by Elle Berlin
“Light up the torches, girl, Oahu is coming to dine!” Simon’s beaming now. “We’re going to be needing barrels of whatever it is you’re cooking back in the kitchen. Especially when I tell you my next bit of news.”
“Next bit of—?” Arie pries her eyes up from the feature. “There’s more? You playing with me? This is going to be the highlight of my month, hell, my year!” She holds up the magazine. “I can’t imagine—”
“Oh, start imagining,” Simon interrupts and she looks at him quizzically. “You never set your sights so low before.”
“I wouldn’t call this low,” Arie responds. “A full feature in our local magazine is nothing to turn your nose up at. This is free advertising of the best possible kind.”
“Yup, but I still need to show you this,” Simon pulls his phone out of his pocket and flashes her a phone number I can’t read from where I’m standing.
“Is that—?” The pitch of Arie’s voice just went up ten octaves.
“It is,” Simon confirms, and to my surprise Arie sits down on the nearest chair like she might pass out, her eyes flicking up to Simon dangerously.
“If you’re toying with me—” she threatens.
“I’m not,” he confirms, that sneaky sideways smile of his broadening.
“You’re not?” she double checks, a sharp finger pointing at him.
“Nope.”
“Holy shit!”
“I know!” Simon agrees.
Arie turns to look at me like her whole world is exploding. “Holy shit!”
“I’m going to take it that whoever’s phone number is on Simon’s phone a big deal,” I say, leaning in.
“It’s the editor of Restaurant Insider,” Arie says, her face pale.
“National magazine?” I ask.
“Yes,” Simon confirms. “It turns out one of their writers was invited by a friend to the opening and they’re interested in doing an article on Arie.”
“That’s—!” Arie shakes her head and looks at me. “We just opened. That’s completely unheard of!” she explains. “Maybe they’d call us after we’d been in business for a year or two but—” The words fall right out of her, rendering my beautiful dragon speechless.
“I told you: you’re going to be the next big thing,” Simon says proudly, and to my surprise Arie launches herself up out of her chair, rounds the bar, and attacks me with school-girl excitement.
“Can you believe this is happening?” she exclaims, slamming into me with a huge hug.
“Whoa! Okay…” I manage, attempting to wrap my arms around her as she pulls me into a kiss. It’s an exuberant my world is exploding kiss that’s both bursting and incessant. It gets hot, and fast, and I know we should tamp it down considering Simon’s on the other side of the bar watching us, but she’s just so damn jubilant I can’t deny her.
After an overindulgent amount of time, Simon coughs and I pull back to look at him sheepishly. “Uh, um, we—or, uh—” I start, trying to explain exactly why his partner is making out with my face, but Arie waves her hand in his direction like this isn’t a thing.
“He already knows,” she says dismissively, her hands knotting in my shirt.
“He already knows what exactly?” I ask, as his eyes narrow.
“Well,” Simon starts. “Let’s just say the walls of Arie’s office are not as thick as you might think.”
My face heats, even though I suspected he’d heard us that night, but I never expected him to say it to us directly. “Right, uh—”
“The rule was no sex in the restaurant,” Arie chimes in, turning my face back to her before giving me another hot kiss. “Which I’ll honor,” she says after she releases me. “But you’re just going to have to deal with me PDA-ing the fuck out of this one.” She nods to me, indicating that us kissing is something Simon’s going to have to get used to.
Heck, it’s something I’m going to have to get used to.
“Are we—?” I point between us, scrunching up my face in question, unsure that our little arrangement was public knowledge. I lower my voice. “Publicly? Are we telling others about this?”
“Man up, Connor,” Arie says bluntly. “If you’re going to be my boyfriend, everyone’s going to know about it.”
“Okay, uh—”
“Everyone!” she barks, walking around the bar and back toward Simon. “The staff, my sister, my sister’s friends, your friends, Simon’s friends, everyone in our social media feed. Hell, I’ll probably tell the interviewer if we get this Restaurant Insider article. You got a problem with that?”
