Cruel to Be Kind

by Stephanie Vaughan

  “Hey, Joe. Where’s the boss?” Megan had to raise her voice to be heard over Tony Bennett singing about San Francisco. Huh. What were the odds of that? Momentarily distracted by the music, Megan had to ask Joe to repeat his response.

  “Which one? Everybody’s my boss, right Stretch?” He directed the last comment to Natalia who, at six-one was taller than even Jaci.

  “You bet. Now do my bidding and get me two glasses of Chardonnay for my customers, eh?”

  Nat’s Russian accent was a big part of her success. The fact that she could bend over backwards and press herself into a handstand was another.

  “I’m looking for Jaci, Joe. I’m supposed to meet her here to give her some keys.”

  “Sorry, doll. Don’t know nothin’ about it. Nat?” He turned to the waitress who only shrugged before loading the two glasses of wine the bartender had produced onto her tray and heading back to take care of the couple at the window table.

  “Jaci’s not here, Megan.”

  The voice came from behind her. Megan turned to see Steve emerge from the game room in the rear.

  Dressed in work clothes, hair tied back, a fine layer of sawdust covering most of him, he must have just come from the job site. The region in her chest that had been numb for days turned over and thumped to life. The dirt on his face only made his blue eyes stand out that much more. He looked wonderful.

  But he didn’t love her, Megan reminded herself. He didn’t want anything to do with her. So what was he doing here, then?

  Whatever it was, it didn’t matter. She had to get out before she did or said something really stupid. Like, ‘Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to come home with me?’ The thought of those words slipping out and his probable response kicked her into action.

  Megan turned on her heel and walked out.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Megan wait!”

  Dammit! She was getting away. Leaving before he’d even had a chance to apologize—okay, crawl.

  She was already out on the sidewalk when he caught up to her. Keys in her hand, she was repeatedly pressing a button on the electronic fob. She didn’t even look up when he came closer.

  He pressed closer still, caging her with his arms, surrounding her small body with his. “Megan wait. Talk to me. Please?”

  Still trying futilely to get the automatic door lock to work and allow her escape, she finally looked up at him from over her shoulder. The cold, blazing fury in her eyes made him back off a half-step. But, only for a second. Then he was right back at her. Maybe he could bypass her intellect and appeal directly to her body. He knew her body liked him just fine. The hurt he’d seen behind the anger made his gut twist, reminding Steve of the last time they’d seen each other. Please, God, give him the right words to make it up to her.

  “What’s the preferred greeting here, again? Give me a second—it’ll come to me. Right. ‘Oh. Hi.’” Steve winced to hear his own words thrown back at him. “I’ve got to go, Steve. Don’t worry, I got your message. You were more than clear the other night. You don’t have to worry about me showing up places and embarrassing you. Jaci can come to my place if she wants to see me.”

  Standing this close to her, he caught tantalizing whiffs of her hair, the shampoo she used, she underlying scent that he knew belonged only to her. He closed his eyes and pressed a kiss onto the top of her head. Steve realized that in her present frame of mind she might not appreciate the gesture and braced for an elbow to the ribs and when it didn’t come he relaxed a little. But, only a little. Standing this close to her, feeling the way he did, it was all he could do not to press himself into her tempting backside. Now that really would earn him a body blow. And to something more vulnerable than the ribcage.

  “Megan, please.”

  “Trust is a funny thing, Steve. Easy to lose.” Her voice trailed off so that he had to strain to catch her words. “Hard to win back.” When he heard it break a little on the last word a wave of tenderness swept over him. He gave up the fight and wrapped his arms around her slender shoulders, pulling her close against him.

  “Oh, baby…” She felt so good in his arms, cradled gently against his body. He gave himself strict orders that this was about comforting her, not copping a feel. “I am an ass.”

  As close as he was, Steve didn’t hear a sound. But after a few moments her head nodded unmistakably in the affirmative.

