by Anne Calhoun
He came with a gasp, release thudding through him as his cock jerked in his grip.
Sanity returned. “Fuck,” he said, then bent his head forward under the spray. The thing was . . . rubbing one out didn’t stop him from thinking about his upcoming date with Sarah. He was still focused on the future, but now with a sense of sheepish dread.
Chapter Three
Bottle of wine in a brown paper bag, he took the train to Borough Hall and walked the rest of the way to her address. She opened the door barefoot, dressed in a denim skirt and a sweater belted over a tank top. Her hair was loose, wild corkscrew curls tumbling around her shoulders. She caught it in both hands and settled it between her shoulder blades in a practiced, automatic move. “Hi,” she said. “Did you have any trouble finding us?”
“I worked at a Brooklyn station for a couple of years,” he said.
“Oh, you brought wine. Let’s have a look.” She studied the bottle. “Fire Island. That’s near here, right? Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Want me to open it?”
“Please. If I don’t turn the mushrooms they’ll scorch.”
He looked around the space as he followed her into the apartment. The living area was one big open room, with a gorgeous, open view of the East River and the Manhattan skyline. The kitchen windows overlooked the street but were high enough that the street noise was muted. The room was furnished in overstuffed chairs in shades of green and cream. A desk sat against one wall, and the shelves above it held pictures of graduations and weddings interspersed with finance textbooks. “Nice,” he commented.
She took her gaze off a pan for a split second. “It’s Trish’s. She used to work for some big investment firm.”
He completed his circuit of the room and came to stand beside Sarah at the counter. He picked up the corkscrew and opened the bottle. Sarah slid the mushrooms onto a plate and added more oil to the pan. “Glasses are in the last cabinet,” she said.
He poured them both a glass. “Cheers,” he said.
“Well?” Her eyes were dancing as she peered at him over the glass.
“Well what?”
“Did you make it?”
“Nope,” he said, unrepentant. “You?”
“Yes,” she said. “For someone who claims to be ultracompetitive, you’re making this pretty easy for me. Unless . . .” Her gaze clouded over. “Did you have a difficult day at work?”
He stopped for a moment to appreciate a woman who understood sex, either alone or with a partner, as a perfectly reasonable response to a hard day at work. This gave him an easy out: lie. The only people who really understood what he did were other first responders, but this week was no better and no worse than any other week lately, and she’d know if he lied. He didn’t know how he knew she’d know, but she’d know.
The truth was, he’d gotten caught in the moment of remembering her.
“No worse than usual,” he said, but his voice lacked his usual teasing note.
She turned back to the stove and stirred the sauce simmering on the back burner. “I’m torn,” she said slowly. “You do have a very stressful job. But you also took the challenge.” She peeked at him over her shoulder, the sweater hanging to the curve of her biceps. “Somehow I think you’d respect me less if I didn’t hold you to the terms of our bet.”
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, because she was right, although how she knew that was beyond him. Sex was easy, but games were serious business, and he was going to have to win back some ground here.
He set his wine on the counter and crossed the kitchen. “I have the ultimate respect for you after what you did on Wednesday,” he said, purposefully pitching his voice low and rough, waiting for her response. He knew so little about what turned her on, but that did, his honest reaction to the memory of what she’d done to him. He was a little aroused and a little embarrassed and a whole lot desperate to do it again.
She’d done all the heavy lifting last time, so it was a relief to brace his forearms on the stove’s hood and explore the curve of her ear, using only his lips until she shuddered and her eyelids drooped. He gently traced the inner whorl with his tongue, then nipped less gently at her lobe, noting that her hand, automatically stirring something thick and yellow, halted entirely at the use of his teeth. She liked the edge, but then again, he already knew that.
“You’re playing dirty,” she said.
“This surprises you?” he murmured into her hair. “I thought you were sharper than that.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said. Her hand hovered dangerously close to the hot pot, so he slid his fingers along her forearm and guided it to the counter. “I’m letting you know I see what you’re doing.”
Wild curls tickled his cheek as he smiled. “What am I doing?”
“You’re looking down my shirt, for one.”
He outright laughed. “I am. I didn’t see anything last time.”
“You certainly did,” she said.
“All right, I didn’t see enough.”
“And you’re trying to seduce me out of taking a forfeit.”
“Right again,” he said. He unfastened the knitted belt of her sweater and opened the fabric. It was warm to the touch, perhaps from the heat of the stove, but more likely from the heat of her body, radiating like the scent of the sauce and whatever grain was slowly bubbling at the back of the stove.
“Hmm,” she said as he rested his hands on her rib cage, just below her breasts. “What will you give me in exchange for releasing you from our agreement?”
“Orgasms,” he said, and stroked his thumbs against the soft undercurves. “As many as you want. I won’t come until you’re done.”
Her head lolled forward, the wild spill of her hair tilting with the movement. He had her. He knew it as well as he knew his own name. A quick swipe of his thumbs over her erect nipples had her trembling.
“Shit! The polenta!” In one movement she snatched up the spoon and shoved him back a step with her hip; in the next she’d whisked the pot off the burner and was stirring heavy clumps up from the bottom, returning the thick mixture to its creamy state.
