Yes, Chef! (Innocent Series Book 1)

by Kendall Duke

  “Right. Basically. I never found someone who got me, who… Who wanted me the way I wanted them, in the right way, at the right moment.” Her long eyelashes fluttered as she bit her lip, then rose, revealing her big brown eyes once again, and my whole body went still. “I like you, though.”

  “I like you too,” I said, forcing my heartrate to slow through deep, still breaths. “I like you very, very much, Miss March.”

  “And you also like spanking very much,” she said, causing me to erupt with unexpected laughter. “Right?”

  “Yes,” I said softly, once I recovered. “But I hardly… I can’t imagine I would…”

  “I can imagine it,” she whispered, and we gazed at one another for a very long moment. “Pretty vividly, actually.”

  “And what, exactly, do you imagine, Miss March?” I couldn’t help my body’s instantaneous reaction to the idea—the notion that this woman before me, supple and perfect, might be interested—I had to loosen my collar, a gesture she didn’t miss at all, her clever eyes honing in on my reaction immediately.

  “I imagine… Something similar to what happened when we first met,” she said, her voice a bit stronger, but still husky and low. A note of hesitation, of uncertainty. It made me hard as a rock. “But instead of me standing upright… I envision us together, on a bed, and me in something less… Something less, I guess,” she said, the flush in her cheeks saying just as much as her words.

  “You imagine this in spite of your… Your previous lack of interest?” I heard uncertainty in my own voice then, a painfully vulnerable disclosure, and was surprised when her eyes softened, raking over my face before she replied.

  “Maybe I just wasn’t introduced,” she said, then bit her lip, considering. The low light sharpened the shadows beneath her cheek, her lush lower lip. “I can’t say I’m very experienced.”

  “I think it is in your favor that you know precisely what appeals to you, and what doesn’t,” I said. “I certainly can’t imagine you want for opportunity.”

  “Just opportunities with the right people, I suppose,” she said, her eyes meeting mine again.

  “So if you can envision this… Event,” I said, once again heating up as I imagined her laying tranquilly before me, stripped to lacy essentials, her heart-breakingly beautiful eyes piercing mine as she braced for my attention… “How does the process begin?”

  “With dinner, obviously.” She smirked at my chuckle.

  “And then?”

  “Then I guess I…” Her cheeks flushed bright pink. “Well, I guess I get swept away to some fancy-shmancy mansion and kept up all night eating lobster and laughing and then—” She abruptly stopped, and I was rewarded with a bit of her own vulnerability when her ample breasts rose and fell within her dress, the sigh that ran through her making me clench all over. “I don’t know. That’s why we’re talking about it, I guess.”

  “Miss March, is this an invitation?”

  “I guess so,” she whispered, and I abruptly pushed back from the table and came over to land on one knee next to her; my lips were an inch away from the pale shell of her ear, so neatly revealed by her tidy hair-cut.

  “May I show you how I envision such a meeting? Your agenda is a bit vague, you know.”

  “I’m always up for a collaboration,” she whispered, swallowing as she blushed a deeper red; her dark hair smelled like cinnamon, her skin like peach. Fresh, fragrant, and undeniably ensnaring as I imagined other parts of her body imbued with these scents. I came closer and saw her shiver, her eyes closing in anticipation.

  There is no greater aphrodisiac for a man like me than a sight like that.

  “I envision kissing every inch of your skin,” I told her, letting my lips trail across the tiny divot below her ear to find her jaw, then beneath. “Every. Single. Inch. And then I imagine touching you—all of you. Merging the exploration of hands and mouth, until you are unable to keep your thighs from sliding apart, your center from swelling. Until you want me so badly you say so.”

  “That sounds lovely,” she said, another sigh escaping from her lips as I kissed her exposed shoulder, then back around towards her spine, the nape of her neck. Her mouth fell open, her head turning to welcome me, and she lost the time for a second before returning to her wits. “But where does spanking—”

  “You seem quite obsessed,” I murmured, then stroked the side of her long, pale throat with my tongue. “Are you sure such a thing is appropriate with a novice?”

