“Like a nipple,” she said without flinching, though her cheeks were pink. “You can check on yourself if you’re not sure what a hard nipple feels like.”
“I’m familiar with the concept. I just didn’t know it related to fish.”
“I’ve chopped the shallots. Transfer the fish to that plate and put it in the warmer. Add the garlic and shallots and we turn down the heat, let it get fragrant, and finish our glass of wine.”
“I could use a glass of wine,” he said, draining the one they’d shared and pouring another. “Tell me about this sauce,” he said remembering they were playing cooking show, not seduction. If she just hadn’t mentioned nipples, it would’ve been a lot easier.
“It’s a variation on the piccata sauce from Milan. I know you like lean protein and you don’t like sugary flavors, and as every cook knows, you have to give the man what he wants,” she said, practically winking at the camera.
“Right, now what is this?” he picked up what looked like a cheese grater.
“It’s for zesting the lemon. Here, I’ll show you,” Laine covered his hand with hers and guided it along the curve of the lemon, peeling away fine curls of bright rind into a feather pile. “Now we add that and the wine and toss in the parsley and capers and we’re done.”
Wyatt sprinkled lemon zest into the pan and turned to take the grater to the sink but he bumped into her. “Now that’s the benefit of a cozy kitchen,” she said archly to the camera. “You can’t turn around without bumping into someone.”
He swore he felt her nipples hard through her cut up t-shirt as they brushed his bare chest. He needed a cold shower or just Laine spread eagle on the counter. He scrubbed his hands with cold water at the sink but it didn’t help calm him down.
“I think the best part of this dish is getting people to talk about nipples. Because there isn’t enough of that, especially in the kitchen, and it’s about damn time we did something about it. Bring the sex out of the bedroom and into the fish sauce.” She laughed and offered him a bite of the fish, flaky and tangy.
“For me, the best part of cooking has always been seeing people enjoying what I do,” she replied sweetly.
“I could say the same about sex. It can be very rewarding to watch your partner’s pleasure,” his voice honeyed as he watched the flush climb her chest to her throat.
Wyatt wanted to slide his hand across her stomach and up her t-shirt, to cup her bare breast in his hand, rolling her nipple like a bead between his fingers until she gasped. He wanted to feel her legs wrap around his back, watch as she threw her head back with a cry. The room seemed crowded with the heat of palpable desire. His own breathing was ragged, his heart pounding as if he’d just scaled the Burj Khalifa again. All because she’d made him feel the capers and stir some sauce while her shirt hung off one shoulder.
So when her eyes flicked to the clock, the spell was broken as surely as if it had chimed midnight and she’d run away leaving a shoe behind. “Isn’t it Tiki time? Your chance to worship the party gods?”
Startled, he realized that he hadn’t been watching the clock.
“Right you are. Save me some fish,” he said, braving the rain.
His phone pinged and he saw that the Fifth was in town. They met up down on the beach. His longtime buddy, dark haired and usually hungover, awaited him with a sweet new board. “How’s life in prison, mate?”
“The food’s good,” Wyatt hedged. “New board?”
“Got it out in Cali, made custom.”
“Ready to go out?” Wyatt asked.
“That’s it? No details about Mildred the Babysitter from Hell? No whining about how horrible it is being trapped in the house all day when you could be setting yourself on fire and jumping off buildings?”
“You forgot getting a blow job from a princess while jumping off a building.”
“When the hell did you do that?” his friend demanded.
“It’s a joke. The nanny thinks I’m an adrenaline junkie.”
“We already knew that. Did you tell her it wasn’t always that way? That you were afraid of your own shadow at camp until we got you to loosen up? I swear you slept with a damn teddy bear.”
“I didn’t! Forget it. Let’s hit the water.”
“No wild escape plans? No rooftop parties with the girls from the Playboy Mansion? What have you been doing in that house?”
“Playing board games. Watching TV.”
“Oh, God. They got you. You’re boring now, too.”
“No way!”