“No, ma’am,” I shut up and shake my head, obviously. When Arie makes a decision I just have to get in line with it.
Simon catches my eye. “Please, don’t soften on me and start letting her push you around! Just because you two are …” he pauses, not wanting to say it and Arie laughs.
“Fucking like bunnies?” she blurts and Simon blushes.
“If that’s your preferred vernacular,” Simon says politely, then looks back at me. “Just don’t back down. I need someone to rein this one in, especially when fame goes to her head.”
“You think fame will go to my head?” Arie rolls her eyes. “Please, I was built for the fire, remember?”
Simon and I exchange a glance, both of us knowing the monster fame might unleash. “I’ve got your back,” I say to Simon, and Arie gives me a dirty look. Only, I wink at her and turn to Simon with a dark smirk. “However, you do know how unpredictable she can be. You might consider putting some soundproofing panels into that little office of hers, because when this dragon needs taming …” I nod to Arie salaciously “… who knows what I might need to do in the moment to calm her down.”
Arie laughs in approval and Simon frowns. “You two are perfect for each other,” he says dryly, picking up his stack of magazines and heading for his office in the back. “And frankly, sound panels probably aren’t enough. We might need a whole new sound system with the way you two go at it.”
“This is Flambé!” Arie howls. “The whole point is to make everyone blush from knickers to knees and back again.”
“I’ll be in my office,” Simon says, ignoring that comment. “Don’t forget you have something boiling in the kitchen. No one’s going to be blushing anywhere if this place smells like burnt ashes.”
“My sister is single if you need to get laid, Simon!” Arie calls after him.
“Stop pimping out your sister!” he shoots back. “And remember that those free spa treatments she gives you are not unlimited.”
“Fair point,” Arie concedes. “That still doesn’t change the fact that Hawaii is full of single ladies if you’re jealous of what Connor and I have!”
He’s out of earshot, and if he says anything else, I don’t catch it. Instead, I walk up to Arie and wrap my arms around her. “So, you’re telling everyone about us, huh?” I nip at her neck and she responds in kind.
“You better believe it!” She kisses me softly, sucking on my lower lip. “Everyone who walks into Flambé can dream about you all they want, but a dragon lives on the top of this tower, and if they mess with you, they mess with me. Everyone’s going to know you’re mine. All mine!”
I take her mouth, hotly. “I didn’t think Secret Agents had significant others. Seems like a bit of a liability to me, Wisconsin.”
“If you’re the Achilles’ heel that takes me down, Connor…” Arie says, pressing up against me. “Then get ready for one hell of a fight, cause if I’m going down in a blaze of glory, then I’m lighting up the night.”
“God, I hope so.” I wrap my fingers in her hair and kiss her throat, thinking about our first night together when she took control and took me on the floor. Arie is too powerful and vibrant to flare out. Nothing’s going to take this phoenix down. Especially when I’m right here beside her to make sure she’s always on fire. Arie is a flame that’s so deep under my skin I’m never getting back out again. She’s an oxygen that will keep me burning for life, always burnin
g bright.
Want to taste more of the Flambé series?
Keep your Flambé fix going with Whiskey Splash, featuring Arie’s sweet n’ romantic twin sister Esme.
When Esme is mistaken for Arie by television’s hottest new leading man, Desmond Pike, her love life goes from non-existent to volcanic.
Turn the page for a sample!
Whiskey Splash
Special Sneak Peek
1
Esme
Get Whiskey Splash now
A thousand candles flicker from the goblet chandelier at the center of the dining room. Black velvet booths line the picture window as the gold flames set the tone. A little darkness for mystery and excitement … A whole lot of fire to tease and turn up the heat!
Flambé—my twin sister Arie’s restaurant—is packed. Patrons have been lining up to get a taste of the late-night destination ever since it opened six months ago, and the craze hasn’t let up. It’s become one of the hottest restaurants in all of Oahu and it’s not hard to see why. Everyone in the restaurant is dressed to the nines in sexy late-night dresses and cocktail attire, button-up shirts left open at the collar to show off the perfect amount of skin. Sensual elegance, that’s the whole vibe of Flambé. Come for a drink, but leave thinking about sin, maybe even be ready to commit a little with dessert.
