by Maren Smith
She breathed in a shaky breath, clawing her way up out of this quagmire of despair. She still had a chance. She could still make it. There were more than fifteen thousand people in this rotten, piss-ant city and Casey couldn’t possibly know or have sway with all of them.
“Atta girl,” Cook Connie murmured, a glimmer of hard approval broadening her slim smile. “You’re not beat yet, are you?”
Sinclair made herself shake her head. She also lifted her chin, dragging the tattered remains of her stubbornness in tight around her. “No, Cook Connie.”
“Ha,” the hardened woman said softly. “Don’t you dare forget it again. And you—” Cook Connie’s dark eyes slid past Sinclair, locking onto something just beyond her shoulders. “She’s my kitchen bitch now. The day I learn any one of these tears is because of you, I will make you regret whatever decision brought you here.”
Startled, Sinclair turned to find Parker standing in the open doorway. He was staring right at her, as dark as his leathers, his expression impossible to read. He gave Cook Connie only the barest glance and that only because as she slipped past him on her way out of the kitchen, she paused and whispered something too soft for Sinclair to hear.
Parker said nothing. He waited until she was gone and then he shut and locked the door behind her. It was a big kitchen, but like the ballroom, with him locked in there with her, suddenly it became much too small.
“What did she say?” Sinclair asked.
At first she didn’t think he was going to answer her, but then Parker took a breath and came in a few steps closer. “She said she likes you.”
“I think she’s got to be one of the scariest people I know.”
“Probably,” Parker agreed, and that was the end of that conversation.
She should apologize for earlier, Sinclair knew, for everything she’d said to him that she’d regretted ever since, but the words wouldn’t come. Not even a simple “I’m sorry.”
Turning from the door to the line of aprons hanging on hooks along one wall, he took two down and passed her one. “Let’s get to work,” he said, as if that entire argument earlier had never happened. Except that it had and it wasn’t resolved; it just hung in the air between them, making the silence too heavy to stand.
“Parker,” she tried, but stopped because friends called each other by their first names and she so badly wanted to be more right now that just his friend. She wished she were wearing his collar. She wished she could just break and call him “Master,” but she didn’t.
Resting his hands on the stainless steel surface of a large cooking island, Parker only looked at her, smiled wanly and said, “What are we doing first? I am yours to command.”
Oh, how she wished it were the other way around.
* * * * *
They made pan after pan after pan of brownies, tartlets and tea cakes that had yet to be frosted, but at least they were baked. They filled serving tray after serving tray with big puffy marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate squares and Hershey hugs and kisses, among many other types of candy. They loaded three entire tower racks full of heart-shaped sugar cookies fresh from the oven, and Parker had every expectation that when it came time for him to collapse into bed at the end of this day, heart-shaped sugar cookies was exactly what he was going to see dancing behind his eyelids. He was tired. His back ached from leaning over that damned island and his feet were killing him, but he kept at it because Sinclair kept at.
He didn’t know how much more she wanted to do—every spare shelf in the walk-in fridge was now occupied and he was having to scrounge in other kitchens to find enough containers for all the sprinkles and coconut shavings and chocolate chips and chopped Oreo and Butterfingers, to name just a few of the toppings that she planned to set out near the chocolate fountain she was currently scrubbing out at the sink. It had come new out of the box, yet she was determined to make sure it was sanitary before she used it. He would have thought new from the box pretty much was sanitary, but Sinclair was adamant. She was also incredibly tired, but for the past few hours, she had been moving at an increasingly frenzied pace, as if no matter how much she got accomplished, she just kept falling further and further behind.
They might be, Parker honestly didn’t know. Though it wasn’t yet midnight, it was still late and less than sixteen hours stood now between them and the start of the party. That was a lot of pressure to have to take, and yet, he realized, if he didn’t step in soon, she was going to work herself into an absolute frenzy and probably fall apart all over again.
“Time for a break,” he announced, taking his apron off.
“You go ahead.” Pausing to swipe her arm across her forehead, Sinclair returned to her scrubbing. “I have too much to do. I can’t afford… not right now…”
Parker left his apron draped over a corner of a pan rack, and then he went to her. “Fifteen minutes isn’t going to sink this ship.”
“That’s what you think,” she muttered, but he took the pieces of the waterfall and the scrub brush out of her hands anyway. “Parker, I… I can’t! Maybe in another hour…”
“Now,” he told her, removing her wet apron as well. “Come on. Captain Tight Pants commands it.”
He regretted those words the second he saw her flinch, but she also stopped arguing and fell quietly into step alongside him, allowing him to lead her out of the kitchen and into the cool night air outside on the concrete patio slab. They sat down at one of the picnic tables.
“Ow,” he said, the only acknowledgement he offered his poor, aching feet.
It was dark, the only lights being the many amber glows that escaped the many Castle windows above them and the kitchen door they’d left open to help cool the place. It was amazing how hot it got with all the ovens going.
Elbows resting on the table, Parker watched Sinclair pick at her fingernails and tried to think how best to approach all the things that needed to be said right now.