“Okay, what’s on? You’re acting weird. This isn’t the man I grew up with, all innuendo and crazy stunts for the thrill of it.”
“Jealous, are you? Well, I’m on an enforced break right now, so I’m seeing how it goes. I’ll be back to normal when the month is up.”
“I came all the way out here to find out what I was missing while you were under lock and key and it looks like you’ve given up and you’re ready for the robe and slippers and an eight o’clock bedtime!”
“Fine, ten grand says I beat you back to the shore, best out of three.” Wyatt said. “I haven’t gone soft enough for you to beat me.”
He slid onto his board and paddled out to the waves, head down and determined to win. There was no way he was going soft. So he’d watched a Bond movie, played a couple games and gotten hard watching Laine fiddle with her hair. That was just a sign he’d been trapped in the house. Nothing to do with outgrowing his adrenaline days and certainly nothing to do with Laine herself.
Wyatt rode wave after wave, reckless and swift, with his friend struggling to keep up. It was the easiest ten grand he ever made. He shrugged his shirt back on while he waited for the Fifth to reach the shore after a wipe out.
“I still say something’s off with you. If you want to talk, you know you can—”
“Which one of us sounds like he’s been watching old episodes of Oprah? The one under house arrest who just kicked your ass at surfing or the one who wants to talk about feelings?” Wyatt elbowed him. “The only thing I’m going to be feeling is the curves on my nanny, so you can stay here and practice if you want, see if you can learn to keep up with me.”
“Is she hot?”
“Would I have let her in the door if she weren’t?” Wyatt said with a dash of his old bravado.
He went around the side of the house and let himself in, glancing at his watch and noticing he was back early. Like an hour early. He showered off, put on dry clothes and went down to the sitting room. Laine would be finishing up the dishes, so he had a few minutes—she didn’t even expect him back yet. He opened the box quietly and slid the game onto the table. Bending close, he pinched the tweezers in two fingers hissing when his phone rang.
“What!”
“Hello to you too.”
“Hey, Alex. I’m kind of busy at the moment. Can I call you back?”
“You’re under house arrest, what could you be doing?”
“Uh, the nanny brought over some games and kicked my ass at Operation so I’m trying to practice without her knowing.”
“Are? You? Kidding me? I used to love that game. You know there’s a knack to it and —”
“Okay, gotta go little brother. Talk at you later.” Disconnecting the call, Wyatt tossed the phone aside and tried to concentrate on the game. If only he could….
***
Laine looked up from her puzzle book when she heard a noise. It sounded like a zap and someone bellowing “FUCK!” at top volume. She put down her pen and went toward the sound. Slipping into the sitting room, she crept up on him in his unlikely crouch over the table, games spread out surreptitiously.
“Are you….practicing?” she whispered.
Startled, he jumped. Buzz! “Fuck!” he shouted, dropping the tweezers and jumping back. She doubled over laughing.
“Mr. Adrenaline is sneaking around on Tiki time to practice Operation!” she crowed.
“I was trying to distract myself from the lack of work productivity d
ue to Internet outages,” he said hotly. “This relaxes me.”
“Clearly, since you were shouting FUCK at the top of your lungs. You seem really calm. I think you couldn’t stand getting your ass kicked at a kids’ game.”
“You had years of practice. It’s like trying to defeat a chess master your first time sitting down to a board!”
“Ha! I’m the master. The Mistress of Operation. Which sounds kind of like I own an S&M dungeon. Cool.”
“Can you go get food? I didn’t eat.”
“There’s fish in the refrigerator,” she said. “Unless you can’t tear yourself away from the game table.”
“I may eat that tomorrow,” he said. “I could go for a taco.”
“Thanks to your leg jewelry you can’t ‘go’ anywhere but I could pick you one up.”
“You’ve spent more time in Wrightsville Beach than I have, what’s the best place to eat?”
“Oh, God. Da Maria is heaven.”
“Italian?”
“More like paradise, but it’s killer expensive. I saved up for two months once to eat there. It was so worth it. And if I didn’t waste all my salary on toothpaste and tampons, I’d eat there every month. I had gnocchi with mushrooms and…wow, I’m making myself hungry. So, what kind of taco do you want?”