“You are a very bad man,” she said, gesturing with the spoon.
He folded his arms and grinned at her. “You’re still not surprised.”
“That you’d try? No. At how successful you were? A bit. I am saved by my own polenta.”
“You’re really not going to have sex with me, are you?”
She set the pot on the granite countertop and looked him straight in the eye. “No. We had a bet, which you lost. If you want to leave now, I understand.”
No way was he leaving. She’d respect him a hell of a lot less for storming off in a huff than she did for giving in to the demands of his cock. Up his game, and he could save this. “What would I stay for?”
“Mushrooms sautéed in white wine and garlic over polenta, fresh spring greens with pears and feta, and individual chocolate lava cakes with homemade whipped cream and raspberries for dessert.”
Saliva gathered in his mouth. He swallowed it and said, “That’s it?” Like her menu was the usual takeout he’d bring home for a Friday night in front of whatever sport he could find on TV.
“If you’re a masochist, you can watch me get myself off after we eat. I was absolutely desperate for an orgasm before you and your wicked mouth started to have your way with me.”
He was no masochist, but he’d give up his apartment for the chance to see that. “Deal,” he said, lightning fast. “You have to take your clothes off. And I get to talk.”
“Fine, but no touching,” she said, brandishing the spoon again.
“Your rules, darlin’.” She wrapped her sweater around her waist and knotted the belt, then smoothed her hair back again. “You look like a pigeon settling its feathers after a fight.”
Her eyes narrowed. She picked up the bowl of polenta in her left hand, then stepped into his body and cupped his balls through his jeans. “Do you have any idea how badly I wanted
you in my bed tonight? It’s all I could think about, sex with you, releasing all that anticipation. So if I seem a little flustered, it’s all your fault, and you’re going to pay for it later. But first,” she said, and handed him the bowl, “we eat.”
***
She’d set the table in basic white dishes, silverware, and linen napkins. Votive candles floated in large glass bowls, reflecting off the silver ring on her thumb as she set the mushroom dish next to his place and the salad in the center. This was a galaxy away from fast food.
Sarah held out her hand for his plate, scooped some polenta onto it, dabbed a shallow depression in the polenta, then spooned mushrooms over it. “Salad?”
“Please,” he said.
It was like being in a really nice restaurant, with amazing views and time to enjoy the food, except they were alone as alone could be. He could feel his brain jerking like a slipping transmission, trying to find the correct gear for the road. When his fingers flexed with the urge to hoist her over his shoulder and take her into the nearest bedroom, he cleared his throat and said, “Where’s your roommate?”
“The Hamptons?” she said with an uplift to her voice. “Something about a summer share. She’ll be gone every weekend for the rest of the summer.”
“You didn’t get one, too?”
“We’re living together and working together. I thought it might not be a good idea to be in each other’s pockets twenty-four-seven,” she said with a quick smile. “How about you?”
“Yes, but mine doesn’t start until later in May,” he said.
“I hear it’s a quintessentially New York thing to do.”
He shrugged. “The city’s pretty hot and humid in July and August. Better to be by the ocean. Either way, you’re not going to want to make soup.”
“That’s all right,” she said, although her smile was a pale shadow of itself. “I’m not really ready to make it again anyway.”
She watched him take his first bite of mushroom and polenta. To his total shock, it was really, really good, and he said so.
“Better than you expected?”
“Yeah,” he said, and watched her smile at his honesty. “I don’t mean that the way it sounds. It’s not just okay for now. I’d ask you to make it again.”
“Best compliment you can pay a chef,” she said, as if she were relieved that he enjoyed it. She speared a bit of salad with her fork, and they dug into the meal.
Making conversation was step one in both distracting him from the tension simmering in the room and changing her mind about not sleeping with him. “What brought you to New York?”
“My aunt died of ovarian cancer a few months ago. I took care of her, and afterwards, was at loose ends. Trish’s cousin handled my aunt’s financials. Towards the end she told me about Trish opening Symbowl and asked if I’d be willing to help her get the business off the ground. I was looking for a new challenge, something different, a change of pace. I’m picking up extra cash working private dinner parties a couple of nights a week as a sous-chef-slash-server.”
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.
“She lived a good life. A full life. Towards the end she was greedy for the smallest things. Sunshine on her face. Fresh air. Flowers and butterflies in her garden.”
His gaze flicked from her face to the windows, then down to his empty plate. “This was delicious. Thank you.”
She’d made him uncomfortable. “You’re welcome. It’s a pleasure to cook for someone who really enjoys food.”
“Is that a crack at how fast I eat?”
Her eyes widened. “Thirty minutes for a single course is pretty good,” she said.
A quick glance at the clock confirmed her words. “Usually it’s in and down in less than five.”
“Sometimes we have to eat to live,” she said with a smile. “Other times we can live to eat.”
“You mentioned dessert?”
“They take a few minutes,” she said. “I’ll put them in the oven now.”