  “I’m not a novice!” Her indignation was undermined by the purr that erupted out of her when my hands slid around her waist as I nipped her earlobe. “Ohhh…”

  “Fine then,” I said softly, unable to keep the growl out of my voice. “An initiate.”

  “A reporter, investigating.” I bit her neck this time, and she swayed into me, her breath caught and her chest rising; her nipples were hard, and so was I.

  “Whatever you like,” I snarled, spinning her chair towards me and finally catching that mouth in my own, tasting her, each delicate nibble sending electric shocks of steadily growing desire through my entire body. She tentatively reached out and held me, sighing into my mouth as I sucked on her bottom lip and allowed my hands to go higher, just barely, just enough to brush the underside of each round breast. Her reaction was startingly carnal. Her mouth opened wider, her tongue sought mine, and I had to fight off the urge to take her—virgin or no—right on the damn table. Only the gentle press of the heel of her hand in the center of my chest reminded me to at least try and behave like a gentleman.

  “Could we… That is…” Her eyes were wide, the breathless question in them stirring my blood to a fever.

  “Allow me, Delilah.” And I hoisted her out of the chair, into my arms, and took her all the way upstairs to my bedroom.

  And some part of me, the whole way, sang out in a chorus like it never had, as if the spell of loneliness I’d cast on myself was about to be broken.

  Miss March

  I was a mess.

  I was a shivering, tingling, far-too-turned-on mess, a woman on the verge of making a very big decision very suddenly. With a man she’d met just that day, who was, by all accounts, an enormous asshole.

  Except with me.

  With me, he was brutally honest, and he respected the return in full; he was rough around the edges when he might be a little kinder to the people who helped make him a millionaire; he was impulsive yet deliberate, skillfully elusive yet specific and direct, suave and crude all at the same time.

  And so gentle with me.

  So tender.

  His hands were blunted with scars from the kitchen; I could feel every dulled fingertip, every slice scarred over, as he ran them over my body. His mouth was searing, his tongue demanding, the tone of his voice imperious and sweet all the same. Grant treated me like a treasure, like something so delicate it needed to be cradled rather than held, something so rare it had to be examined with the finest eye to detail. When he laid me down on the bed and stepped back, framed in the night from outside his house as it poured in through the wide windows, I found myself basking in his attention.

  Like all great chefs—artists, really—his focus for detail was incredible.

  “Take off your dress, Delilah,” he said, and I sat up and slowly unzipped it, reaching behind myself and watching his eyes as they drank in every movement, the slow wind of my wrist, the twist in my waist. I watched as he devoured the flesh I revealed, each inch, one after the other slowly creepy out from behind the bright print. My lingerie was black and mostly lace, thankfully; I knew it would stand out even in this low light. He watched me toss the dress aside and lay back, and I wondered what was going to happen next.

  But not for long.

  He didn’t take off my heels; he simply ran one fingertip along the top of my foot, then up my leg, all along my shin bone before sliding up my thigh to my hip. It felt like the skin was on fire the entire length of his touch, as if he were igniting me. When he got to my belly, he s
lid his index finger to the center of my body and continued north, between my breasts, my collarbones, tenderly stroking my neck, and then finding my lower lip.

  My heart was racing a million miles an hour.

  I don’t know why; other men had seen me in my underwear before. Other men had made me fabulous dinners; other men were charming. But none of them were all these things at once. None of them made my whole body flush with heat by running a single fingertip over my skin, tracing my lower lip, once, twice, three times, and then simply saying, “Suck.”

  And I did. I sucked his finger, my whole body going hard and soft at the same time.

  I don’t know why. But everything about him, everything he did, was unlike anything that had happened to me before.

  He pulled his finger out of my mouth and then surprised me by sliding his other hand behind my neck, helping me to sit up and sliding behind me so that I was reclining on his chest. He tucked his head down so that his lips were near my ear.

