by Roxy Wynn
I looked around at the mess we had made last night. There was food and clothes everywhere.
“Jeez, your kitchen is a mess.” His attention was firmly placed on my breasts as he had both of them in his hands, groping them appreciatively.
“Oh really, I hadn’t noticed.” When his hand slipped to my panties again, I knew he was right.
“You’re insatiable.” His cock was pressing against me insistently. Between him and the smell of bacon and fresh coffee, I had to wonder if I had been hit by a bus at some point and ended up in Heaven.
“I can’t help it. You drive me wild.”
“Well at least turn the heat off the bacon. I do want to eat it. And the Bourguignon… and the coffee.”
He laughed as he took his right hand out of my panties and turned the heat off. When he turned his attention back to me, his touch was gentle. Reverent.
“In all seriousness, I think the bacon is ready. How about we have some protein before we die of malnutrition?”
“It’s like you read my mind. I am feeling a little woozy, coffee and bacon would be lovely.”
He cleared off one side of the kitchen island and made space for both of us to sit while we enjoyed some much needed calories. The entire time, he kept his eyes on me, playing with my hair, or kissing me on the neck.
Was he for real?
“So what are we doing the rest of the day?” he asked.
“We?”
“Yeah. ‘We’ I’m sorry but you can’t just love me and leave me. Especially after what you did with your tongue last night. That kind of thing can keep a guy on the hook for a long time.”
“I would love to stick around, but I have to go in to have my final meeting with the weird older guy and his teen bride. Today we taste cake and decide how she wants the flavors arranged.”
“Sounds fun. Not quite as fun as staying here and rolling around naked with me all day, but that’s ok. Your work ethic is one of my favorite things about you.”
“Really?”
“Yes really. Why? Has it gotten you into trouble in the past?”
As a matter of fact, it had. My last serious boyfriend hated that I worked so much. We broke up just before Ruby’s opened because he couldn’t stand me owning my own business at only twenty one, while he was still living in his mom’s basement at twenty seven.
I can’t help it that I have saved every penny I have ever earned in anticipation of a radical future.
“Let’s just say that not all men are as big on women entrepreneurs as you are.”
“That’s a shame.” He leaned in to kiss me and possibly distract me while he stole a piece of bacon from my plate.
“Hey, you’re lucky you’re handsome or I would never let bacon stealing slide, no matter how many times you kiss me.” I mock slapped his hand away before deciding to grab one of the several slices he still had on his plate and shove one of them into my mouth.
“You have time for another quickie before you have to go in?”
“For you, of course, but let’s tackle cleaning this kitchen first. I get a little crazy when I see cook tops covered in bacon grease.”
“That doesn’t sound like much fun at all.”
“Oh it’ll be fun,” I said.
“How so?”
“Because I’m going to do it in just my panties.”
“Well if you put it that way… I’ll grab the cleaning supplies.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Jax
If I could keep this sex goddess in my house, in her sheer pink panties forever, I would die a very happy man. Instead, we fooled around a little and I tried to stall her as many times as I could before she put her foot down.
“I love this,” she yelled when I stuck my hand up her dress, pinching her gorgeous thighs. “But I have to go. You have to stop.” She pressed her hand to my chest to push me away, but the way she was looking at me told me she wanted more just as much as I did.
Well, almost as much as I did.
“When can I see you again?” I asked.
She looked into the air, thinking for a moment. “How about tonight…”
“I’m in!”
“Hold your horses,” She laughed. “How about tonight, you come to my place? It’s slumming it compared to this, but I’m a bit of a homebody, and I miss my couch.”
“I can do that. I’m not picky as long as I get to see you. Tell me where and when.”
“I’ll text it to you. This time, I’m cooking for you, I hope you like steak and salad because it’s all I have in my fridge. Plus, I don’t have a personal assistant.”
We kissed again all the way to the door, and when she tried to leave, I had a hard time letting her go. The wrinkled dress and messed up hair played on my mind so hard it made my heart race.
Once back inside, my first thought was that I could use a long hot shower, but at the moment, it didn’t sound appealing. I wanted to lie around all day smelling her everywhere.
This whole situation with Alex and the building was creeping to the forefront of my mind. In the beginning it was easy to ignore, but as the days went on and I spent more time with Chrissy, I wouldn’t be able to ignore it much longer. She was quickly becoming someone I could see myself going the distance with.
I wanted to wake up next to her every day for the rest of my life. She was what I have always wanted and more. Someone real and not Hollywood Plastic. If Al vetoed my building choice and tried screwing Chrissy over, I didn’t know what I would do. It’s not easy to shut down a ten year partnership over a woman.
Especially with the track record I held.
Instead, I stripped the sheets from my bed and began remaking it with the fresh sheets from my linen closet. It was the type of thing I could leave to my housekeeper, but she wasn’t due until tomorrow, and we had made quite the mess with our middle of the night eating in bed.