“I may have to try that restaurant sometime. Right now, I’ll take a shrimp taco and a chorizo with poblanos. Corn shell.”
“Okay, I’ll go…find that. Be back soon.” She grabbed the keys and took off.
When she got back, he was on the phone, probably trying to do business without Internet service. Knowing how kinetic he was, how intense and energetic, it must be killing him to be locked up like this and now cut off from the world. She felt a pang of sympathy for him, but she left the tacos on the table and went to watch a movie. She had expected him to come in and join her, but his phone call must have taken forever. Slowly, she nodded off, having some strange dream that mixed up Antonio Banderas in the Mask of Zorro with Wyatt. They had that same physicality, the same sensuality and mischief, and somehow her subconscious had confused the two. She could hear the movie faintly in the background but she kept her eyes shut because she liked where her dream was going.
When Laine woke, she was being lifted. Wyatt Anderson had scooped her up in his arms and was carrying her up the stairs in his muscular arms. She let her head loll against his broad chest just to revel in the feeling of being in his arms. A fleeting thought, half asleep, she hoped that he was taking her to his bed and not her own. In the warm haze of sleep, she nestled into his neck, breathing in his scent too deeply, desire rocketing through her. Why did he smell so amazing? Was it rich guy cologne or just him? Never in her life has she wanted to lick anyone’s neck before him. Surely, this wasn’t normal.
He set her down on a bed, her bed she realized dismally, and pulled the covers over her. Playboy billionaire Wyatt Anderson was tucking her in. She was careful to keep her eyes shut, wanting him to believe she was asleep. She had to be a professional and keep him well within the rules of his house arrest, not beg him to shag her senseless. Laine thought his lips brushed her forehead but she couldn’t be sure.
Chapter 7
Wyatt was head deep in work the next two days. With the Internet back on, he had a lot of catching up to do. He ate what Laine brought him, scarcely pausing to taste it. He was restless and stressed from the confinement. He lived for Tiki time, swimming and surfing for every second of his allotted two hours.
Still, he was in a bad mood. He caught himself snapping at a business associate on Skype and he was abrupt with his assistant on the phone as well. He told himself it was the backlog of work, but he knew it had to do with the fact that Laine was downstairs on the couch watching a marathon of the Jack Ryan movies without him. And she was doing Sudoku in ink pen—who else had that kind of confidence? After erasing a hole in the paper of a puzzle page she’d given him—his penciled in numbers frustratingly wrong, he’d downloaded the app she liked and he couldn’t get past the second level, despite his stellar education. He was yelling at people and pushing for crazy deadlines because he had all this pent-up sexual tension. He missed her. It was as stupid as that.
Wyatt was doing pushups and trying to get his head back in the business deal when Laine walked in to ask him if he wanted smoky minestrone with tortellini for supper or fried zucchini on grilled pitas. “Neither,” he said, barely looking up, “I’m taking care of dinner.”
She stared at him, flabbergasted, but backed out of the room.
***
Later, Laine checked her phone and found a text from Wyatt that read, “Meet me downstairs for dinner in an hour.” Giddy, she called and told Vanessa.
“I don’t care if it’s takeout pizza, he’s taking care of dinner when that’s your job. You better give it up tonight. I can’t believe you haven’t slept with him yet. You went home with that loser from the bowling alley on my birthday.”
“He wasn’t from the bowling alley! He had an apartment; he just worked at the bowling alley. And I had way too many shots on your birthday,” Laine laughed.
“Yeah, you did, so I’m not sure why you’re so positive you want to settle down and have a nice boring life raising someone else’s kids.”
“Cooking didn’t work out for me, okay? All the pressure in the kitchen, it was so hectic and loud. I want a home and a family, and since it hasn’t happened for me, the next best thing is being there for someone else’s kids, okay? Now let me go put on makeup.”
“By makeup I assume you mean birth control.”