  “I want you to come for me,” he said quietly, and I started to move out of sheer nervousness until he pulled me back, tucking me beneath his chin. His index finger, damp with my own juices, was suspended in the air above my belly, his other fingers lightly resting on my skin; “you’re going to help me,” he whispered. “You’re going to tell me where you like it and how you like it and I’m going to feel you come, Miss March, and I want nothing to hold you back or occupy your mind besides this desire of mine—I want you to come for me. Here, now.”

  “Okay,” I said softly, my voice barely familiar to myself; I sounded… Hungry.

  His long fingers crept beneath the satin of my panties, and then his damp index finger expertly found my swollen bud, waiting for his attention at the top of my slit, just as it had been all day; this time though, he slid his rough finger over it and waited, his other hand pulling me tightly against his chest, keeping me upright as the first wave of pleasure swept over me, rendering me silent. And then he stopped. “Would you like more, Miss March?”

  “Yes,” I breathed. Still, his finger floated just above my hungry body; I could feel it there, raising the satin off of my skin.

  “Then say it,” he commanded, and I shivered.

  “Will you—can I please have more?”

  “More what?”

  I twisted against him, my mind revolting against the vulnerability, but when his lips landed on my shoulder—a spark alighting on my skin would have less of an impact—I heard myself exclaim, “please touch me like that again—please touch me!”

  He did. One thorough loop around my most tender, taut muscle, already threatening to burst. I felt my legs open, inviting more of his attention, and heard him sigh behind me; his clever finger stroked me, exactly as it had before, and I realized I wanted… More.

  He must be psychic. “Yes, Miss March?”

  “Will you… Will you touch me harder?” He did, immediately, making my knees shake; I had never said these kinds of things to anyone, let alone a man I met that morning, and I started to get nervous all over again when I felt the long fingers of the hand holding me upright brush against the underside of my breasts. I moaned out loud, unable to stop myself; it freed something inside of me, and I arched against his touch.

  And he stopped.

  “Please,” I begged, “please, I want to—”

  “Mmm?” He reached up and flicked my nipple, setting his teeth against the soft skin of my neck, and I almost came undone right then.

  “Please touch me, I want to come for you,” I begged.

  And he reached down once more and pressed the broad tip of his finger against my clit, rubbing it softly, expertly, guiding me into a bone-grinding orgasm that began between my legs and rocketed up my spine, making me arch into his touch as he kissed and licked my throat, my cheeks and chest, his fingers stroking my hard nipples through the fabric of my bra. I came like I never had, not with anyone else—not even myself.

  When it was over, I found myself in his arms. Still wearing all of my underwear, including my heels, breathless, flushed, damp… And unspanked.

  “I thought that might be a little rowdier,” I told him, and he chuckled darkly and bit my earlobe.

  “Well, now that you’re ready, I imagine we might be able to make it a little… Rougher. Miss March.”

  “Rough? I said rowdy.” I arched my eyebrow at him playfully and was met with a no-nonsense shake of the head.

  “Yes, but you’re here, and I’m here, and I think things… Are bound to get a bit more intense.” His eyes softened, even in the dark, as he leaned down and kissed my lips, long and lingering, exploring my mouth with his own as if he were doing it for the very first time. “That is,” he finally said, breaking away, “if you believe you want to do this. With me.”

  “I do,” I told him, suddenly certain.

  I wanted to have sex with him—my first time, the only time this would be completely and utterly new, I wanted to do it with him. Because I trusted him, implicitly, even if I didn’t completely understand why… And I knew I could love him.

  Even if it all went to hell tomorrow, tonight was a gift.

  He kissed me again in answer, his mouth so soft on mine that I lost sense of myself for a moment—lost the bedroom, the exposed feeling of being so undressed in front of a man still wearing a three piece suit, lost the anxiety about tomorrow and the article I was determined not to write now and all the things this meant about my very uncertain future—I lost it all in the feel of him, hard beneath me and soft above as he stroked my breasts, my belly and thighs, as he tasted me like a man that loved deliciousness and had finally found his favorite meal.