Fire dances in all the corners of the restaurant which overlooks the Waikiki bay, and part of the appeal is the fact that the waiters and waitresses are your guide to all things delicious and ignitable. It’s not a circus, but the culinary fire dancers are armed with tiny crème brûlée torches tucked in their belts, which they whoosh out like Charlie’s angels, lighting up the rims of martini glasses and the garnishes of desserts.
Order steak and it will sizzle in the kitchen but be seared at your table. Ask for a Spanish coffee, and get ready for a juggling act that includes rivers of brandy and tequila lit on fire and poured from glass to glass in a stream of silver-blue flames. Bananas foster, baked Alaska, cherries jubilee—if it can be set on fire table-side, trust me, it will be. This restaurant is the living embodiment of my sister Arie: sexy, sinful, unexpected, all set on fire and turned up to a heat level that will give you heart palpitations.
Speaking of Arie, the dazzling enchantress waves at me through the kitchen window and motions for me to come talk to her. I step in from the back hallway and the smell of the kitchen bowls me over—saffron butter, red-pepper spice—reminding me that the food is just as sinful as the elaborate pyrotechnics. Flambé isn’t glitter with no substance; the food is downright phenomenal. Arie takes off her gloves and heads straight for me, her ruby-red hair a wild mane of ringlets. My sister is fire embodied, coupled with a devilish smile that warns me I’m in for a fun night.
“Esme!” Arie wraps me in a hug, the black beads that cover her cocktail dress gleaming like the scales of a dragon. My sister cooks in her finest—satin, silk, sequins—unpractical by any normal human’s standards, but I’m not the one wowing crowds and lighting sparklers in their gin shots. “Thank you so much for coming in to cover Lana’s shift!” Arie starts walking us toward the back hall and her office, nodding to her sous-chef that she’s stepping out. “I really appreciate you covering for Lana. She never calls in sick, so she must be practically dying for her to bail on me.”
“You bet, I’m happy to help!” I say, as my twin walks us into her tiny office and opens a small armoire in the corner. How that gaudy piece of vintage furniture fits in Arie’s six-by-six clutter she calls an office is a miracle of Victorian hoardery. I often imagine Arie’s interior design style to be a bit like living inside Mary Poppins’ purse: anything you’re looking for just magically appears and you’re also bound to find a Tiffany lamp and an umbrella with a bird as a handle for good measure. As expected, the armoire is full of dresses, but not just dresses—fancy, glittering, ridiculously sexy dresses—which are all Arie thinks is appropriate for waitstaff attire. Remember, my sister cooks in these things. Yes, it’s all part of the woman, the myth, the legend that is my twin.
“Please don’t forget that I haven’t mastered any of your fancy drinks yet,” I remind her as she wades through scarves and rhinestones. Serving tables and occasionally lighting something on fire is one thing, but elaborate juggling acts like the rest of her fire-breathing waitstaff? Not really my specialty. Plus, I need my hands for my actual job at the Mandara Spa on level two of this resort. Burnt hands covered in boils will put me out of commission. “And please don’t ask me to make any of the table-side drinks, Spanish coffee or that other one with the green liqueur and the fancy spoon-fairy contraption.”
“The Flaming Fairy,” my sister corrects. “And it’s absinthe.”
“Yes, that one. Please, have Connor, or someone else, take over if one of your customers orders that.”
“It’s not a problem,” Arie says, not missing a beat. “Not that you aren’t entirely capable.” That’s a dig, of course, and her tone catches a bit of mockery as she says, “Anything you’re not sure about, tell Olivia at the hostess desk. She’ll make sure someone is by your side helping.”
She sifts through the sequins and lace, pulling out dresses and looking at me to assess if I can pull them off. She’s my twin so we both know they’ll fit, but fitting into a dress is not the same as wearing it. Half of Arie’s closet would wear me instead of the other way around.
