“What?” Niki asked looking confused.
“I was starting to think that you were too perfect to be real, but I’ve found what your thing is.”
She looked around nervously. “What are you talking about?”
I tutted at her. “You, my little baker, are a messy cook!”
“I am not!” she protested vehemently. “It’s organised chaos.”
“Nope. You’re a little packrat. Look at this place. It’s like it was hit by a tornado.”
“Hey, do you want my help or not? Because if you start bad mouthing my creative space…” She trailed off, waving a wooden spoon at me threateningly before turning to stir the pot boiling on the stove.
“Let’s not resort to violence, baby. I can learn to live with the mess.”
“I am not messy!” Any further protests from her lips fell silent as I pressed up against her back. “Jake…” she said warningly. “We’re supposed to be working on the menu.”
“We are.” I peppered kisses along the curve of her neck. “We’re working very hard. Maybe it’s time to take a little break?”
She giggled and tried to squirm out of my arms. “We haven’t even started yet. Focus, mister, or you’re not going to end up with a menu at all.”
I sighed with reluctant acceptance and took off my jacket. “Fine, I suppose you’re right.”
A notepad on the counter amongst all the mess caught my eye, and I pulled it towards me. Skimming it I realised Niki had written down a long list of ideas for the restaurant.
“These are great, babe. When did you start working on the list?”
She tried to shrug it off. “The morning we went to see The Saloon.”
“You’re incredible, you know that?” I spun her to face me. “I owe you big time for this.”
“You owe me nothing,” she said tenderly. “I’m happy to help. What do you think?”
“They look good, a lot of these are similar to the ideas I had.” I rolled up the sleeves of my shirt. “Let’s get started, gorgeous.”
* * * * *
Several hours, and many recipes later, I took the lid off the pot in which the final meal we had decided to test for the day was cooking, and stirred it a final time.
“I’m stuffed,” Niki said, placing a plate in the already overfilled sink. “I really don’t think I could eat another bite. How long is that going to take?”
“The chilli needs at least an hour to simmer.” I grinned mischievously. “Any idea how we should pass the time?”
“Sleep sounds good to me.” Niki yawned, walking over to the stove and turning the flame to the lowest setting. “But seeing as that’s out of the question, a movie instead?”
A plan started to form, and I nodded in agreement. I had a much more fun idea of what to do while waiting for the chilli to cook, and it involved getting Niki on a flat surface.
She may not have been ready to make love, but that didn’t mean we couldn’t explore other ways of having fun.
Kicking off my shoes, I stretched out on the longest couch in the living room. I tugged Niki onto my lap and handed her the remote. “Lady’s choice.”
“And people say chivalry is dead,” she sassed, earning her a nip on the curve of her neck.
Settling her against me, I waited a couple of minutes before my hand trailed up her thigh gently and began drawing abstract shapes on the smooth skin there.
Her breathing became deeper and faster, but she focused her attention on the cheesy reality show that was playing on the screen.
Hm… game on, baby.
My hand inched higher and I wondered how much longer she would pretend to ignore me for. My mouth decided to join in on the action, pressing feather-light kisses along her neck and jaw.
When my fingertips stroked her inner thigh, her legs clamped together.
“Hey there, mister. What are you doing?”
“There’s something I’ve been curious about for months, and I was going to find out the answer to my question.”
She tilted her head to the side to allow me better access to her neck. “And what is that question?”
“I’ve been dying to know what you look like when you come,” I whispered and traced the shell of her ear with my tongue.
Her eyes widened as a flush came over her cheeks. “Jake!”
“You wanted honesty, baby,” I chuckled. My hand slid over her clothed hips and waist, stopping to cup her heavy bra clad breasts. “Ever since I kissed you on the counter I’ve wanted to have these in my hands again. To play, kiss and suck on them until you’re panting for me to fuck you.”
Her jaw dropped at how forward I was being with her, the TV completely forgotten. I shifted our positions so Niki was flat against the couch, and I was on top of her.
My hands moved to pull her dress up, but when Niki stiffened under me and placed her hand over mine, I froze.
Aim accomplished, idiot. If your aim was to make her as uncomfortable as possible. You need to calm down before you frighten her off completely.
“Fuck. Sorry, baby. I got caught up in the moment.”
I went to shift off her, but her hands on my shoulders stopped me. The uncertainty I saw on her face tore at me. “I do want… umm… can we just…” Niki stumbled over her words and huffed an annoyed sigh at herself.
I cupped a cheek. “What do you want, Niki?”
“I don’t… Can I keep the dress on?”
I frowned at her words but before I could question her about it she attacked my mouth with the hungry kiss.
Making a mental note to come back to this subject with her later, I broke away and nodded. “Okay.”
“Thank you,” she said quickly, pulling me to her again.
As the kisses between us grew hungrier, my greedy hand slipped under the skirt of her dress and dipped under the elastic of her panties. Remembering her earlier hesitation, I paused.
“Is this okay, gorgeous?”
She gasped and nodded as my finger touched her swollen clit.
“I need to hear you say it for me.”
