A flash of a thought speared through me that maybe I should slow things down, considering what had happened not even five hours earlier, and then Jimmy’s tongue was in my mouth and his hands were on my ass and his cock was hard against my hip.
Fuck it.
I kissed him back, hard enough to bruise. He tasted so fucking good… better than he had before. I memorized the feeling of his mouth on me, the way he was rough then gentle, the sound he made in the back of his throat when I shoved my hand under the waistband of his briefs.
When he pulled back, my eyes flew open, expecting to see that same expression of panic and shame, but all I saw was Jimmy fucking out of his mind turned-on.
“Fuck, J,” I breathed.
He pulled me from the wall and spun me, shoving me forward to the bed. I climbed on and he covered my body with his, his cock sliding against my ass. I grunted, my face pressed into the mattress, my dick caught between my stomach and the sheet. I pushed back against him, sliding my thighs apart to let him settle between them, and he rutted against me.
My whole body was lit up, every nerve, every cell, with how much I wanted him, how much I wanted this. Tonight, for the first time, there was no stopping. For the first time, I was going to feel what it was like to have Jimmy inside me.
In all the time we’d spent together, all the nights we’d ended up tangled and sweaty, we’d never done this. I was standing on the edge of this huge cliff, and I didn’t know whether I should stop this before we did something we could never take back, that could irreparably change our relationship, or if I should just close my eyes and jump.
I had no idea if he was going to regret this in the morning, and but the selfish part of me won out. I wanted this too much to let rational thought enter the equation.
I stretched forward, trying desperately to reach the bedside table, but my fingers barely grazed the edge of it.
“In there,” I panted, breathless from the rush of hormones surging through me and the weight of Jimmy at my back.
Thankfully, he seemed to understand what I was getting at. He yanked open the drawer and grabbed the box of condoms from inside, tossing them onto the bed next to us. I could see the bottle of lube in his hand, heard the sound as he popped the cap off, and I trembled, knowing what was coming next.
Jimmy’s hands were rough on me, and I didn’t have to wait long before his slick fingers were inside me, stroking and stretching. I pushed back against them, delirious and needing so much more than his hand. It took every ounce of concentration I possessed, but I managed to grab the lube and pour some into my palm.
I reached behind me and grabbed Jimmy’s cock, slicking him up over the condom. The groan that fell from his throat was filled with relief as I worked my fist up and down his shaft, his hips thrusting forward through my grasp. Less than a second later, he’d pulled his hand away, leaving me feeling empty and needy. I looked over my shoulder, needing to know he was right there with me. Even in the darkness I could see how weak his control was.
“Ben…” The way he said my name sounded pained, like it was taking everything in him not to fall apart.
“Just go, J.”
“But—”
“Do it.”
He thrust in, letting out an agonized groan as I cried out and sagged forward, the air pushed out of my lungs. I felt like I was being torn in two. How long had it been since I bottomed, and without much prep? But it didn’t matter because the way Jimmy wrapped his arm around my chest, gathering me against him, my body molding to his in the dark, the burn faded into nothing in an instant.
He felt so good inside me, filling me up and making me whole. His mouth was against my skin, sucking hard as he began to slowly thrust. I knew there’d be marks, and I didn’t care. I wanted them. I wanted all this, even if everything fell apart. It didn’t make any sense, but the way I wanted Jimmy, how right it felt to be connected to him like this, was irrational and all-consuming and I just needed him to fuck me until everything else disappeared.
“Jimmy,” I pleaded, sliding my hand over his and lacing our fingers together. I rocked my hips back to meet his, making his breathing grow ragged.
My name fell from his lips like a prayer, over and over as he moved inside me. I tightened my grip on him and contorted my body, craning my neck to kiss him over my shoulder. The angle wasn’t perfect, but I needed his lips on mine, needed to taste his tongue, swallow his moans.
I could have come just like that, with Jimmy panting against my mouth, his fingers splayed across my chest, his cock sliding against the most sensitive part of me each time he thrust forward. There had always been a part of me that had belonged to Jimmy, but with each snap of his hips, each passing second, each drop of sweat that fell from his forehead onto my skin, he owned me. He owned all of me. I was his and nothing would ever be the same.
The weight of how much I loved him should have been crushing. But instead it moved through me, lighting me up and pushing me higher.
I was incoherent with pleasure, absolutely destroyed by how good I felt.
And when Jimmy reached down to stroke my cock, it took less than a minute for my orgasm to hit. It crashed into me so hard my brain short-circuited and I was left a gasping, blissed-out, beautiful wreck. My body sagged against Jimmy’s as his rhythm faltered. With a shout, he buried himself deep inside me, holding me so tight I could barely breathe.
We stayed like that for several long minutes, our hearts slowing as we held each other in the dark.
Eventually, Jimmy pulled out and discarded the condom before collapsing down on the bed beside me. His face was flushed, his expression open, raw. There was a vulnerability in his eyes that made my heart ache. I reached out and smoothed his damp hair away from his face. He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath.