If Harriet tried to change my sheets and saw beef gravy on them, it would raise more questions I didn’t want to answer. Plus, I’m always wary of ‘leaked’ celebrity stories. More than once I’ve had to fire help because they called the paper with some made-up story about my exploits.
As I checked my phone, I noticed a message.
Alex: Meeting with building owner, Tuesday 3pm. We can talk details at breakfast on Monday. Be there!
Fuck.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chrissy
I had the most wonderful night… and morning with the man of my dreams. Besides being having all the attributes a princess looks for in a Prince Charming, he also delivered amazing orgasms.
So why was there a rock in the pit of my stomach?
When I left Jeff’s, my plan was to head home quick, pull some steaks from the freezer and shower before heading in to work. Nothing out of the ordinary happened on the trek, except for the guy with the nose ring I nearly rammed into when the gate opened.
I blame it on the kudzu and not at all on the fact that I happened to check my sex kitten hair in my rearview mirror when the guy came down the sidewalk like a bat out of hell.
He stopped quick, made eye contact with me, and smirked before taking off again. The way he leered at me gave me the heebie jeebies and the rest of my drive had me paranoid.
Like I was being watched.
I scanned the street in front of my house when I parked and saw all the usual cars hanging out. There was the blue Ford that my neighbor owned, the broken down Camero, and a cable company work van. That wasn’t so out of the ordinary considering the cable in my area sucks, but the eerie feeling persisted. My skin prickled as scanned the street.
Why was I feeling so weird?
I got inside, showered, and changed into my uniform before heading back out to my car, pausing only to check out my street once again. It was quiet, everything was the same as it always looked. I live in a great neighborhood. No one ever got robbed, parties were over by eleven, and most importantly, single women didn’t get shanked on the way to their cars.
&nb
sp; So what was with this feeling? My senses were in overdrive, as if warning me of an impending doom.
Out of my rear view, I noticed that cable company van again.
Was I being followed?
When I got to Ruby’s, Sarah echoed my thoughts.
“We have had a couple of calls today… about you.”
I racked my mind trying to think of who could call for me. I had fallen behind on some student loan payments, but not enough to where they would stalk me. And everyone who needed me had my cell number, so why the calls?
“Me? Did they say who they were?”
“No. They just asked if you worked here and what time you would be in.”
“Did you tell them?” I asked.
“Well… yeah. You’re the one in charge of the wedding cake stuff, so I thought it might have been related to that.” She seemed apologetic, but I had to admit she had a good reason to answer the phantom creepers.
“Makes sense,” I said. “Maybe it has something to do with the obvious mail-order bride we’re making the cake for. Like, maybe her handlers have decided she should marry someone else, and it’s all just an elaborate ploy to find out when she will be in so they can kidnap her again.”
Sarah put her hand on my arm and looked me in the eye. “Or, maybe it’s because you are sleeping with the hottest vampire on T.V. right now.” I had called Sarah on my way to the apartment to dish about all the sordid details, so she knew full well what I had been up to the night before.
“There’s no way. His house is locked up better than Fort Knox, no one even knows I exist.”
“I don’t know Chrissy, the types of people who follow Jax are professionals. They know what celebrities are doing all the time. How do you think those gossip rags stay in business? They stalk and report their findings for people like me to read while waiting to check out at the grocery store.”
I felt sick.
“Isn’t the paparazzi better at hiding? Like, isn’t their thing crouching in trees miles away with super zoom cameras?” I asked. The look on her face told me I was wrong and had a lot to learn.
“No. That’s not how it works at all. They are in your face, calling your name and asking stupid questions. Haven’t you ever watched a celebrity gossip show?”
“You know I have never done that.”
“Ok, but it happens all the time.”
“Well it had better not happen while we have a cake to make. I don’t want the Russian mafia, or whoever is funding this wedding deciding that we are too risky.”
We both stood behind the counter, watching another cable truck as the driver got out with his clipboard and walked down the street.
Was it the same guy? It’s definitely the same company, but there’s no way it could be the same driver.
Right?
“It’s probably not even the same guy,” I said.
“I don’t want to freak you out, but there’s also been people looking in the window. All guys. They look in, see me, do another look, almost like they’re trying to find another person, and then leaving again.”
“Fuck. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I didn’t want to freak you out of it was nothing. But then you mentioned your gut feeling, and I thought it might be related.”
The cable guy got back to his van and hopped inside. We watched as his head swiveled around before pulling into traffic.
Did he look into the bakery?
Did he look at me?
Ten minutes and more paranoid conversation later, our bride arrived with her entourage. I’m not even sure how, but Priscilla looked even more glamorous than before in her off the shoulder white sequined gown. She looked more like she was headed to an art show in Manhattan than a cake tasting in Mont Clare Louisiana. The humidity hadn’t even touched her hair.
I was jealous.
I guided Priscilla, Mrs. Calloway and the groom to be Mr. Smith through each of our eight cake selections and the six different frostings as we sat in the cafe drinking coffee.
