by Anya Summers
She swiveled on her heel and stomped off. She’d only caved because, as a Southern California girl, she wasn’t used to the cooler temperatures and was freezing. At least, that was the lie she told herself with Mason’s firm, daunting presence behind her. He was near enough that she could feel his kinetic heat. The man thought he could run her life and she’d just follow along blindly, thanking him for his overbearing attitude. Don’t go near the animals. Don’t change the menu. Don’t breathe around me. Don’t go into this club.
“What the hell was that place, anyway?” she snapped as they rounded a corner to the parking lot where her car was parked. The club had piqued her interest, more than she wanted to admit. Then again, it wasn’t every day that she found herself in a club with people having sex out in the open. After all, if there were a herd of giraffes stampeding down the main drag, she’d watch the spectacle.
Granted, the spectacle in the club had turned her on.
“It’s a private club,” Mason said after a minute, like he had carefully chosen his words and considered whether he was going to tell her or not.
At her car, she turned toward him and gave him a well, duh expression, then said, “I got that with your caveman skills back there. What I want to know is what type of club it is exactly?”
She stared, an eyebrow raised, in a defiant stance with her hands on her hips. She wasn’t leaving until he answered the question. No more dodging from Mister Surly.
“It doesn’t concern you,” he responded, tension riddling his big, hunky body. A body she had imagined naked on more than one occasion.
She snorted and rolled her eyes at him. Did the man think she was missing half a brain? She retorted, “Yes, it does. If I’m going to be kicked out of someplace where people are having weird sex, I’d like to know why, Mason. Are y’all doing something illegal down there? Why was that woman restrained on the bull, or the one on the cross?”
Her words echoed in the parking lot. It was empty. But Mason’s face hardened, his eyes narrowed, and he closed the distance. “Shush. It’s private for a reason. As in: we don’t parade our preferences or what happens in the club around town.”
“So you are doing something illegal down there?”
Mason shook his head in the negative, consternation stamped across his face, and replied, “It’s a BDSM club. Where those in the lifestyle are safe to practice their sexual tastes without censure.”
“And you and your brother are members? Which makes you a what?”
“Yes, we are. Not that it is any of your business, but I’m a Master or a Dominant, if you don’t know the terminology,” he said. His gaze zeroed in on her response like a heat seeking missile guidance system.
Emily didn’t so much as bat an eye, even as her blood heated. He made sense to her now. He hadn’t before. With regards to his vaulted control when they were in each other’s vicinity and how he held himself back, it wasn’t that he didn’t want her, but that he was rejecting his desire for her and controlling himself. She didn’t know whether she should be offended or aroused. Who was she kidding? The idea of him being all controlling in the bedroom made her blood sing. She cleared her suddenly dry throat and asked, “So you like tying up women?”
Mason approached and took a step forward, placing his hands on her car. His large frame boxed her in against her vehicle. Liquid pulls of heat rushed through her system, her pulse thumped madly, and her nipples hardened into taut peaks at his nearness. Shadows played over his face as he stared down at her. Her gaze drifted to his mouth as he said, “That’s not all, but some. I really like disciplining mouthy subs who can’t take directions.”
Was that what he was comparing her to? Emily should tell him to go to hell. Should shove him away and escape. He was her boss. He could crush her dreams of running her own restaurant into dust before they even had a chance to take root.
The air between them was hot enough to melt the Arctic tundra. Those liquid pulls of desire had manifested into a raging firestorm. Tossing her common sense into the gutter, Emily gripped the lapels of his shirt and, instead of retreating, drew her body up to his height and dared, “Is that what you were doing back there? Disciplining me?”
Her mouth was an inch from his. Their bodies were aligned from shoulders to hips. Going on instinct before he could form a response, allowing the desire only he seemed to ignite within her to guide her actions, she pressed her lips to his. Brushing his mouth with hers, she moaned deep in her throat. His stubble rasped against her lips. Spirals of heat lanced through her system.