I was fucking elated, even though I knew I should be cautious. All of this was uncharted territory for us, and I could only imagine what was going through Jimmy’s head. Truth of the matter was, I didn’t know what all this meant, but I’d made my best friend come for the second time in twenty-four hours. The difference this time, though, was that he was still there. Our relationship had shifted, once again, and I was on uneven footing. I wanted to lie there and bask in the afterglow, but there was a niggling feeling at the back of my mind that Jimmy was itching to get away.
I looked at him, our eyes meeting in the faint light of morning, and that niggling feeling was, for the moment at least, slayed. I realized overanalyzing shit wasn’t going to help. I’d gotten through my whole life without looking too far into the future. For now, I’d enjoy the good stuff and worry about the rest later.
Chapter Eleven
Jimmy
There was a small part of me, just the tiniest part, that wanted to freak out over letting go of myself with Ben. He’d always owned a piece of my soul, being the only person on earth who knew who I really was, but now, now that we’d slept together, that piece had become much larger.
Sex with Ben was something I’d always imagined doing, but something held me back, as though being inside him—being connected to him that way—was the last step on the bridge I wasn’t sure I wanted to cross.
But looking back from the other side, I wished I’d run across it sooner, tossing caution to the wind as I sprinted over, and so I quieted down that part of my brain that was still chanting what did you do? over and over. Because things with Ben were good.
They were better than good.
I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been this happy outside of the kitchen. And though we’d yet to define our relationship, we settled into some sort of normalcy, something I never imagined would have been possible.
For the next few weeks, it seemed like things were falling into place. Even Byron’s barking couldn’t faze us. Parts of my life were still crumbling, but everything seemed a little more manageable, a little easier to bear, when we had each other to go home to. None of the typical bullshit got under my skin the way it used to, not when Ben and I
could spend our evenings tangled together in the sheets with after a particularly rough workday.
And there was that concept—home. Moving in with Ben was supposed to be temporary, and at first things didn’t go all that smoothly. But now, the tension had vanished. He seemed to encourage me squatting at his place, and was quick to change the subject anytime I brought up moving out. The few times I’d circled some ads in the classifieds for available apartments, those particular papers had managed to somehow make it into the recycling bin. I wondered maybe if it wouldn’t be so bad making the move into his place permanent—we’d done it in college once upon a time.
Maybe things would be different down the line, a month, a year, but for now we were content living in our little bubble, just him and me, taking each day one step at a time. What more did we need?
I pulled a sheet pan of sizzling ribs from the oven, basting them one more time with a thick layer of barbecue sauce before sliding them under the broiler. I used to love barbecue—100 percent my guilty pleasure on my nights off from the Carvery—but once I moved on from Buck’s, I’d be glad never to smell the pungent tang of it ever again.
“Thought about what you wanna do for dinner?” I said to Ben, flicking a dish towel over my shoulder as I leaned against the countertop.
“I kinda have a hankering for meatballs.” He winked at me, then returned to the cheese sauce he was stirring on the stove. “I love watching you roll your balls—”
“Jesus, Ben,” I hissed, looking around to see if anyone was within earshot.
“You’re very good.” He shot me a filthy grin. “Very good.”
“Quit distracting me.” I snapped him with my towel, then peeked in at the ribs as Marla stuck her head around the kitchen door, the phone propped under her chin.
“Jimmy, there’s a call for you.”
“Be out in a sec.” I took the ribs out of the oven, then divided them up onto plates for today’s daily special—a half rack of baby back ribs with a pound of artfully arranged hot wings. The whole thing just screamed haute cuisine. “Could you finish these up, Benno? Three specials.”
He saluted me, and I slipped out of the kitchen and picked up the phone behind the bar. “Hello, James speaking.”
“Mr. Carver. It’s Isaac Harmon.”
My legs turned to rubber at the sound of my lawyer’s voice, and I hooked the phone cord over the bar and sat, not even caring that I was still on the clock.
“Yeah, I’m listening.”
“I’ve heard from Mrs. Carver—or Ms. Delaney, as she now prefers.” I could hear the grimace in his tone and was sure my face matched. “She’s come back with an intriguing offer, one I’m sure you’ll be interested in hearing.”
I swallowed, not sure I was prepared for this. “All right, go on.”
“Now, I do have to reiterate that you’re under no obligation to accept. If the terms are not to your satisfaction, we can reject it and take our chances in court.” He sounded like he was gagging to contest it. This case was probably going to make his career.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”
There was a rustle of paper, but before he could continue, Byron came bustling out of his office, red-faced and sweaty.
“I don’t pay you to stand around gasbagging all day,” he barked. “I need you in the kitchen. Wrap it up.”
He swept into the kitchen, and I heard his voice booming over the saloon doors. “What the hell is going on back here? We’ve got tickets lined up, and you’ve all seemed to have forgotten it’s your job to cook the fucking food.”
“Ike, I’m sorry,” I said into the phone. “I gotta go. Can we maybe talk about this later?”
“Sure. Do you think you’d be able to make it into the city, let’s say Friday twenty-third? I might be able to rustle up Ms. Delaney and her lawyer so we can finalize the divorce papers at the same time.”
