“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.”
“I have to go.”
“Oh c’mon! Look, stick around, okay? I promise I’ll be good.” She arches a brow at me and I grin. “Okay, I’ll make a solid effort to be good at least. Don’t go over to Maxwell’s, we need you here.”
She chews on her lip and says nothing as she takes a deep breath.
“I need you here, alright? For work reasons,” I add quickly when she shoots me a look.
“Fine.”
I grin, “Fine?”
“Fine, I’ll stay.”
“Atta girl.”
“But one more text about your- your-”
“Cock?”
She blushes, “Yes, Oliver. One more of those and I’m gone.”
I laugh. “Aww, c’mon, luv! I’m just dying for female attention over here!”
Chloe rolls her eyes, “I seriously doubt that.”
Okay, I admit it; there’s a teeny bit of a thrill that comes with Oliver chasing after me in order to get me to stay at Jolie. It’s like this little illicit feeling of glee inside when he makes the show - however crude - at getting me to stay. And yet, at the same time I find I’m exasperated with myself for even thinking like that.
Because the truth is, I need Oliver in my life like I need another hole in my head. Yeah, pass.
Jolie is mercifully closed on Mondays, as is the trend for restaurants of that caliber, and so waking up that morning is like waking up to a sort of mini vacation.
And it is sort of vacation for me, in a weird way I guess. I mean I am in Europe, right?
Part of me wants to just spend the whole day in bed, just shutting out the world, catching up with friends back home, and really just staying the hell away from Oliver. But I last about 45 minutes before the lack of coffee in my room and feelings of cabin fever get to be too much for me and I leave my sanctuary behind.
Instead, I decide to go for a run.
Hoxton and Shoreditch are gritty older parts of East London, but pretty in a sort of broken way. It’s an “up and coming” area, as they say, as evident by the mix old-time looking gangsters and shopkeepers mixed with hipsters in ironic glasses and t-shirts. I run past 150 year old sausage shops next to week-old pop-up vegan ice-cream parlors, the shoe-shine on the corner in front of a new Nike store. Battered brick walls covered with wheat-paper posters for bands I’m not nearly cool enough to have heard of. I even have to grin at the sight of an iconic Banksy street-art painting along the brick wall of a chip-shop in a building older than my entire neighborhood back home in L.A..
I push it harder than I usually do, forcing myself to breathe and forcing my legs to pump faster and faster, until my whole body is screaming for a cease-fire and break from the torture. It’s almost as if I’m trying to outrun everything in my head, but when I look up, gasping for breath, and realize I’m right back in front of the house I started at. I know there’s no escaping your own head.
I’ve managed to blow off some steam, but I still haven't blown him out of my mind.
The house is quiet, Oliver’s not home - I check, even poking my head into his room to make sure.
Thank goodness.
A day of rest from the restaurant won’t exactly do a whole lot of good if I have to spend it with Oliver anyways.
I peel my shirt off as I walk into my room, and I’ve got my sports bra halfway over my head when the voice to the right of me about gives me a heart attack.
“I made you something.”
“Jesus FUCK!” I whirl, covering my chest with my hands. It’s Oliver, of course, slumped in my desk chair behind the door and grinning at me.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” I hiss at him, wanting to punch him in his stupid face if only doing so wouldn’t give him an eyeful of my tits in the process. “You can’t just waltz in here, you dick.”
“You know, I think pastry chefs are supposed to be nicer.” He furrows his brow, as if delving deep into thought. “Definitely nicer, usually grandmothers with gray hair maybe?”
I tighten my jaw, “What do you want Oliver?”
He smirks at me, “I don’t think they’re supposed to have a rack that nice either,” he says, nodding his chin at my cleavage.
I roll my eyes, “Okay, get out.”
“Hey, hang on, chill. I told you, I made you something.”
“If it’s another haiku about your dick or something crude about my...my pussy-” He grins wickedly when I say the word, “Then you can fuck right off, right now.”
“Chloe, please, those sort of shenanigans are so beneath me.”
I almost grin, “Since when, today?”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
This time I do crack a smile.
“Anyways, it’s nothing like that. I actually made you something. Well, future tense, I guess. I’m going to make you something.”
I furrow my brow at him, “Huh?”
He stands, “Look, just come down to the kitchen after you shower, alright?”
“Why,” I say suspiciously.
“Because I’m going to cook for you, that’s why.”
*****
The smell of cooking garlic and the sizzling sound of a stove-top wash over me as I pad down the stairs after my shower.
Oliver looks up with a grin as I step into the Beckett’s open-style kitchen and nods towards one of the bar stools at the island counter, “Sit.”
“Bossy.”
“Always.”
