Torn

by Lauren Dane

  HE’D GIVE IT to her, but on his own schedule. He wanted to be sure she remembered this any time she thought of him. Wanted to burn himself into her skin, into her memory.

  Cora never ceased to surprise him though. She reared up enough to get rid of her sweater and yanked at his until he got her meaning and tossed his off and to the side with hers.

  Skin to skin, though she wore a pretty purple bra, still, the sensation was nearly overwhelming, bringing a hiss from his lips before he shifted down to kiss along her breastbone. He inhaled the soft, sensitive skin between her breasts, and then she dug her nails into his shoulders.

  Urging him on.

  “More,” she said, underlining it.

  The wave overtook them both once more, sucking him back to that place where there was only sensation and the relentless need to touch her, taste her, make her moan.

  When she dragged those nails down the front of his pants, over his cock, he was the one who moaned, was the one who let go and gave over to whatever she wanted. In whatever way she wanted it.

  He snarled a curse when she unzipped his jeans and slid her hand inside. First cupping him through his shorts and then—sweet Christ—she slipped inside, down the front and grabbed his cock at the root, sliding her grip upward before swirling her thumb over the slick of precome on the slit.

  It was her snarl he wanted, and got when he slid the cup of her bra down and bent to lick and then graze the edge of his teeth over her nipple, delighting in the way it stood up.

  She rewarded him with that desired snarl, and then adjusted to fist him from balls to the head a few more times.

  Beau gripped his control as best he could, drowning in the feel of her against him, of the scent of sex in the air, the raw desire arcing between them.

  Cora’s rhythm dug roots into his balls, dragging him toward climax. No matter that it was her living room floor and they were both still clothed. Perhaps it was even hotter that it was so urgent and raw and necessary to do right then.

  He moved so that he could slide a hand down her belly and then into her panties, the heat and then the wet of her against his fingers and palm.

  He’d been so cocksure when he’d started this, sure he’d finish her first, but it wasn’t so certain as he tumbled even closer to coming when she reared up and dug her teeth into his biceps. Not enough to truly harm, but more than enough to turn him on past bearing.

  He wanted her climax. Needed it. She wasn’t holding back with his either. So it was a tangle of arms and legs, of mouths on skin and arching backs.

  She made a sound then, a sucked-in surprise and then a moan so carnal he couldn’t have stopped his orgasm no matter what. She came in a rush against his skin, a clasp of her inner muscles around his fingers that seemed to fit around his cock as he hit his own climax in a blinding rush.

  * * *

  SHE BURST OUT with a satisfied sigh, and then started to giggle. “I’m sorry,” she told him, indicating the mess on her hand and his belly before rolling to her knees. “Let me get a towel.”

  He snorted, reaching out quickly to catch the dish towel she tossed his way.

  She washed up before joining him again. “I can’t remember the last time I did that on a date. I hope you liked it as much as I did. Because, wow.”

  It was his turn to clean up and hers to watch as he prowled to her kitchen to wash his hands and toss the towel in the laundry basket.

  He’d just fed her a gourmet dinner, made her come and cleaned up after. As first dates went, it was pretty much the all-time winner.

  The grin he flashed as he flopped down on the couch next to her eased the knot of anxiety in her gut. “I totally enjoyed it. Though I do hope you understand I have more than just handjobs in my tool kit.”

  “Your tool kit is pretty impressive so far.” She raised a shoulder and grabbed her wineglass, clinking it to his.

  Once they both got everything zipped up and tucked back in, Cora brought out the dessert. They settled back on the cushions, tucked under a blanket, a fire going to keep the room warm.

  “So tell me about your cookbook idea. If it’s not a secret, I mean,” she said.

  He started to give her details about audience numbers and she waved a hand. “No. I mean, congratulations for those great numbers and it’s very awesome you’re using them to guide your next choices. But my real question is what drives this idea? Your face sells pots and pans and some very good pot holders and aprons. Naturally you’re a brand. But I’ve eaten your food twice now and both times it’s read and tasted like art to me. You’re not just cooking, which takes skill obviously. You’re creating. You approach the plate like a canvas.”

  Which was totally hot.

  “Thank you. That’s a very nice compliment. I’ve been fortunate in my career. I’ve had three shows on cable that have all been successful. My cookbooks do well. I have more than enough fame and money and success. So I’m grateful. But I was at a creative crossroads and I have the option to try something new. I’ve spent more and more time up here visiting Seattle and my friends. More time getting to know the ingredients, the seasons, what was available where. It ended up dovetailing with the fact that I needed to get out of Southern California.”

  “So what’s the process? With a cookbook do you have the recipes already or do you develop them? How do they get tested?”

  His surprised yet undeniably pleased smile warmed Cora’s belly.

  “Right now I’m in the development stage. I have a general idea of the theme and now it’s organization. I’m thinking of doing whole meals with swap-out side dishes. I coordinate with my recipes so it has some direction. And then I cook a lot. Make people eat my food and give me their opinions.”

  Cora raised her hand. “I volunteer as taster. I mean, if you need anyone else in your focus group.”

  It was only at that moment that she realized she might be pushing him into a place he wasn’t ready to go. Or a level of relationship he didn’t care for.