While the bride remained silent, Mrs. Calloway was talking my ear off over the cake choices. “I think we need to stick with Red Velvet and cream cheese frosting. We are in the south. Smith? What do you think?”
Stephen Smith, who was shoving as much cake in his mouth as he could fit, just nodded with a smile.
I shot a look to Priscilla, but she was preoccupied with her phone.
“All right, Red Velvet it is.”
I scribbled their choice into my notebook when Sarah chimed in. “And we know it’s traditional to save the top tier in your freezer for your first anniversary, but we offer a complimentary eight inch cake in the flavor of your choice baked fresh. So you can enjoy all of your cake on the big day and not have to worry.”
That little minx thinks of everything.
“That sounds delightful!” Mrs. Calloway said.
People always love free shit.
As Sarah completed the contract and ironed out the details with the couple to be, a customer came in the store. Though we were closing soon, we still had a good amount of product in the case which we needed to sell. I excused myself from the table and said hello.
He smiled at me and looked around the store as if taking in more of the aesthetic than the bakery case. Since I handpicked every piece of vintage art on the walls, I appreciated his interest.
But the more he lingered, the more something felt off about him.
“Can I interest you in a brown butter chocolate chip cookie?” I asked with a bright smile.
“No. No thank you. Just looking,” he answered.
It was an answer I was used to. Only when normal people said they were just looking, their attention was on the case, this man was staring at me.
“We also have peanut butter crispy treats and offer samples. If anything looks or smells too good to pass up, let me know and I would be happy to offer you a taste.”
“You look good,” he said. “What’s your name?”
My heart began pounding, and I felt my cheeks burning. While we got the occasional creep in the store, I was usually not the target. The more likely object of the creeps affections were either Sarah, or the eighteen-year-old Tiffany who filled in on the weekends. No one ever hit on the very tall, mouthy blonde.
“My name is Chrissy, I’m the owner. Is there something I can help you with, sir?” I could see Sarah giving me nervous glances.
“No, I just wanted to get a better look.”
My smile faded. This guy wasn’t interested in anything we had for sale. He was interested in me. I needed to get him out without upsetting the bride’s family.
“Well, I am a little busy at the moment, but like I said, give me a holler if you see anything you would like to sample.” All the warmth was gone from my voice now.
I walked back to the table as everyone was getting up to leave. “Thank you so much for your order,” Sarah was shaking Mrs. Calloway’s hand. “We will have everything set up in the reception hall starting at three. Our team will be gone before your church services are over. While we’re there, we will communicate with the catering department about returning our equipment. From here you have nothing to worry about, and we hope your big day is beautiful.”
Mrs. Calloway eyed the man who was still lurking, staring at me. “Wonderful.” Her eyes narrowed. “Is there a problem?” She asked.
Both Sarah and myself were caught off guard by her question, but when I noticed he still had the same half grin on his face, my blood run cold.
“No. No problem at all,” I said, ushering them out the door. “We are a women run business and occasionally we get admirers. It’s no big deal. Really.” I hoped my smile didn’t look as forced as it felt.
“Good.” We were outside but Mrs. Calloway looked in through the giant windows at the man. He had followed us to the door, but remained inside. “Because I would hate for my Priscilla’s wedding to be ruined by one of your admirers.”
“I assure you. Everything will be lovely.”
“Okay, pal, you need to get out before I call the cops,” I said, when I stormed back into the bakery. His creepiness was bad, but scaring my customers? That’s where I draw the fucking line.
“So you’re Chrissy, the owner?” He asked with another shit-eating grin.
“Sarah, call the cops.”
“On it,” she answered, phone in hand.
“And how long have you been seeing Jeffrey Jaxon?”
Fuck.
“The cops are on their way. You can either get out now or Mont Clare’s finest will throw you out on your ass,” Sarah said, shaking her finger in his face.
Not bothered by the prospect of the cops at all, he continued. “You’re about 5’8” right? And how much do you weigh?”
We could hear sirens in the background as they rushed to Ruby’s, but the man didn’t flinch.
“What the fuck is this all about?”
“It’s a free country Ms. Hayes, the press has a right to know,” he gestured back to the glass windows where a guy on a bike was snapping photos.
A guy with a big, thick nose ring.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jax
This was not the evening I had planned at all.
I wanted to walk in the door and be greeted by a horny sex goddess. In this fantasy, she would open the door wearing only a robe, with all of those exquisite curves on display.
Instead, that slime ball reporter had fucked everything up.
When I showed up in my pickup with a big bouquet of roses and a bottle of wine, Chrissy was almost in tears.
“You should have seen it. The entire thing was so fucked up. And when the cops came, they told him to get lost, but did nothing. They said there was nothing they could do unless he physically threatened me.”
She was pacing in her living room in front of a big grey couch. As a precaution, she had all the blinds drawn, and the windows closed, giving the air a stuffy feel.