She blushed and shook her head, but I wasn’t giving up that easily. “Let me hear you say the words, Niki.” The finger that had been circling her clit stopped and moved down to hover at the entrance of her pussy.
“Touch me, please.”
I slid a finger deep inside and the smooth walls of her sex clenched and released around me. I increased the speed of the strokes, encouraged by Niki’s soft whimpers and moans.
I pulled out of her pussy and circled her clit again, alternating between thrusting into her hot core and teasing the sensitive nub.
She was so fucking tight and hot, I didn’t know if I would actually survive being inside her when the time came.
“Oh God, Jake. I don’t think I can take anymore. Please,” she pleaded.
“Your wish, my command.” I took her mouth again, sliding two fingers into her as my thumb teased her clit.
“You’re so close. Let go, baby. Let go for me.”
Niki arched her neck, a shudder running through her body as her climax took over, her pussy clenching hard, trying to keep my fingers inside her. “Oh, yes, Jake!” she cried, her hips pumping to meet my hand.
Her chest heaved as she came down from intense orgasm, her eyes taking on the same dazed expression they had when I first kissed her. I gently pulled my hand out of her, most of her juices were wiped from my hand by the material of her panties.
“That was beautiful, Niki.” I caressed her cheek, and she flushed as she smelt herself on me. “You just came screaming my name,” I teased. “A little too late to be embarrassed now.”
She shifted her hands to the button on my jeans, but I stopped her.
Talk about déjà vu.
“Niki, no. I don’t want to you feel like you have to do that.”
“But I do want to… I want to touch you. I want to make you feel good too, Jake,” she murmured so quietly I could barely hear her. Niki’s fingers went back to crotch o
f my jeans, and she slowly pulled the zipper down.
My already hard cock jumped as her fingers brushed over it. I groaned but a strange smell that came from the kitchen distracted me.
“Hold on, gorgeous. Do you smell that?” I sniffed at the air. “Is something burning?”
The fire alarm started blaring, the piercing sound ringing painfully in our ears.
“Oh my God. The chilli.” Niki hurriedly tried to straighten her clothes as she rolled out from under me and ran to the kitchen. I tucked myself back into my jeans and pulled the zipper up before following her into the kitchen.
“What happened?”
“The flame was turned up high.” She took the smoking pan over to the sink and switched on the cold water.
The pot hissed angrily as steam rose from blackened sludge. Niki turned to me looking puzzled.
“I was so sure I left it simmering on a low heat.” As she started scraping the burnt mess out of the pot, I used the handle of a broom to mute the fire alarm, and eyed Shadow suspiciously.
The cat had prowled back into the kitchen and was sitting looking innocent on the counter, his tail swishing like a pendulum from side to side as he watched me and Niki.
“Niki, you don’t think Shadow could have-”
“Oh no, Shadow!” Niki gasped and left the pot in the sink looking around frantically for the cat, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw him sat on the counter. Wiping her hand on a dish cloth, she reached for the small cat and began stroking his fur.
“You poor baby. Did the loud noise scare you?” she cooed at the little beast, and I shook my head at the cat behind Niki’s back as he licked her face, not sure whether to be afraid or impressed by his deviousness.
“What were you going to say, Jake?” Niki asked as she turned back to me, still consoling the supposedly scared feline.
I paused, wondering how exactly to tell my girlfriend that I was sure her cat hated me and may have resorted to tampering with the stove to prevent me making out with his owner, without sounding like a crazy person.
Nope, there’s no sane way of saying you suspect a cat of cock-blocking you on purpose.
“Don’t worry about it, babe. It’s nothing.” I glared at the cat as Niki took him over to his food bowl.
Socio-cat: 2, Jake: 0
CHAPTER 21
A month later
Jacob
I frowned at the boxes sitting in the back of the delivery van, exchanging confused glances with Martina who moved to stand next to me, and stared into the truck too. “What’s in the boxes?”
“I have no idea,” I sighed, and used a key to cut open the tape sealing one of the boxes. I pulled out a rectangular, bright yellow plastic device, opened the device and handed one to Martina before pulling another out of the box.
The device opened like a book; along one side there was a thin, hollowed section with plastic slots, and on the other side was sharp wire which lined up to fit into the empty space.
“What is it?” Martina asked, looking as perplexed as I felt.
“That’s a great question.” I held out a hand and prevented the delivery man from taking the rest of the boxes out of the truck.
“Bob,” I said, reading the man’s name tag. “What are these things?”
He scratched his hair under his hat with the edge of his clipboard. “Sausage slicers.”
“Sausage… slicers?” I repeated slowly.
“You know,” the man paused and took the device out of my hand. “To slice your sausages. You put your hot dog in this part and then close it and BAM… sliced sausages.” He grinned. “Got these babies in the shop last month. Nothing else can do what these things do.”
“Oh I don’t know about that, Bob. I have a knife in the kitchen that says otherwise.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to summon whatever patience I had left after what felt like the longest week ever. “How many of those things are in the truck?”
He looked down at his order form. “500. You know, you could probably slice bananas in them too.” He looked at the device again. “Although it would have to be a sorta straight banana…”
Breathe. Just breathe.