  She genuinely liked him, aside from the sexual and romantic attraction, and she hoped they could hang out more while he was in Seattle.

  But he nodded, smile genuine. “We’ll see how you feel when you get sick of my cooking.”

  She just looked at him, scoffing. “Yeah, it’s such a bore to have a gorgeous man cook a gourmet meal for me. You must run up against that all the time.”

  He shrugged. “You know as well as I do, sometimes people aren’t around you for you. They want your money or your fame or what you can do for them.”

  “I see it with my mom. But I’m the chick in the background. Which is good. The people I need to know who I am, know who I am.”

  “It feels like I’m constantly under a microscope in LA and NYC. Here I can be left alone for the most part. It’s nice, you know? To just shop for produce or get toilet paper without people coming up to me.”

  “I imagine it weighs on you. Having to constantly be on like that.”

  He stared at her carefully before responding. “You do, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  “You do think about what it would be like for me. Most people, they just focus about all the perks, and I get it. But you realize there are costs for those perks.”

  Cora shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t if I didn’t grow up the way I have.”

  “That’s a good way to look at it. So what are you doing Friday? Want to have dinner?”

  Oh. He asked her out. It delighted her with the simple joy of it. “I’m going to the pumpkin patch so I can start all my Halloween decorating and there’s an event at the gallery so I’ll be there until about eleven. But I’m free after. Or before if you want to come to the pumpkin patch with me.”

  “Well, that’s... I’ve never been to a pumpkin patch.”

  “Really?” she asked, incredulous. “I’m not sure... I mean, are you averse
to Halloween entirely or are you indifferent?”

  He gave her a raised brow. “You seem passionate on this point. It’s terrifying and also sort of sexy and mysterious.”

  “Terrifying? Me? Ha! The truth is, I love Halloween. It’s my jam. And I love decorating for it and for fall in general.”

  He cocked his head, looking fucking gorgeous doing it. Jeez. “I can believe it. I’m not averse to Halloween. Or pumpkins. In fact, I’m mulling over a few different fall soups so if they have cooking pumpkins there, I might go just for that. We didn’t celebrate Halloween when I was growing up. And then when I wasn’t with the group anymore, I was already an adult and sure, I went to parties at Halloween, mainly to ogle women in sexy costumes and drink too much.”

  “Mom is an immigrant so she never really got into Halloween because she didn’t grow up with it. But my dad, being a first generation American, absolutely loves it. When we were kids, we’d go to the Halloween store the day after Halloween and buy all the stuff on sale. Our house is on a lot of land, but most of it is behind and to one side so we’d decorate the front yard with gravestones, giant fake spiders in the trees. Cauldrons and vampire bats. Spooky stuff in the windows. We were sort of in the country a little, at the edges of what’s now a much larger city, so you had to drive to trick-or-treat in our neighborhood. But people did! If you came to our door you got scared, but it was all so fun. My dad dresses up every single year as Dracula. I’m not joking. It’s adorable. So. Pumpkin patch? Do you have rain boots? It’ll be muddy probably. I mean, it’s just a big field.”

  “You seem excessively excited about the chance of mud.”

  Cora giggled. “It’s a damned mess. So I don’t take my lovely car but rather borrow a truck. It’s a work truck so it won’t be a crime if we get mud in the bed. Of the truck, I mean. I don’t want mud in my sleeping bed. Because that would suck.”

  She was being way more random than usual. He made her nervous but more in a giddy way than a scared way.

  Instead of panicked or annoyed, Beau appeared to at the very least be amused by her. His body language was easy, relaxed.

  “Agreed on the mud in the truck versus the sheets distinction. I’m in. This sounds like an adventure.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was purely a compliment, but it made her happy anyway.

  CHAPTER SIX

  A star seared its way through the icy black

  of space as if it were fabric.

  Becoming something else.

  “DO YOU HAVE rain boots? Or know where I can get some?” Beau asked Ian the following day when he came over.

  His friend, who stood at the counter in his wet dream of a kitchen, gave him a wary look. “Should I ask why?”

  “Cora tells me I might want them at the pumpkin patch because it could be muddy.” Beau grabbed a slice of mango from the cutting board.

  Ian gave Beau all his attention then, one of his eyebrows rising a moment. “Oh, Cora does. Well then.”

  “She’s apparently wild about Halloween. I’m apparently wild about her. I’ll make her a meal when we get back.”

  And then he needed to find a way to be invited to the gallery event. She’d brought it up to him in the first place, which he had decided to take as an invitation. Of a sort. He just needed to get that firmed up.

  “That’s a lot of togetherness in a short period of time for you. This is the woman you knew back in the day in LA? The composer’s kid?”

  “She’s only five years younger than I am.” Beau rolled his eyes. “It’s easy to be with her. God knows that’s not always a thing. She’s weird and thoughtful and funny and sexy as fuck.” Beau leaned against the kitchen counter and looked out the windows over Elliott Bay, thinking about her laugh and the way she sounded when she came.

  Need for her, to be around her more, made him greedy. It confused him but not enough to make him so wary he didn’t pursue her.