  Huh? She was agreeing with him? That was a good sign. Right? It was progress. Sort of.

  “What can I do to make it up to you? Please. You’ve got to talk to me, Megan.”

  She shook her head slightly. “No.”

  “No?! Baby, you’ve got to talk to me. What do I have to do?” His spirits plummeted. God, if he’d jacked this up beyond repair … Steve didn’t want to think of the possibilities. He had to be able to fix this. Where was his famous charm when he really needed it?

  Another slow shake of her head struck another blow to his hopes.

  Looking away as Megan was, her graceful neck was left vulnerable. Steve was a desperate man—he couldn’t afford to overlook an opening. He pressed another kiss on the spot where her pulse was visible. Open-mouthed, his tongue rested against her soft skin, tasting her flesh as he moved slowly to the tender area behind her ear. He listened to the instinct urging him to bite down and was rewarded by the low moan he coaxed from her.

  By barely-perceptible degrees Megan softened. The stiffness gradually gave way until her body rested fully against his, without so much as a millimeter of space between them.

  “Megan, please. Baby, please talk to me. Tell me what you want me to do.” Plastered up against him the way she was, she had to be able to feel his erection pressing eagerly against her backside. The promise of satisfaction made by the tempting crease of that beautiful bottom was more than a man with his tenuous grip on his libido ought to be faced with. Regardless of whatever she told him, he knew what he wanted to do.

  When she pulled away to turn in his arms Steve had to choose between crying in relief or frustration. Relief because temptation had moved out of reach—frustration because relief had moved out of reach. But one look into her tortured eyes and his own problems were forgotten. He would do anything to wipe that stricken look from her face.

  “I want your total honesty. I want to know what’s different now. What’s changed between now and Tuesday night? You couldn’t get away from me fast enough then. Why the change?”

  “I … I…” Steve looked down into her earnest, almost solemn, face. He could drown in the depths of her eyes. The freckles over the bridge of her nose gave her a waif-like quality and made her look years younger than he knew her to be. She must use some kind of hypnotism, because he knew in that moment he could never lie to her again. Tuesday night in Goldie’s had been a lie. He had let her think he didn’t want her and that wasn’t true. It wasn’t true then and it would never be true. “Okay. Total honesty? I’m scared of what you make me feel. I guess I thought that if you were gone I could go back to the way things were before I met you.”

  She gave him a searching look. She looked deep into his eyes and he thought of the first night they’d met, when he’d thought she could see into his soul.

  “Is that what you want? To go back to the way things were before we met?” She squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, as though she needed to brace herself for his answer.

  A motorcycle rumbled by, the distinctive sound of its punched out baffles violating city sound ordinances and momentarily pulling him back from the emotional brink he teetered on. Self-awareness flooded back and Steve was suddenly conscious of being in a very public place. To his surprise, not only didn’t he care, he was actually glad. He wanted the world to know that she was his and he was hers.

  “No. Not at all. Lady, you scare the hell out of me. And I can’t wait to see what you’ll do next.”

  Oh, sister, were you ever right. Whatever her sister had seen in her face that night, Megan couldn’t deny that Christa had call
ed it. She was a total goner. She didn’t like to think of herself as shallow, but looking up into those eyes, not quite blue, not quite green, the sun turning his hair the most incredible shade of red-gold, all she could think was, He is so beautiful.

  “Next? I’m going to get into my car and drive to San Francisco.”

  She saw his grin, which had been tilting ever so slightly into the cocky right up until the moment the words ‘San Francisco’ had come out of her mouth, slide right off his face. Disbelief sparred with frustration, with disbelief the eventual winner.

  “You can’t.”

  “Actually, yeah, I think I have to.”

  Frustration got up off the mat and made a feverish comeback. Steve braced himself against the roof of her car and watched her closely. “What’s so important in San Francisco, all of a sudden?”

  “I’m meeting an old friend for dinner.

  “Is this old friend a him or a her?”