  He slowly withdrew and then, to my surprise, turned me over onto my stomach. I propped my head up on my hands and felt his exploring touch again as he cupped my calves, teased the backs of my knees, caressed my thighs. Ran his tongue along the groove of my spine, nibbled the flesh of my shoulders, the bed creaking as his knees settled on either side of my hips. Bit the nape of my neck as he pushed, hard and deep, against my ass with the rigid member I’d just given permission to enter me.

  He was still wearing his suit. I was wearing my underwear. But there was no mistaking the presence that sat between my cheeks, as demanding as the man it was attached to. I heard myself grunt with sheer lust and flushed with embarrassment, then shoved the feeling away. This was sex. It wasn’t meant to be dainty.

  He didn’t want it to be, or he wouldn’t have picked me.

  And he did—he picked me.

  Grant leaned back and kissed the entire exposed skin of my back before unfastening my bra and licking the skin beneath the straps; I felt them slide down my arms but left it there, immobilized by pleasure as he dragged his teeth along the waistline of my panties, slowly drawing them down. I felt the scrape of his bite as he seized them just above my ass crack and pulled, exposing me, inch by inch; I couldn’t help but arch into it, feeling the heat of his breath on my skin as he revealed me, so slowly, to himself. When my panties were just below my ass, he let the waistband go, the elastic snapping down and zinging me just a little bit. “Hey—”

  He bit me.

  Full-on. He bit my ass cheek. I yelped and started to twist, but he had me pinioned between his legs and I didn’t get far—and it took a half a second after I yelped for me to start moaning because he soothed the hurt with a lick. Right there, on my ass.

  And if you told me yesterday that would make me purr like a kitten I would’ve laughed in your face, but today…

  Today I felt my body buck into the air, begging for more.

  And he gave it to me. SNAP! The crack of his palm on my ass resounded through the rom and made me squirm, but now I knew what followed and half of my reaction was eagerness. Sure enough, the hot flush of stinging pain was immediately followed by licks, languid and teasing, my legs fighting to open, to welcome him in.

  And then he did it again, and again, and again, until my entire ass was stinging and screaming for him to please, please just
fuck me.

  Please.

  Once again, the thought flitted through my mind: I’ve never felt like this. Never.

  He didn’t rush. He made me beg with my entire body, made me arch, shamelessly, into him, made me writhe and moan until I was panting. And then, finally, he stopped teasing me and climbed off, taking all my clothes—except the heels. When he flipped me onto my back with another careful lift of his strong hands, I was practically dripping.

  But he still didn’t.

  He lowered himself between my wide open thighs and kissed a dainty, deliberate line down the center of each, leading directly to my untouched, private self. And when his tongue stroked my body, the entire length of my damp, desperate slit, I knew I was going to come for him again.

  It took less than a minute for my whole body to clench around his talented tongue, for my whole self to seize that orgasm and ride it until I was hoarse, shivering and damp with sweat.

  And then, and only then, did he rise up on his knees, pull the long, hard staff out of that slick suit—jacket now discarded, shirt buttons ripped so that I could see the broad expanse of his chest—and meet my eyes. “Please,” I begged, needing it so badly, needing him inside of me more than I’d ever needed anything. He was slow, probing me softly with the broad tip, and then… Pain. Sharp, deepening fullness as he sank all the way in, arching his back to thrust into me, his forehead pressed to mine. Both of us sighed when he was fully inside, and I felt… Ready. I felt alive.

  And he was the same—alive, present, with me. Enjoying every nuance of the way we moved together, the way his body met mine, so deeply I could feel him in my spine. I moaned with pleasure, and he pulled out and did it all again—letting me explore the sensation once again, now that I was ready, and I felt the orgasm that had just enflamed my entire body reignite, heat and light charging through me ruthlessly as he slowly, meticulously guided my body back toward the edge. And when I came for him this time, I did it without reservation, with experience—I did it firstly for myself. I knew how to let my body go. I trusted him to hold me there, and he did.