  “You’re breaking your rule about not getting involved with people in your friend group. So does that mean she’s not in your friend group so I keep my distance? Or, you’re breaking your rule because she’s different? In which case I really want to meet her.”

  Beau said, “She’s unlike anyone else I’ve been attracted to. Like I said, it’s easy to be with her and we have wild sexual chemistry. Off the fucking charts, for real.” He shoved a hand through his hair as the remembered heat between them brushed against his skin.

  “So you’re up for the pumpkin patch because you want to get some? That’s the tale as old as time there, dude.” Ian snorted and indicated the cabinet near Beau’s head as a way to invite him for a cup of coffee.

  Beau grabbed himself a mug and after getting the coffee sugared up, he eased into a chair at Ian’s breakfast nook just off the kitchen. “Like I said, mad chemistry. But there’s something else about her. Like she’s going on an adventure even if she’s just going to get her mail. I can’t say I ever really wanted to, but I find myself thinking maybe going to a pumpkin patch with Cora would be fun.”

  “You came up here to start a new chapter in your life. So it’s not that strange really that you’re attracted to someone who is also a new sort of chapter. And you know her, which alleviates all that suspicion that she might want something from you. Her mom is famous in the music and art communities. She gets the celebrity thing.”

  They shared a look, both of them having experienced people trying to use them for something. To get an endorsement, investment in this or that business, wanting to be on TV as a date at some big event. Ian had a divorce under his belt because of it.

  As a result, Beau had a policy about not getting involved with anyone in his social group because if it was going to go wrong he could walk away unscathed and still protecting the strength of his private life. His closest friends were family. They’d seen him through some pretty dark times and no one was worth threatening that.

  “I totally think the fact that she’s familiar with the weirdness of our world is a big part of why I’m so comfortable around her. She doesn’t want me for anything but my dick and maybe my cooking. I’m good with that.”

  At least while he tried to figure out just what it was about her that fascinated him so much. She was unexpected, but not an engine of chaos. Another thing he found interesting.

  Ian shrugged. “Okay then. Yes, I have some mud boots you can use. I wear them when we go digging for clams and when I head out to the fields of any of the produce farms that supply my restaurants. They’ll do.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Bring her around one of these nights to meet us all.”

  Cora and a bunch of foulmouthed chefs drinking and eating at one in the morning? Yeah, he could see her fitting in just fine.

  * * *

  JUST TWO DAYS later and the sky was blue-gray, the clouds dark with the rain threatening to fall on them any minute, and yet Cora nearly shone with her excitement when he showed up at her place Friday morning.

  “Hi!” she told him with a huge grin, right before she launched herself into his arms for a hug.

  Delight warmed him. No one greeted him like this, with such raw happiness.

  She seemed to exude it. Give it off in waves. The more he experienced it, the more he craved it.

  “Hi yourself.” He squeezed her, smiling into her hair a moment before releasing her. “Do you treat everyone like this when you see them or am I just that lucky?”

  “You’re just that lucky. You could be again, later on if you’re extra sweet to me today. Are you ready to go?”

  “Hell yes. Let me put this inside before we go though.” He held up a basket of food he’d put down to hug her.

  “Oooh! What did you bring me?” Her eyes lit with interest.

  “Supplies for a meal after we bring home all the pumpkins.”

  “You’re going to feed me too?” She clapped her hands wit
hout a bit of sarcasm.

  “It’s the least I can do. Think of it as payment for introducing me to something new.” And cooking for people was his way of taking care of them. Showing his love or concern, whatever.

  “The least you could do would be fast food. Or a bag of chips or something. A talented chef cooking for me is really nice. Thank you.”

  He made quick work of unloading the food, putting things away and before too long, they were headed south in a landscaper’s truck she’d borrowed, on their way to a pumpkin patch.

  “How was the rest of your first week back home in Seattle?” he asked.

  “I’ve been at the gallery a lot.”

  When an asshole cut her off, she smiled, sunny and sweet, enough to disarm the guy, and then she flipped him off before heading her own way.

  “So, road rage with a little pizzazz?” he teased of her middle finger salute.

  “Well, I’m a work in progress.”

  He snickered. “I can dig that. Tell me about the event we’re going to tonight.” He just slid that in there, his assumption they’d be attending together.

  She gave him some world-class side-eye though, which had him leaning back with a satisfied smile on his face. In some nearly perverse way, he absolutely got off on the idea that she would be a person who didn’t let him get away with things like pretending they already had a date without doing the work of asking.

  “Would you like to come to the gallery tonight?” she asked, laughter in her voice. “Gregori will most likely be there with Wren. A few of the artists showing are friends of hers.”

  “I should offer you an out here. Some sort of self-deprecating bit about how you don’t really have to ask me to go tonight. But I won’t. I want to be there. And not because I’m in the market for art.”

  “You should always be in the market for art.” She said it like a mantra.

  “Clearly I have a lot to learn.”

  “Hmm,” was all she said for a moment. “Seems to me you know a lot of useful things. So you’re welcome to make me food, make me come and eat appetizers while looking at evocative artwork. But that’s a lot of Cora in one day. Just an advance warning.”