  Megan could tell that Steve was working to maintain an even tone. But she could also see that jealousy was whispering in his other ear and sought to reassure him. “It’s a her. An old teacher of mine from when I lived in the city.”

  The two vertical lines between his brows relaxed immediately. “Oh. Okay.” Steve moved closer, straddling her legs as he dropped his hands from the car to her shoulders. “Can you call and reschedule?” The rasp of his calloused fingertips against her bare skin made the small hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Steve smoothed his hands down her arms, from shoulders to hands and back up again, a sensual promise made with every stroke. Despite her resolve not to weaken, Megan couldn’t keep her eyes from drooping in pleasure. Or from closing momentarily when Steve allowed his thumbs to graze the underside of her breasts on his upstroke.

  “I made a promise, Steve, and it’s important to me to keep it.” Her hormones protested, but Megan held firm.

  Taking her hand in his larger one, Steve brought it down to press against the fly of his jeans. The feel of his erection through the well worn cloth made her smile. “What about a promise made a little closer to home?”

  Deciding two could play that game, Megan pressed against him before raking her nails across the sensitive tip. “I’m sure you’re mistaken. I don’t remember any promises being made.” She tried for her sunniest, most innocent smile.

  Steve’s hips flexed, as though trying to follow the movement of her hand. “Maybe not in so many words, but those present—” He drew her hand back down to his straining erection, in case she was having trouble deciphering his meaning. “—definitely heard something.”

  Smiling up into his face, desire sharpening those already impressive cheekbones, Megan hooked her thumbs in his belt loops and pulled him closer. “I won’t change my dinner plans, but I wouldn’t say no to some company on the drive. If you don’t mind finding something to do while I meet Patrice for dinner.” While his hips drove her backward until she pressed against the warm metal of her car, Megan used her grip on his pants to pull herself up and whisper in his ear. “I have a hotel room. With a queen size bed.”

  “When do we leave?”

  After stopping by Steve’s place long enough for him to throw some clothes in a bag, Megan pointed her little Toyota south and headed out of town. It didn’t take long for the twisting four-lane road to give way to the interstate that would take them west to San Francisco. Never a bad drive, with Steve keeping her company Megan found the time passed even more quickly than usual. The green hills of the Sierras were left behind and they passed through the flatland of the Sacramento basin before reaching the immaculately manicured, vine-covered hillsides of Napa. The stress and sadness of the previous two days was slipping away with every mile that passed under the wheels of her car. Relaxed—lighthearted, even—Megan’s head was beginning to fill with thoughts and plans for the weekend ahead.

  Trading stories of their college careers, Megan laughed repeatedly as Steve kept her entertained with stories of his time spent in San Diego. Even his choice of colleges had shocked her. She would have figured him for a local boy, and was surprised he had chosen far away to the south. While she could easily picture him in the laid-back atmospheres of Chico or Santa Barbara, San Diego would have been far down her list of guesses. His grades just good enough to keep from being thrown out, Steve had confessed that he had spent nine of every ten waking hours not in class learning to surf. The thought of how he must have looked, throwing back his long hair as he emerged from the surf, board tucked under his arm, snug half-wetsuit hugging his lean muscles, nearly caused her to drift into the next lane. It took the noisy thumping of the lane demarcation buttons to startle her from her vision.

  Much sooner than she expected, the skyline of San Francisco was looming ahead of them. Megan had fallen in love with the city on her first visit, a family vacation when she was probably nine or ten. The smell of the ocean, the diversity of the people, the colors of the city lights at night, all thrilled her. As a child she had loved all the things her class mates at the cooking academy had dismissed as clichéd and hopelessly touristy: eating clam chowder from a sourdough bowl, feeding the raucous and messy seagulls that inhabited every corner of the city—even visiting Alcatraz had thrilled her. And the food. It was probably her exposure to the diverse cuisines San Francisco offered that had begun her fascination with food and cooking.