She found her tongue first. “Thank you for helping me tonight.”
He was a little surprised at that, actually. “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
She traced the wood grain lines in the picnic table so she wouldn’t have to look at him. “I hoped you would, but when I didn’t see you—”
“You’d have seen me if you’d come to the ballroom.”
Her hands stilled and she looked at him. “I did.”
“We must have just missed one another. I waited there for you until Jackson brought the totes. He told me you were working in the kitchen instead, so I got a handful of Little Maids together and have them now putting all those chocolates you brought into each of the gift bags we made yesterday. They’re going to wrap the tops in ribbons, just like you planned, and Mr. Grimsley is standing over them to make sure any and all taste tests are met with swift consequences, so that should keep sampling to a minimum. Hopefully, you brought extras.”
“I did.” Her eyes were wide and filled with gratitude. “So, we can mark that off our list. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, but that’s not what I want to talk about. And I don’t want to talk about what’s left to be done, either.”
She immediately looked back down at her fingers, forcing him to reach across the table and grasp her chin. He brought her eyes back up, but they went everywhere except where he wanted to see them.
“Look at me,” he said firmly.
It took several aborted attempts before she could make herself comply. But before he could even begin to scold her, she surprised him a second time. She scolded herself.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. A wet shimmer of tears began to build in her eyes, catching the dim lighting. “I don’t know why I got so angry, but I took it out on you and it wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t your fault at all. If you hadn’t come when you did, I… I don’t know what would have happened. Charlie’s never been like that before. Please don’t be angry with me, Parker. Today has been the worst day of my life; I know I deserve it, but I don’t think I can ta
ke it if you’re mad at me now too.”
“Look at me.” He gave her chin a gentle pinch, letting her watery gaze flit over his features. “Do I look mad to you?”
She shivered in his hand, her soft lips parting before the tiny pink tip of her tongue darted out to moisten them. “No. You don’t.”
He stood up. “Come here.”
Following his lead, she came around the picnic table. He drew her close, folding her into his arms. She smelled like the confections she’d been making all night, an amalgamation of sweet scents—vanilla, chocolate, cinnamon, sugar—and she fit against his chest as if she’d been made for him. He liked the feel of her there, so pliant and warm. He stroked her hair, pressed a kiss to her brow and barely resisted the urge to tell her he was falling in love with her. Like ass-wearing, it was probably too soon to say things like that.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said instead. It was inadequate compared with how he felt, but it was safer. Much safer. At least until he felt her arms fold in around his waist.
“First names are for friends,” she told him, tucking her head a little, her voice trembling and small. “Please, if it’s okay with you, I don’t want to be friends tonight.”
His chest got tight. For a moment, he thought his heart had actually stopped. “What do you want, sweetness?”
“More,” she breathed. She pulled back, but only just far enough so he could see her face. “I want you.”
Chapter TWELVE
“I want you.”
One would think after such a declaration, at the very least the world would stop turning. But no, Earth did no such thing. Time didn’t stop, either; it didn’t even falter. And Parker didn’t move. Neither did she, not for the longest time.
“Do you trust me?” he finally asked, and Sinclair nodded. She didn’t think she’d ever trusted anyone more. “Do you want me?”
She wanted him so badly, she felt weak from the intensity of it.
“Tonight?” he asked.
“Yes.” Her admission was husky breath.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.” Said stronger now and without hesitation.
“And after tomorrow, would you want to come back?”
“To see you? Yes.” Still without hesitation. “Yes, please.”
“I want more than weekly chitchat with your sales counter in between us.” There was an intensity about the way he said that that made her tingle all over.
“I want more too.”
He breathed in, slow and steady. It seemed to swell him, making him bigger, stronger somehow. “Let’s go back inside. There’s work still to do.”
And that was how Sinclair found herself standing at the kitchen island, mixing up frosting for the cookies while Parker left the room. He didn’t even say where he was going, only that he would return in a moment and that when he did, they were going to talk about how things were going to change.
Change was good, Sinclair decided. She was ready for change. She didn’t know what direction it would take, but she felt giddy just knowing that Parker would make it feel good no matter what it was. Like that first night had felt good. Like last night too.
Heat that had nothing at all to do with the ovens stole through her. With unsteady hands, she colored the frosting, turning it a pale, flesh-colored pink and was well into coating the first tray of cookies when Parker returned with a duffel bag over one shoulder and that paper sack from Crystal Dolphin’s.
He set both on a stainless steel counter not far from her, and Sinclair quickly looked away so she wouldn’t have to see him unpack the paper bag.
He didn’t let her get away with that for very long. “Come here, sweetness. Take off your clothes. Everything.”
“It’s not really safe to cook in a kitchen without clothes on,” she hedged, but she set the frosting aside. Wiping her hands on the seat of her jeans, she went to him, but almost stopped walking when she saw the stern look he leveled at her. How he could do that, make her stomach quiver and her bottom clench, all with just a glance, she didn’t know.