I grin and roll my eyes as I take a seat. “So, what are we having?”
“Sage and pumpkin ravioli in a balsamic reduction with braised brussel sprouts and wheat-berries on the side.”
My stomach roars, “Holy crap. Okay, I’m impressed.”
“I do do this professionally, you know,” he says with a quick grin before he goes back to stirring the cast-iron pan on top of the stove.
“So what brought this on?”
“What, cooking for you?” He looks up and winks, “Consider it a peace offering, I guess. I was-” He clears his throat, “I was maybe a bit more of a dick than necessary the other night.”
He turns the flame off on the stovetop and whisks the pan over to a plate already drizzled with what looks like balsamic and herbs. He finishes the plate with a flourish before sliding it in front of me.
Holy crap.
The plate in front of me looks like it could be right off the pages of a gourmet cookbook.
I glance up at him, grinning as my stomach rumbles, “Peace offering, huh?”
“The best kind.”
“So, no poison?”
Oliver laughs. “You have zero faith in me don’t you?” He rolls his eyes and drops a fork next to me at the counter, “Mange.”
I close my eyes at the first bite, savoring how utterly perfect it is, “Okay, damn.”
He grins, “Can’t even taste the poison, can you?”
“Ass.”
I fork another bite of the insanely good food into my mouth before I glance back at up at him, “You know, a note or something might’ve been smoother than sneaking around my room waiting for me to get home.”
“Yeah well a note wasn’t going to have a shot at catching a peek of you changing, now would it?”
I choke on the ravioli as my cheeks flush red while Oliver just smirks at me.
With a roll of my eyes, I push my plate away and start to get off of my stool.
“Oy! Hang on now, luv!” Oliver jumps around to my side of the kitchen island, frowning at me, “Look, I’m sorry, it was meant to be a peace offering, okay?”
He’s right in front of me, basically boxing me in with my back against the counter, and I glare at him. “It’s not a peace offering if you’re being crude about it.”
He rolls his eyes, “Yeah, must’ve missed that bit in the ‘Recipes for Peace Offerings’ cookbook.”
I quickly try and hide the grin that comes to my lips, but he catches it anyways, “Ahh, she does smile.” He arches his br
ow at me and takes another step closer, his hands on either side of me on the counter. “So, was the ravioli that bad that you’re just going to walk away?”
He moves closer, so close that he’s right in front of me. And I know I should by pushing him away, or telling him he shouldn’t get so close, or something-
Except the first thought that comes unbidden to my mind isn’t that he shouldn’t be so close to me.
It’s that I want him closer.
I swallow thickly, trying to swallow the sudden illicit thoughts about him in the motion as look up into his dark eyes. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m seeing how your meal was. I’m a chef, it’s sort of what we do.”
I raise my eyebrows, trying to will the blush away from my cheeks and calm the racing of my pulse with him so close to me like this. “And do you ask everyone you cook for how it was while you’re three inches away from them?”
“Only the especially attractive, especially difficult ones.”
He winks, his hands on both sides of the counter keeping me there, invading my space and my senses and making my head spin.
“So,” he leans close, “how was it,” he whispers into my ear, making my pulse race even faster.
“It…it was good.”
“Just good?”
“Mhmm.” Words; I don’t trust myself to even use them right now. I barely trust myself to even open my mouth. He pulls back, there’s a beat, and then it’s like the floodgates giving way as we come crashing together.
He growls into my mouth in this primal way that has me shivering in his arms as he shoves me back onto one of the kitchen prep tables. He pulls one of my legs up to his waist, and I wrap it around him as he presses against me, his hands sliding over my ass as his tongue explores mine.
I gasp as he breaks the kiss and spins me around, and then I’m moaning as he bends me over the counter and pushed my skirt up. “Oliver-”
“See?” He growls into my ear as he bends over me, his fingers sliding under my panties and through my wetness, teasing across my clit. His voice lowers as he presses his lips right against my ear, “I knew I’d have you begging for it.”
I bite back the whimper at my lips as he slides a finger deep inside of my pussy. “You wish,” I manage to croak out, my brow furrowing as his finger begins to slowly stroke in and out of me.
I’m on fire for him; on fire for this dominant, coarse man and wanting him to take me every which way he wants to. Deep down, I’m dying to feel him sink that big cock to the hilt inside of me and fuck me like he owns me. I moan at the thought, pushing back against his fingers as I close my eyes and bite my lip.
I might be soaking wet, and desperate to come, and practically melting under his touch, but I am not going to beg him. I’m not going to stroke that damned ego of his any more than the rest of his world does.
He chuckles as if reading my thoughts, his magical fingers slowly drawing lazy circles around my clit and making my body melt for him. He presses against my bare thigh, and I try not to moan at the feel of his thick bulge pressing against me.