  Making her way around Union Square to her favorite old hotel, Megan pulled the car to a stop in front. A twenty dollar bill and her keys to one of the doormen took care of parking. They probably wouldn’t need the car again all weekend. If they wanted to go anywhere it was usually easier to take public transportation or walk than deal with the traffic and the hills. Although Megan really couldn’t imagine where they might want to go that would be more entertaining than their hotel room.

  “Do you mind if we take a little walk and stretch our legs before we head up to the room? I have a place in mind I’d like to take you to, if you’re game.”

  “Can I go like this?” Steve frowned doubtfully at his soiled work clothes. “I didn’t even shower.”

  Megan took her time taking visual inventory. From his battered Wolverine work boots to a frayed and obviously favorite gold DeWalt T-shirt (“Real men do it with 18 volts”) he was a picture to make any red-blooded woman’s heart flutter. And something told Megan it wouldn’t be just the women looking. “You’ll be fine. The only question is will I be able to fend off all the competition?”

  Turning to head out the hotel’s double doors to the street, Megan was spun around on her heels as Steve’s hand snaked out to pull her back. Using his free arm to pull her close, he hauled her up on her toes and stuck his face close to hers. “No competition. Just you and me,” he told her before kissing her breathless.

  Oh, my. Well, wasn’t that interesting?

  “Okay.” Megan saw from the corner of her eye that the concierge was studying his computer screen with more diligence than she ever remembered seeing before. Tilting her head the other direction, she noted that the doorman was staring fixedly at ceiling moldings he saw every day of his working life. “Ready, then?”

  The area she had chosen was the heart of downtown, thick with historic old hotels and first class shopping. They wove their way between the late afternoon pedestrian traffic; a predictable mix of business people, shoppers and tourists, occasionally enlivened by the kind of exuberant individuality that alternately chagrined and delighted the natives.

  A short walk past Nordstrom’s, a left turn at Starbucks and up two more blocks, Megan smiled to see one of her favorite old haunts was still in business. The window display of lingerie was surprisingly tasteful—until the viewer’s eye was drawn to the shoes on the mannequins’ plastic feet. Three-inch clear Lucite platforms with seven-inch spike heels began to tell the real story. The discerning watcher might notice the not-quite feminine bulge behind one mannequin’s thong panties. But it was the tail made from authentic horsehair dangling artistically from the rear of another’s that re
ally put it over the top, Megan decided.

  There had been a time when she had known all the staff at Too, Too Sullied Flesh—better known to regulars as Sullie’s—by name. Too many times she had subsisted on nothing but Ramen noodles and classroom projects from the culinary academy because she had spent her week’s pay on some toy or other from Sullie’s. Although Patrice had a play room full of equipment that cost more than Megan could ever hope to make as a chef, Megan still hadn’t been able to resist the lure of buying as many of her own as she could afford. Or not afford, as the case might be.

  The bells over the door announced their arrival and as she stepped through the door, one hand still firmly clasped in Steve’s, Megan was awash in memories. The sultry sound of a Rosemary Clooney CD and the smell of expensive leather brought back the times she and her mentor had capped off an evening out with a trip to Sullie’s to expand Megan’s toy box. The exotic looking African-American woman behind the counter looked up from the magazine she had been flicking through to greet them. Her perfunctory ‘Good afternoon, darlings’ ended in a high pitched shriek when she recognized Megan.

  “Girlie girl! Oh my God, where have you been?!”

  Megan always enjoyed first-timers’ reactions to Raven, and Steve didn’t let her down. Taking in her friend’s low-slung hip huggers—painted on, of course—waist length hair and extreme make up, Steve’s mouth gaped open. But only for a second. When he got a look at a pair of 34DDs few people ever forgot encased in a low-cut pink T-shirt, he recovered enough to smile appreciatively.

  “Hey, babe.” Megan was swept into a hug, Raven bending low to greet her height-challenged friend.