“Little girls who argue with their masters are little girls destined for a hot, sore bottom,” he warned, although he was smiling when he said it.
That tight quiver in her stomach dropped instantly all the way down into her sex. “I’m not a little girl.” Of all the things to say, those were the words that popped out of her mouth. Worse, they were quickly followed by, “And I liked the spanking you gave me yesterday.”
“How eager are you for one you aren’t going to like?”
So long as he was the one giving it to her, she didn’t think that was possible.
Sinclair took her clothes off. So much for her fancy, lacy new bra and panty set. He barely got to see her in them before she was standing there in nothing at all. She was too rattled to bother folding anything. She wadded them, stuffing them almost shamefully into one another before leaving the whole mess under the nearest counter along with her shoes so they wouldn’t be tripped over.
He had the bag unpacked and all three items lying side by side by the time she straightened. The collar was in his hand. Not the one she’d bought; she had no idea what had happened to that one. It was simply gone. In its place, was the same collar she had worn yesterday, the one with the golden locket that simply read, “His Sweetness.”
“There are very specific things that I am going to do to you tonight,” he said, in that same warning tone of voice that made her pussy flood with heat and dewy drops of musky arousal. “First, I am—”
Sinclair panicked. It was a feeling that came literally out of nowhere when she realized what he was going to say. It was the same way he’d started off every pre-scene negotiation they had yet done. He wasn’t going to have sex with her. The first night, that little phrase had vaguely disappointed her. Last night, the disappointment had been keener, and frankly, had even hurt her feelings a little. Tonight, it made her hands fly up and quickly cover his lips so she wouldn’t have to hear it.
The action startled them both. They stared at one another until he arched one eyebrow and, a little embarrassed over what she’d done, she took her hands away.
“I really am going to spank you now,” he said, very calmly, slightly amused even. “Before I do, is there something you want to tell me?”
“Please don’t say that,” she begged.
“What, specifically? That I’m going to spank you?”
“That you’re not going to—” She almost said ‘make love to me,’ but her throat constricted. She didn’t know if she had the courage to tell him just how far beyond simple sex she thought that moment would be when their bodies finally did come together. Men got funny about things like that, especially if they didn’t feel the same way. She had no idea how he really felt. Oh, she knew he liked her, but like wasn’t love. And frankly, she liked him, she might even being falling in love with him, but falling in love wasn’t love either. She shook her head. “Please, just don’t say you won’t have sex with me, because I very, very much want to have sex with you. And I’m starting to feel very selfish being the only one who… who… while you… don’t.”
His smile faded. “Sex complicates things, sweetness.”
“Sex makes things better too. And I hate to break it to you, but whether you put your penis in me or not, what we’ve been doing is still called sex.”
He took a step back, the collar still in his hand. “I can’t.”
“You don’t want me?” she asked, her mind racing, trying to figure out where she had so badly misread what had been going on between them.
“Not want you?” Parker lost composure to a breathy bark of laughter. Moving toward her, he caught her hand and pulled her in to lay her open palm and fingers directly over his rock-hard erection. That telltale bulge in his pants didn’t lie, and while he might not win first place in a World’s Biggest Dick competition, he was plenty big enough for her. “Does this feel like I don’t want you? Every time I get close to you, it’s a constant fight no
t to bend you over the nearest sturdy piece of furniture.”
“Then why—”
“Because,” he growled, “tomorrow is your last day. And if you decide this has all been fun but it’s just not for you, then I would rather not spend the rest of my damn life knowing how good it felt to be inside of you. Not when I can’t have you again! This is who I am, Sinclair. I know you must think the things I’ve been showing you are all fun little games, but it’s very real to me. I am a dominant man. I want you in my collar, not just for a few hours each night, but all day long. I want you tied spread eagle to my bed. I want you on your hands and knees before me while I pull your hair and fuck your mouth, your pussy and your ass, any part of you that I want, whenever I want, over and over again.” He caught her chin when she opened her mouth, silencing her before switching his grip to caress her cheek. “Sinclair, sweetness, I want to sit across the breakfast table from you, eating burnt toast and overcooked eggs while we just talk about inconsequential things. I want to laugh with you, and cry with you, and fight with you, the way couples do when they stay together. I want to see what you look like first thing in the morning without any makeup on, because you’re waking up next to me. I want to watch the grey come into your hair, but thirty years from now, I’ll still be dominant. I’ll still want to tie you over the spanking bench and paint your ass a bright, hot shade of pink. I can’t switch that off like I’m turning off a lamp, and I can’t be someone I’m not. I’ll make us both miserable just by trying.”
Reaching up, Sinclair pressed her hand over his, tucking her cheek into his palm. “That is both the sweetest and the stupidest reason not to have sex that I have ever heard.” She laughed softly and stroked his hand. “You’re telling me you won’t have sex with me because you think I won’t want to be here after tomorrow. But, Parker, while I never would have come here if not for the job, I stayed because I want to be with you. I don’t want to change you, not any part. I like who you are. I like the way you make me feel. I want to have—”