In fact, looking at Arie is like looking into a surreal mirror where I get to see myself as someone in an alternate universe. We have the same face, the same bone structure, and the same fit, twenty-six-year-old body. But Arie, Arie is the wild seductress who won’t take no for an answer. I’m the lavender-haired nerd who’d rather curl up with a good book and an oversized sweater, delighted to drink tea all night while Arie is out mastering the art of multiple orgasms. That was before Connor, of course—the wild nights with different guys part. However, I’m pretty sure that Connor and orgasms are two sides of the same coin, especially now that they’re together. My point being, I’m the yoga-loving wallflower, and she’s the spotlight grabbing late-night debutante. Same face, very different people. Though sometimes, when I fill in at Flambé, it feels like I get to pretend to be Arie for a moment. I get to taste half-an-ounce of her grab-life-by-the-balls dragoness superpower: turning heads, demanding respect, flirting with guys and getting them hot with only the slightest of smiles. Being Arie means the word self-conscious doesn’t exist and her superpower is seduction.
“Oh, yessss! This one!” Arie pulls out a gold dress, beaded and fringed with flapper-style chevrons. It looks like it will barely cover my ass, but welcome to Flambé, where imagining naughty things is the apéritif you get regardless of if you ordered it. I take the dress and slip out of my yoga gear, dropping my purse and belongings on a side chair before wriggling myself into the skin-tight fabric. “And also—” Arie’s face lights up, remembering something as I smooth the beads out over my hips “—we have a few celebrities coming in tonight. If any of them are seated in your section and you don’t want to serve—”
“What? You don’t think I can handle famous people?” I sass playfully, trying to pull the gold fringe tickling the back of my thighs down a little further.
“Oh girl,” Arie says, looking me over and moving her head back in forth in full sass-action. “In that dress, you could invite every celebrity that walks in the door to a threesome, or a foursome, or a full-blown orgy. They’ll be groveling at your feet just to daydream about the possibility.”
Ha! That’s life in Arie-world, not mine. I look at myself in the mirror next to the armoire, noting that the dress is far more revealing than anything I’d wear normally. The front shows off a devilish amount of cleavage, which is going to make bending over one heck of a tit-show. My legs have the illusion of being covered with the long strings of fringe that tickle all the way down to my knees, but when that fringe splits open—hello skin!—you can see all the way up to the edge of my bottom. So, no bending over in either direction—
right. Good luck to me!
“You actually cook food in this thing?” I say, shaking my head at my sister, while still attempting to adjust the length. I’m about to serve food in the equivalent of a gold bikini with fringe.
“Oh, I’ve done everything in that dress,” Arie admits, turning me to face her as she slings a brûlée-torch harness around my hips and loads me with my own mini-flamethrower. “Remind me of the last time you got laid, sis?”
I roll my eyes. She does this every time I cover a shift for her. “The answer is the same as last time,” I say dryly, adjusting the torch harness. “Please remember that some of us don’t get to go home to Connor the Sex God.”
Arie pulls my lavender hair out of its ponytail and fluffs it up, letting it fall softly around my shoulders. The easiest way to tell the two of us apart is our hair. Arie’s is the redhead whose mane is a wild crown of magic, whereas mine is purple and layered in a soft romantic style. Think sexy inferno-demon-of-hell meets Briar Rose sipping tea in the rose garden.
“You realize,” Arie says, giving me a serious look, “we have the same body and face. Sure, your hair is a different color, but if Connor had met you first he probably would’ve happily given you a multiple-orgasmic evening.”
“Nope,” I shake my head, batting her hand away from the locks she’s been preening. “Because I never would’ve gone home with him.”
“Well, that’s the problem, now isn’t it sweetie? You have to actually go home with them to give this—” she reaches forward and grabs me in the crotch “—a little action.”
I yelp and back away as she laughs. I pull my brûlée torch out of its holster and hold it out like I might shoot it. “Hands off the goods!”
“Oh, I like this!” Arie’s eyes sparkle wickedly. “If you want to take the torch home with someone special and do a little role playing … I give you permission!”