Shock riddled Mason’s form and he stood, frozen momentarily, before he crushed her within his arms. He surrounded her with his big body. Need exploded in all-consuming waves. Mason plastered his length against her. Her back was pressed against her car. Her hands slid around his neck, holding him in place. Emily couldn’t get enough of his mouth. The man kissed like he did everything else, with a take no prisoners type of attitude.
It was devastating. Emily had never been kissed so thoroughly, so greedily. She wondered if she would erupt into flames.
Mason devoured her tiny mewls. She surrendered to the rising heat, plastering herself against his hard body. He slanted his mouth over hers, changed the angle of their kiss, and took it deeper. So much deeper. His tongue thrust inside to duel with hers.
She moaned.
Tongue, and lips, and teeth. It was hard and brutal. It was possessive and dominant. It was the most intimate, carnal, wicked kiss of her existence. A hunger for him unlike anything she’d experienced before had her climbing his rangy body like it was a tree. Emily wrapped her legs around his waist. She was certain the imprint of his belt buckle on her belly would be permanent, but she didn’t care… as long as he kept kissing her.
His hands cupped her ass as he pressed his length against her. The ridge of his erection fitted against her cleft and she whimpered, greedy to feel him skin to skin. She wanted more. She wanted all of him. If this was what he called dominance, Emily had climbed aboard the Mason train.
Then he ground his pelvis against hers and Emily wondered if she would climax without doing the dirty, wicked deed with him. Lost in him, in the desire he created, she yearned to feel his naked flesh against hers.
“Get a room, you pervs!” a male voice shouted from somewhere nearby. It broke their carnal spell.
They sprang apart. Emily nearly landed on her butt, saved from an ignoble spill by clutching the door handle of her Mazda. They stared at one another, breathing in sharp pants, chests heaving from exertion. In the darkness, she couldn’t see his eyes. But his shoulders were tense as he glared at her and his hands were fisted as his sides. He wanted her. It was in every line of his being.
Then Mason reached past her. His fingers brushed hers, sending electric currents through her as he opened her car door. He held it open and growled, “Go home, Emily.”
She heard the undertone of command in his voice. It shivered along her spine. He’d just kissed her brainless and yet now he was dismissing her. The jerk. She wasn’t the only who had been affected by their kiss, yet he acted as if it was nothing. As if she was nothing.
Damn him.
She wouldn’t make more of a fool of herself than she already had. Emily jutted her chin, glowering at him before she turned away, hiding the fact that her hands trembled with need. That she was so wet between her thighs, she’d need new panties when she arrived back at the lodge. She climbed into the driver’s seat.
When she was seated, he shut the car door, effectively shutting her out and cutting himself off from her. She had to know why. And she would find out the answer, but not right now. Now was not the time, on the public street, to have it out with him. One, her emotions. Her desire was too amped up and she feared she would cry. She tended to do that when she was supremely angry. Two, she couldn’t guarantee that she wouldn’t be loud. Her voice tended to carry. And in this instance, she knew if she pressed him here, he would shut down further and she’d never get her answer. Three
, if she wanted a chance in hell at continuing to run the kitchen at Elkhorn, she had to be circumspect and approach him privately.
Like in his office, where they could play naughty secretary and sleazy boss. She kept herself from thunking her head against the steering wheel—but just barely.
Emily didn’t look at him until she’d backed her car out of its space. With the pane of glass between them, they stared at one another to the point where her breath clogged in her chest. Mason broke the contact first. He tipped his hat and dismissed her. She idled in the car as he turned, his long strides putting distance between them as he headed back toward the club.
Shaking herself, she drove away and headed back to the lodge, replaying the events of the last hour. She could still taste him on her tongue; the whiskey on his breath combined with darker notes that were distinctly Mason. It had been the kiss to end all kisses. Emily had never been kissed so thoroughly in all her twenty-seven years. She wanted more. And she wondered how Mason could kiss her the way he had, as if she was all he had ever wanted, and then go back to a club to have sex with another woman.