He cleared the table while she placed twelve small ramekins onto a cookie sheet and slid that into the oven. The open kitchen window kept the room’s temperature comfortable as he washed the dishes and she whipped powdered sugar into heavy cream and mashed raspberries. The scent of chocolate blended with an earthy smell rising from her skin.
“What perfume do you wear?” he asked absently.
“I don’t,” she said over the churning beaters. “I got out of the habit when I worked the front at Greens. It competes with the food, and diners who appreciate good cooking want to smell the food, not my scent du jour.”
He bent over and put his nose to the nape of her neck. It was her. A hint of sweat, musk, the detergent from her T-shirt, and over it all, chocolate and sugar and cream.
A shiver chased across her spine. She flashed him a quick smile, tapped the beaters on the bowl’s edge to knock off the newly thickened cream, and ejected them from the handheld base. “Want one?” she asked.
He nodded. She held one out. He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, holding her, and started to lick the beater clean. By the time he was finished, some of the cream had melted enough to drip down her knuckles. He cleaned those, too.
“My God, you’re a menace,” she whispered.
Good. Fluster her. He reached for the other beater, but she held it back and away. “This one’s mine,” she said, and proceeded to clean it off with her finger.
“More efficient,” he observed.
“Not nearly as sexy,” she said. “Points to you for tongue work.”
“Those points going to get me anything?”
“No.”
“You say no a lot,” he mused. “Someday I’m going to make you say yes. Again and again and again.”
“But not tonight,” she said. The oven beeped. She grabbed the oven mitts. “Watch out.”
He got out of the way. The door opened and hot air richly steeped with dark chocolate rolled into the room. She extracted the cookie sheet, turned two of the ramekins upside down on plates, and tapped them with her index fingers. When she lifted them, warm chocolate quivered on the white surfaces, the interiors barely contained by the baked sides. Then a dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of raspberries topped by a sprig of some green thing that might have been mint or hemlock for all he knew.
She shooed him back to the table, waited until he sat down, then set the plate in front of him. “Individual chocolate lava cakes,” she announced.
The flavors in the first mouthful spread over his tongue, hot and cool and sweet and tart all at once, just hot enough to make him respect it. The dish rewarded his attention with a sensory explosion unlike any in his previous experience. It smelled like heaven, tasted like a dream, looked like something out of a magazine. He could hear it calling his name.
Without thinking it through, he reached out and scooped a bit of chocolate, cream, and raspberry juice onto his fingertip, then extended it to her. She smiled, leaned forward, and licked it off one cat stroke at a time. He stopped breathing.
“You were holding back with the beater,” he said when she’d finished.
“I don’t mix sex and cooking,” she said matter-of-factly. “I’ll do neither well, when both should be done to the absolute best of my ability.” She took another mouthful of the dessert. “And savored,” she said when she’d swallowed.
“Never?”
“Never. Much of what I make doesn’t respond well to my being distracted. Also, it’s really unhygienic for the kitchen, and the list of foodstuffs that shouldn’t be introduced to a woman’s private parts is actually quite long.”
He burst out laughing.
“You can’t tell me you don’t see all kinds of weird stuff.”
“The ER sees more vegetables in awkward places than I do, but every so often we get dispatched to cut someone out of a pair of handcuffs.”
“Always try the key first,” she said, then scraped the last bit of torte off her plate and ate it.
“Always.”
She cocked her head and looked at him. “Still want to stick around?”
“Hell, yes.” One part of him couldn’t believe she’d go through with this. The other part knew she would and wanted to see it play out.
“Dishes first.”
He cleared their plates and wineglasses, then washed them while she covered the whipped cream and raspberries and put the dishes away. “You’re a brave man,” she said.
“Don’t push your luck, darlin’. One of these days I’ll win.”
“And payback’s a bitch?”
“No, payback’s an increasingly frustrated man.”
She took his hand and led him into her bedroom. It was an odd mismatch of decoration until he realized that the room’s actual occupant was gone for the duration of her stay. He stayed by the foot of the bed.
“I don’t usually do this with an audience,” she admitted.
Some women wouldn’t admit to doing it at all. He wondered if this was a California free love thing, then admitted to himself that he didn’t give a fuck. As soon as she got into it, he’d make his move. “Pretend I’m not here,” he said.
A slow smile spread across her face. “Oh, I like that. Like, maybe I’ll want you and maybe I won’t, but either way you have to stick around?”
One day, one day very, very soon, he would learn to keep his mouth shut when it came to Sarah and challenges. It didn’t matter what he threw at her; she took it and twisted it into something guaranteed to drive him fucking insane.
“Get a chair from the dining room, please,” she said.
He did. When he came back into the bedroom, he set it where she pointed, then sat down in it when she pointed at it again. She sat on the bed, her hands braced against the edge of the mattress, looking out the window at the Brooklyn skyline stretched into the distance. Automatically, Tim followed her gaze. He saw nothing but rooftops of bodegas, semidetached housing, green spaces that indicated boulevards or parks. For a long moment her gaze searched the view, an intense expression on her face. A puzzle piece clicked into place: She was shifting from food to sex, from one moment to the next, drawing on the meal and the conversation and the charged air between them. Fully alive, fully present.