surprisingly sweet gesture that made my chest tighten again.
But as I unlocked the door and followed her back to the kitchen, I knew deep down that things between us were far from settled.
It scared the crap out of me.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Abby
THIS WAS CRAZY.
I wanted this.
I asked for it.
But as I flitted around the kitchen, ensuring the pasta had cooked al dente, grating Parmesan into a bowl and uncorking a Riesling, I knew that no matter how nonchalant I acted about inviting a gorgeous guy up to my apartment, inside I was a hot mess.
Tanner had agreed to a fling.
My ovaries were still leaping at the thought two hours later. Then he’d gone and revealed snippets of his past and I’d moved from viewing him as a fine piece of ass to a guy with a soul.
Okay, so that sounded shallow. I’d already known he had deeper layers behind that tattooed front, but when he’d told me about him and Remy being close out of necessity...the pain lacing his voice had slain me.
I’d wanted to wrap my arms around him, to offer comfort I had no right giving. But I’d seen the inner war he waged reflected in his eyes, a kind of personal agony I had no hope of understanding. So I’d changed the subject. Gone back to work. And begged off thirty minutes early to shower and get dinner prepped.
I hadn’t dated as a teen. Bardley had been my first in every way: first boyfriend, first lover, first partner I’d lived with. He hadn’t appreciated my cooking, had always mocked my ‘homebody tendencies’. He’d preferred to eat out at Sydney’s finest restaurants, or get high-end catering in. So after the first week of married life I’d given up in the kitchen and grown increasingly despondent because of it.
Whenever I’d been unable to stay away from the kitchen and indulged my penchant for baking, he’d made snide comments and warned me not to eat any of that ‘carb-filled crap’ in case I got fat.
I should’ve bashed him over the head with a skillet when I had the chance.
I’d never really had the pleasure of cooking for a guy I fancied before: a guy who’d want me for dessert rather than the lemon tartlets I’d snaffled from downstairs. In fact, as I dished up the pasta and laid the large serving platter on the table, arranging the salad and Parmesan around it, I wondered if we’d even make it through the main course.
What had happened in the storeroom...indicative of why I’d proposed this fling in the first place. We’d been dancing around each other all day and I’d known his foul mood had been more to do with himself trying to maintain his distance than anything else.
So I’d challenged him, hoping he’d snap. Because working alongside Tanner after that sizzling night we’d spent together was pure torture. Having him brush past me, inhaling his manly scent tinged with citrus, feeling the heat radiating off him, watching those strong hands wrangling a dodgy oven door... I’d been hyperaware of him all day.
And craving him like I’d never craved anything in my entire life.
I’d never been the type of person to want things. I guess having everything I ever needed handed to me on a silver platter did that to a girl. I’d taken it for granted, being spoiled and indulged, even if I didn’t ask for it.
So wanting Tanner with every cell in my body was new and I’d handled it as best I could: by throwing myself into work and baking like a maniac. Fulfilling every order for the day and then some, Le Miel’s front display overflowing with my signature almond croissants, bugnes and chaussons aux pommes.
We’d sold out as usual, rarely able to keep up with demand, but today we’d only turned away two people near closing rather than the usual thirty. I’d been high on my success of coping without Remy when Tanner had taunted me, spoiling for a fight. So I’d given him one. Knowing he wouldn’t back down and would follow me into the storeroom. Where he’d snapped.
I throbbed at the memory, pressed my hands between my legs to stem the insistent wanting. It didn’t work and I knew that when he knocked on the door at any moment, I’d probably launch myself at him.
That was the thing with having average, infrequent sex. When you got the real thing, you were insatiable. We’d done it five times that night we’d spent together, and once today, yet having him inside me was all I could think about. Fantasisin
g about the next time. And the time after that.
I’d turned into a man.
A loud knock made me jump and my palms instantly grew clammy. I swiped them down the sides of the simple cotton dress I’d changed into, wiggled my fingers and shook my arms out. Like a prize fighter warming up for a strenuous bout.
A bout of steamy, sizzling sex, if I had my way.
Anticipation made my body zing as I took my time answering the door.
Yeah, like playing hard to get would work now.
When I opened it, my breath caught. He’d ditched the long-sleeve shirt he’d been working in all day and wore a fitted white T-shirt that outlined every ridge of his muscular body. I could see the faintest outline of the tattoos beneath, tattoos I’d barely studied and wanted to learn in intricate detail. His shoulders stretched the cotton and, with his hands thrust into his pockets, his biceps bulged nicely.
I tried not to stare. It wasn’t polite. But as I started at his broad shoulders and worked my way down, I couldn’t look away. When I reached his jeans’ pockets, and noted the sizeable bulge between, my mouth went dry.
I swallowed, trying to think of something witty to say, something that didn’t sound like, ‘Take me now.’
‘Something smells good,’ he said, stepping forward to fill my doorway when all I could think about was him filling me. He lowered his head to brush a barely there kiss on my cheek. ‘The pasta too.’
‘Come in,’ I said, my voice sounding strangled as he stepped inside and I closed the door behind him. ‘Hope you’re hungry.’
‘Ravenous.’
One simple word uttered in a low growl that made the hairs on the nape of my neck snap to attention and goosebumps pebble my skin.
My back sagged against the door as he braced his arms either side of me, pinning me. Like I wanted to move even if I could. He stared at me, his dark eyes glowing with intent and I knew in that instant I’d be reheating dinner later.
‘Me too,’ I squeaked out before launching myself at him.
He laughed and staggered back a step. I didn’t care. I literally tried to climb him as I hooked a leg around his waist and grabbed at his shoulders. Needing him. Wanting him. Desperate for him.