And not just any type of sex—kinky, wicked sex. The kind she’d always pondered in her darkest fantasies, but had been too afraid of judgment to contemplate, let alone talk about with her friends.
The best thing she could do was ignore her desire for him, focus on her work in the restaurant, and go back to business as usual. Which meant Mason watching her every move with a hooded expression and making her skin feel too tight. Wanting him with every breath she took, but not touching him.
Could Emily pretend like their epic kiss had never happened?
Chapter 8
Mason had crossed a line of demarcation. One he never should have allowed. And one he needed to address.
The kiss that never should have happened. The one he had been up half the night replaying. The one that had made him turn down a submissive at the club and head home early. And why? Because the sub wasn’t the one he wanted bound before him, begging for his touch.
It had belonged to the woman he’d hauled out of the club only to kiss against her vehicle. She’d tasted sweeter than he’d imagined. He hadn’t thought she would close the distance. But she had. And, at that first brush, he’d lost his damn fool mind. Her vanilla cookie scent surrounded him. The feel of her supple ass gripped in his hands as he pressed intimately between her thighs… his dick twitched in remembrance. It made Mason wonder whether, had they not been interrupted, he would have stopped.
That he’d jacked off in the shower this morning to quell his raging lust and that it had been her image flashing in his mind as he’d come was telling. Her lips swollen from his kiss. Her eyes wide. The firm points of her nipples poking through the material of her top. Her breathing unsteady.
He squelched the need clawing at him as he walked into her kitchen. And yes, it was her kitchen. In the short amount of time she’d been here, she’d assimilated well. The staff loved her. She’d turned a steady profit in the first week, and people in town were booking dinner reservations as the news of the new chef in town spread.
She stood there, her hair piled on top of her head, hidden underneath her ivory chef’s hat but a few tendrils had escaped. He knew what they felt like now. Pure, spun silk. His fingers clenched and he fought back the ever present desire whenever she was in range. The ivory chef’s jacket she wore shouldn’t be sexy. Hell, it was like she was wearing a sheet that ended mid-thigh and shielded all the good parts: her killer rack, slim waist, and ass that made his mouth water just thinking about it. But the fact that his hands had caressed her, knew what she felt like in his arms, and it was as if only he had the pleasure of knowing what her body was like beneath it, was heady. And he could envision taking her in her chef’s jacket. In nothing but that as she throatily whimpered his name.
Emily was at the island chopping vegetables, likely for the beef stew she’d added to the menu for tonight.
“Emily,” he said, maintaining enough distance between them that he wouldn’t be tempted to do something marginally idiotic. Like haul her into his arms, screw her brains out and not let go until they were both spent.
“What can I do for you, Mason?” she replied, not even glancing his way.
“What happened last night, won’t happen again. You need to understand that the club is off-limits to you,” he said. Just as you are off-limits to me, he thought.
She laid her chopping knife down, braced her palms on the counter and shot him a look. She said, “You can’t tell me where I can and cannot go, Mason. It’s a free country. And while you might be my boss, when I am off the clock, it’s my time.”
“Fair enough. I just want to clear the air.” And erect as many impenetrable barriers as possible so that, even if he was tempted, he wouldn’t be able to act on those wants.
Emily turned his way and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Then she retorted, “Pffft. Clear the air, my ass. You want to make sure your chef doesn’t go running off or cause a scene. Let’s get one thing straight, that little incident wouldn’t have happened if I had not wanted it to. And let’s call a spade a spade here, because you kissed me back. Those weren’t my hands on my ass. So you’ll forgive me if your attempt to do whatever the hell it is you’re doing right now doesn’t work on me. I’m not a piece of fluff and I know my own mind. You can take your self-righteous declaration and shove it. Now, if you will, I have work to do.”