“I ordered a deep fryer,” I ground out. “These things are not going to fry anything. Why the hell would I need 500 sausage slicers?”
The delivery man smacked the gum he was chewing a couple of times. “Gifts?”
“I don’t need sausage slicers for gifts, Bob!” I exploded, and then immediately put my hands up in apology. “I’m sorry… It’s been a long day. Can you just take a look at that order form again for me and check that you’re at the right address.”
He nodded warily. “We’re at the right address. It says here that a deep fryer was ordered but someone from your restaurant called a week ago and switched the order to the slicers.”
I gritted my teeth. “I don’t suppose this person left a name?”
Bob looked down at his clipboard again. “He did. It was a Mr Ben Dover.”
Martina and I stared at him with identical looks of disbelief, waiting for the penny to drop.
Bob looked at us and then back to the clipboard. “Oh shoot. So… I’m guessing you don’t want the slicers?”
I shook my head vigorously in response. “Not really, Bob,” I said through gritted teeth.
Martina patted me on the back. “I’ll sort this out, Jake. You go on inside.”
I nodded once more not trusting myself to speak and stalked back into the restaurant, trying to ignore the battleground the interior resembled.
Work at the restaurant was going slower than planned, after several complications with the wiring in the restaurant, I was running way behind schedule for the opening.
One of Uncle Jeremy’s friends had a construction company and had given me a good rate on fixing the plumbing and the electric, the only thing left on the to do list was clean up the place and decorate, a task I was learning that I should have called someone in for, as I was beyond clueless.
I was staring at the blank walls wondering what the hell to do with them when Tisha walked into the dining space from the kitchen and stood next to me. “You hoping if you stare hard enough that the walls they will just decorate themselves?”
“Hilarious,” I told her sarcastically, not wanting to admit I was kind of hoping that the space would speak to me, however the fucking silence I got in return had not been inspiring at all.
“I know someone who may be able to help-” Tisha started to say when there was a loud clunking noise and Derek came running out of the kitchen.
“Come quick.”
Tisha and I dashed in after him to see smoke rising from the back of a large stainless steel freezers. I pulled the plug from the socket and there was some sparking before all the lights and other electrical items stopped working.
“What the fuck happened?” I turned to Derek who looked perplexed. Tisha pulled open the back door to let some of the smoke out.
“I don’t know. I opened it to get something out and then it made the weird noise and started smoking. I’m sorry, Chef.”
“It’s not your fault, Derek. These units have probably been here since the 80s. It must have blown the circuit.” I rubbed my head as a headache started to form at the thought of yet another problem to add to the ever growing list of expenses.
“What are we going to do with the food in the fridges?” Tisha asked opening one of the large doors to check the contents. “There are the samples we’ve been trying out and some other fresh ingredients.”
“Until I can get the electrician back out here, we’ll just have to take all the food back home with us. Hope you guys are feeling hungry.”
This day needs to have ended a couple of hours ago.
* * * * *
“Hey… Jake,” Martina called coming back into the bar, perching herself on a stool. “Can we talk?”
“Yeah sure,” I put down the papers I was looking at. “Thanks for dealing with that by the way. If Bob had said
the word ‘sausage’ to me one more time, I think I would have lost it.”
She laughed lightly. “Sausage slicers are gone. They’ve put a rush on delivering the deep fryer. I’ve told them that if it’s not here in a week, I’ll be going down there myself.”
I snorted. “Heaven help them if it comes to that. Thanks again, Martina.”
“No problem. This is getting ridiculous though; the wrong paint, those weird sausage slicer things. You know who is behind the changing of all these orders, don’t you?”
“I have a good guess,” I replied dryly. “I don’t care what Marco says. I might have to go pay Monty and Dillon a visit after all if they don’t stop this childish bullshit.”
She nodded in agreement. “I’m still going to call all the suppliers we’ve ordered from and tell them not to take orders from anyone apart from me.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Martina nibbled her bottom lip nervously. “So, umm…about that thing I had to talk to you about.”
Her nervous behaviour had me worrying immediately. Martina and I had started at Marco’s in the same year. She had worked her way up to being management from starting as a waitress, and in all that time I had never seen her look as unsure as she did in that moment.
“What’s up? Are you okay?” I came round the bar and sat on a dusty stool next to hers.
She opened her mouth, but stopped herself when no words came out, and she started playing with the wedding ring on her left hand.
“Martina, you’re really starting to freak me out. What’s going on?”
“I have to quit,” she blurted.
My jaw dropped as I felt all the breath leave my body. Of all the things I thought she might have said, that certainly wasn’t one of them.
“Are you not happy here? Did I do something or-”
Martina finally looked up at me, taking both my hands into hers.
“No, I am happy here. I’m so sorry, Jake. I know this is the worst time to be telling you this when you have so much on your plate,” she burbled quickly.
“It’s just that Tom got offered another job, but it’s on the other side of the country, and there’s a pretty big bump in salary. We love it here, and usually we wouldn’t consider moving but…” she trailed off, placing a hand over her flat stomach. “It’s not going to be just us for much longer, and we really need the extra income.”
Falling Sweetly (Starling Falls #2) Page 18