I gritted my teeth. “That sounds fine.” There was a crash from the kitchen, followed by more shouting. “I’ll see you then, Ike. Take care.”
I hung up the phone and hustled through the saloon doors to see Byron puffed out and stretched, trying to make himself seem less miniature as he stood next to Ben.
“Those orders just came in, Byron,” Ben insisted, pointing to the time stamp on the bottom of the ticket.
“Even if that’s true, I’m not paying you to fuck around back here. I could hear you laughing from my office.” My temper began a slow simmer as Byron crowded in on Ben’s space, and. I could see Ben biting his tongue as he turned his back on Byron and ran his eye over the tickets.
I slipped in next to him, mentally logging the orders, and ducked under the counter to grab a clean skillet. “What happened?” I murmured. Not that Byron would be able to hear anyway with all his barking, but I didn’t want to poke the dragon.
“He’s having his monthly hissy fit. Nothing we haven’t seen before.” But even so, Ben’s shoulders were tight, and he looked about ready to walk out. I wished he would; I would be on his heels so fast.
I stood and looked over my shoulder at Byron pacing through the kitchen like a drill sergeant. “Jesus Christ. He’s the Jersey version of Ramsay.”
He stalked between the stations, peering into saucepans and stabbing his fingers at steaks, ordering the sauté cook to start over even though, according to him, we didn’t have the luxury of time. Cameron fumbled a plate when Byron turned his wrath onto him, barbecue nachos spilling all over the floor.
“Are you a fucking moron?” Byron screeched. I was sure he was going to have an aneurysm with the way his eye was twitching. “Someone clean up this fucking mess! Losers, all of you. I have half a mind to replace everyone here.”
Jason shuffled over with a mop and bucket, and I glanced at Ben. His head was down as he put together the plates that were flying at him. He looked like he hated his life. I was right there with him, and I’d only been at Buck’s a few weeks. How Ben had managed to put up with this shit for ten years was beyond me.
It’d be a long time since I’d had to follow someone else’s orders in the kitchen, and I knew I’d taken a huge demotion with this position, but it still didn’t sit well with me. Especially when I saw how the other guys were hunching in on themselves, their morale dropping faster than the Dare Devil Dive at Six Flags.
That’s not how I ran my kitchen—it’s not how any professional did. And dammit, these guys deserved better than this. Especially Ben. I kept my opinions to myself, though. I had options; I couldn’t say the same for the rest of them.
We continued on with the shift, Byron sticking around and breathing down our necks rather than letting us do our thing. I kept my eye on the clock—one hour until end of shift, and then Ben and I would be off for the next couple of days. I couldn’t wait to spend our weekend wrapped in each other, doing nothing but sit around in our underwear, or better yet, nothing at all.
“All right, listen up, people,” Byron called, cupping his hands around his mouth like a fucking dipshit. I’m surprised he didn’t pull out a megaphone. “I’m going to need you all to stay until close tonight, so whatever plans you have tonight—cancel them.”
“You can’t be serious.” Ben finally spoke up, his voice dripping with disbelief. “I’ve worked the last six days straight, and half of those were doubles.”
His frustration rolled off him in waves, and he clenched his jaw, probably to stop himself from saying something he might regret. We’d been looking forward to getting out of here, having a quiet dinner and a movie night, or just vegging. The light at the end of the tunnel had been getting brighter with each passing minute, and Byron was attempting to snuff it out.
“Everyone needs to pull their weight around here, Benjamin.” Ben looked like he was about to carve out Byron’s carotid with his filet knife. “We’ve got a birthday party booked in the rodeo room, a reservation for sixteen in the main dining room, and the Hackensack Hedgehogs are coming in to celebrate the end of the season with their parents and coaches.
We need all hands on deck, and that includes yours.”
“Fine.” The word was bitten out more than it was spoken.
“Good. Mind your place—and that goes for the rest of you too,” Byron said, his beady eyes passing over everyone in the kitchen.
My body was tight with anger, and I clenched my fists at my side, ready to deck him if he opened his mouth one more time. Byron met my stare and seemed to get the message, turning and walking away without another word. It was probably best he did because I wasn’t sure how much longer I could avoid giving in to the impulse to disembowel him in front of the entire kitchen staff.
Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when he left.
“Fuck me, what’s up his ass?” Cameron said, sliding his headphones off.
“It’s not just me, then?” said Jason. “He seems rantier than usual.”
“Probably stressed,” Cameron agreed without sympathy.
I dried my hands and flung the towel onto the counter. “The fuck has he got to be stressed about? The guy does absolutely jack shit around here.”
“Whatever. I’m going for a smoke,” said Jason. “You guys good for a few?”
“Yeah, take your time,” I said, my attention on Ben as he walked across the kitchen to grab his bottle of water. His shoulders were slumped, like all the energy had been leached from him, and it hadn’t escaped my notice that he’d said very little since the spat with Byron.
Before I knew what I was doing, I’d crossed the floor to join him, snaking an arm around his shoulders.
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