“Oh please, sweetheart; let’s not pretend you don’t want every inch of this cock inside of you. Let’s not pretend you don’t want me to make you come harder than you’ve ever come before.”
Between his words and those fingers of his, I feel like I might go insane if I don’t come soon.
“I’m going to fuck you, Chloe Caulfield,” he says darkly into my ear; “It’s really just a matter of whenever you say the words, luv,” he growls into my ear.
I bite my lip, swallowing the moan threatening to tumble out; refusing to give in.
“See,” he growls deeply into my ear, “you think you’re going to hold out here, but I haven’t even begun, sweetheart.”
I whimper as I feel his fingers leave me, but then gasp as I feel his breath, hot on the backs of my thighs.
“Oliver!” I gasp out as I feel his lips slide up the back of my thighs, teasing the skin there. I can feel his tongue slide across my thighs, delving deep between, and I melt against the countertop, all but whimpering for him to plunge his tongue into my pussy. He exhales hotly against me, his breath teasing and tickling against my pussy, and this time I do moan out loud, arching my back and pushing back - desperate to feel his mouth on me.
He stands, abruptly. I whimper again until I feel his fingers slide back to my heat, sliding through my folds back to my clit as he leans over me again, “Just beg me nicely, sweetheart,” he whispers into my ear, chuckling. The ass.
“All you’ve gotta do is give in.” His finger lazily circles my clit, and I’m biting my lip and clawing at the countertop, desperate for release.
I gasp as I hear the jangle of his belt and the sound of his zipper being drawn down, and then I moan loudly at the feel of his cock; hard, hot, and thick against my ass. His lips brush my ear, “You want this, don’t you?”
And I nod.
At that point, I can’t even help it; can’t even stop myself from doing it if I tried. Because at that moment, he’s got me so wound up that I’m almost ready to beg him for it.
“‘Yes, chef’; now is that really all that hard to say?”
Almost ready to beg him.
I take a gasping breath before I shake my head, “Not - oh God - not gonna happen.”
I am clawing at the edge of coming; teetering on the edge of tumbling off that cliff and shattering in climax, when he opens his mouth again, “Well, that’s too bad.”
And then like a switch being thrown, his fingers leave me, and he steps away as I hear the sound of his zipper again.
Are you fucking kidding me?
I whirl around to him, my eyes wild and my mouth hanging open to see him grinning at me as he finishes buckling his belt.
“Are…are you-” I’m clawing for words, my mind still foggy and barely coherent from coming as close as humanly possible to an orgasm without actually coming. I blink at him. “Are you serious?”
I stare at him in shock as he brings his fingers to his mouth and licks them, smirking at me the whole time as he arches his eyebrows. “I mean, you’ve already said them, too.” He shakes his head and sighs dramatically.
“That was different, and you fucking know it.”
Oliver glances at his watch, “Oy, jeez, look at the time, I’ve got to run!” He winks as he quickly darts forward and kisses my cheek. His lips drift back to my ear, lingering there for a moment.
“All you’ve gotta do is say it, sweetheart,” he growls into my ear, almost pushing me back over the edge right there with his words.
And then he’s whirling around and walking out of the kitchen, leaving me panting, disheveled, and more sexually pent up than I’ve ever been in my entire life.
I somehow get the impression that I’m the first girl in history that can say that after Oliver Beckett walks away from her.
I groan and drop my forehead against the kitchen door of Jolie.
Right, Monday; we’re closed on Monday.
Of course we’re closed, which is why I spent the morning at home.
At home being brought to within an inch of orgasm by my cocky, arrogant, swaggering stepbrother.
I blush bright pink at the memory of him leaving me like that in the kitchen; the memory of me opening and closing my mouth as if still searching for words as the front door to the townhouse closed behind me. And then of course, there’s the memory of what came after. The memory of me barely closing the door to my room behind me before I was face down in my bed, my fingers pushing my panties to the side and gasping at the release they brought.
I decide to pretend I don’t remember that it was Oliver’s face I pictured as I came screaming into my pillow. I pretend it wasn’t his tongue I was imaging dancing across my clit, or his thick cock that I pictured fucking me from behind as I brought myself crashing over the edge with my fingers.
And of course, now I’m so scattered-brained by the whole damn morning that I show at wor
k to do work on the one day it’s closed.
Lovely.
I bump my head against the door one more time, swearing under my breath, when the voice behind me catches me off guard, “Be a shame to bruise a pretty head like yours there, gorgeous.”
I whirl to see an older, extremely handsome man grinning at me.
“By the way, the entrance is around the front, luv.”
Cockney: A Stepbrother Romance Page 14