“Shut up, I’m not having sex with him.”
“Have some wine. Use it as an excuse. Like you did that time at the karaoke bar.”
“I did not have sex in a karaoke bar.”
“No. You sang Lady Gaga and took off your top!”
“I had a bra on and so did you!”
“I wish I had it on video as proof that you do know how to cut loose once in a while.”
“Goodbye,” she said with a laugh.
Her long dark hair was wavy from the salty breeze, and she pinned it half up, leaving the rest down and tousled. She didn’t have a dress, so she wore shorts and her cutest top and made her way downstairs. She expected to find a pizza delivery or, worse, Vanessa with a pint of ice cream and a camera. Instead, she found that the furniture in the living room had been cleared away and a proper restaurant table put in its place. It was covered with a starched linen tablecloth, hemstitched napkins folded cleverly at each of the two place settings of china and crystal. A uniformed waiter pulled out her chair for her and Wyatt sat opposite her in a blue linen shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal tanned forearms.
“What?” she said.
“This is my table—literally. From Da Maria. I can’t take you out, so I had to bring the restaurant to you.”
The food was incredible, but what impressed her most was how attentive he was. First, he’d ordered the full experience from her favorite restaurant. Then he’d dressed casually in shorts and a button down so she would feel more at ease about how she was dressed. That thoughtfulness moved her, but she felt shy. Having waiters, a maître d and a sommelier fussing over them, hovering near the table and asking if mademoiselle needed anything made her nervous. When she put down her fork after the appetizer and it was whisked away, instantly replaced by a clean one, she looked at Wyatt desperately.
“I was trained to work in a kitchen, not to have impeccable table service hovering four inches away from my elbow. Could you…I don’t know…do something about it without insulting them?” she whispered.
“Gentlemen,” he said, summoning them to the table, “We have enough food here for a party of ten. I insist the group of you retire to the kitchen and dine. We’ll call you when we want the next course.”
Astounded, the waiters bowed and retreated to the kitchen as Wyatt chuckled. “Better?”
“I can’t thank you enough. For all of this, and for—for making them go
away. I’m not used it, you know?”
“Just relax and enjoy yourself,” he said with a slow grin.
By the time the sumptuous tart of wine soaked pears arrived, Laine had mellowed into easy laughter at one of Wyatt’s outrageous stories. She’d also told him a few of the perks of having famous parents
“The biggest thrill had to be when Kelly Taylor tried to teach me how to surf in a hotel pool when I was eight. I will never forget that,” she said with a smile.
“Kelly Taylor? You’re kidding. That’s like my idol, total champion. Wow. I think I lost the crazy story competition tonight.” Wyatt said.
“And you said I was boring,” she teased. “Dessert’s on me.”
“The tart is dessert,” he said.
“No, those pears are a work of art. Dessert is ice cream. I’m going to convert you to sweets once and for all.” She messaged Vanessa for a pint of her new banana rum flavor with the ribbon of dark chocolate fudge. “It’s sixteen percent butterfat. You’ll swoon,” she promised Wyatt.
The waiters cleared everything away and departed right as Vanessa dropped the pint off at the door, “If I didn’t want you to get laid, I’d demand a promotional photo opp. This is pure loyalty, babe,” she said as she ran off.
“Here, try this,” Laine dipped a spoon in the smooth, creamy surface of the ice cream. “And try not to think about the name.”
“What’s it called?” he asked as she shoved the drawer shut with her hip and leaned on the cabinet.
“Hot Monkey Lovin’. Don’t ask.”
“I assume the bananas…I have no idea,” he said, taking a cautious nibble. “It’s rich but it’s really good.”
“Her boozy ice creams are the best. Oh, God. The fudge. It’s mocha. There is coffee and fudge happening in my ice cream. I may need a cigarette,” she said.
“I think I can do better than that.”
“Better than this? There is nothing in the world. You do have incredible ego, though.”
“Perhaps, but you’re suffering from a total lack of experience.”
Billionaires On the Beach: The Anderson Brothers Page 21