“You couldn’t handle my world, Emily. I’m not vanilla in the slightest,” he said, trying to explain and soften his words. Not to mention he wanted to avoid the minefield of having an intimate, physical relationship with an employee.
She looked at him then, her gaze livid, those incredible eyes of hers flashing with anger, and said, “How do you know what I can and cannot handle or what I like? You never even asked me, Mason. You pulled this I’m a man and know better than you bullshit. It’s demeaning and it’s wrong. At least own up and admit it—if not to me, to yourself—that you wanted me last night every bit as much as I wanted you. And as for whether I can handle your world or not, I guess we’ll never know. If you don’t mind.” She waved a hand toward the door, shooing him out, dismissing him. She picked the knife up and resumed chopping the batch of carrots.
Emily wanted him.
Fuck.
He didn’t know how to handle that bit of information. A kiss in a darkened parking lot after a drink or two was one thing. But they were both stone cold sober now and her admission tested his resolve. Not trusting himself to speak after her revelation, fighting his sudden swift urge to throw his good sense into the nearby trash receptacle and take up exactly where they had left off last night, Mason swiveled on his heel. His only thought, escape. Otherwise, he would surrender to the lust pounding throughout his body, attempting to override his good intentions. He sauntered toward the door.
Except, before he could make good his escape, Emily said under her breath in that throaty voice, “Maybe it’s more that you can’t handle me. Ever think about that, oh wise one?”
Mason would have laughed if it wasn’t so fucking tragic.
Chapter 9
Emily insinuated herself further into the lodge over the next few days, avoiding the blockhead at all costs. Hard to do when they worked so close together. But she treated the bulk of the main building as if it were the Grand Canyon. It was better this way. Simpler.
The one exception of her self-imposed avoidance was when she submitted her reports with the daily totals. Those she did on purpose. She could have relegated the chore to Tibby or Faith when they were present. Either one of them would think nothing of the task. Except Emily wanted Mason to know, to remind him, to show him she was the reason the restaurant’s revenue continued to build profits. That it was thanks to the changes she’d enacted. And yes, she realized it was petty of her to gloat over the totals on the daily specials. Her specials, her recipes.
Granted, the stubborn caveman had commented on the YouTube video of h
er chastising her previous chef. She’d wanted him to be aware of potential fallout. Not that she thought there would be any—hell, it could be a potential draw. Although you wouldn’t know that from his response, treating her like she’d committed murder. While she had killed her career, in a way, when she’d explained her side—that Chef Ormond had stolen her recipes and passed them off as his—the glittering anger in Mason’s eyes had caused a lump to form in her chest. He’d been furious. For her.
No one had gone to bat for her. Not even her family or any of her friends.
They’d all treated her like she’d had a mental breakdown instead of the fact that someone she’d trusted had committed highway robbery. Except Mason, who’d nodded and said she wouldn’t have to worry about anything like that happening here. He’d accepted her word as fact.
It made the gulf she’d erected seem petty.
They were grown-ups. Well, most of the time. And so they’d shared an incredible kiss. Maybe, if she softened her approach with him, he would show her the same courtesy. Perhaps they couldn’t indulge in the wicked delights of each other’s bodies, but maybe they could be friends.
If it weren’t for her end of the day reports, she wouldn’t see him at all. And it appeared Mason was avoiding her, as well. He stayed out of the restaurant entirely and had one of the registration clerks pick up his meals. He was treating her even more distantly, when he hadn’t exactly been a bundle of warmth before. And now, the man likely had icicles hanging from his ding dong.
If Mason wanted to pretend that their kiss never happened, give her the cold shoulder as if they hadn’t played tonsil hockey, fine. She could pretend, as well. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t trying to win him over. She just chose an indirect approach. Her food. When the orders for Mason came in, she tended to add a little something extra, like dessert. And she knew he ate every scrap because his plates were returned empty.