Enemies With Benefits: Loveless Brothers, Book 1

by Noir, Roxie

  “Are you offering?”

  “Only if you’re making scallops for six hundred,” he says.

  I’m pretty sure I couldn’t make scallops for one. Macaroni and cheese, sure, but I don’t even know which end of a scallop is up.

  “Okay, okay,” I say, even though the floor feels really good. “I’ll do my job.”

  Eli leans down and holds a hand out. There’s a part of me that wants to refuse it and get off the floor by myself, but that part is dumb.

  I take his hand, and when he pulls me up, I just about fly off the ground, landing on my feet and stumbling into him. Apparently those muscles aren’t just for show, a fact that does not appeal to me one single bit.

  Nope. Not one bit.

  “Sorry,” he says, but he’s grinning.

  “No, you’re not,” I say, not moving away.

  His eyes roam my face. I realize that up close, they’re more than just green: they’re dark turquoise around the pupil, mossy further out, flecked with a gold-tinged seafoam. They look like an impressionist painting.

  “Violet,” Eli says. I realize I was staring.

  “What?” I ask, already defensive.

  I think my heart punches my ribcage. He’s so close, and he’s got that infuriating-but-sexy half-smile on his face, and I’ve now been blatantly staring at him for several seconds, our bodies touching, and I still haven’t moved away.

  I don’t want to move away. I like touching him. I like it a lot.

  There, I said it.

  “You better not kiss me,” he murmurs.

  I swallow hard. My heart feels like it’s in a boxing match, and I just hope Eli can’t hear it.

  “Don’t worry, I won’t,” I say.

  I don’t move, one hand still on his, the other on his shoulder.

  “Good. We agreed it was a bad idea.”

  “It’s a terrible idea.”

  “Besides…” he says, and trails off. He raises one eyebrow.

  “Besides what?”

  “It wasn’t even that good of a kiss,” he says.

  I know he’s fucking with me. I know it, and yet it works. That’s maybe the most infuriating thing about Eli: even when I can tell what he’s up to, it works.

  It was a great kiss, and that’s God’s own truth.

  “And if you’re thinking about trying it again to prove yourself, don’t bother,” he goes on. “That one was dead bottom of my list, right underneath the time a golden retriever licked me on the face and got her tongue in my mouth.”

  “Gross.”

  “It was. And yet,” he says, eyes sparking, “it wasn’t the worst.”

  “I’m sorry you had to suffer through that,” I say in mock-sympathy.

  “Me too,” he says. “Thank God we had a rational talk and won’t be doing it any more.”

  I’m on my toes now, my fingers digging into his shoulder, pulling myself up to get closer to him.

  “Violet,” he says, his voice bottoming out. “Why do I get the feeling you’re not listening to a word I’ve just said?”

  “Do you ever shut up?”

  The grin is back, lopsided. I realize his other hand is on the small of my back, my body pressed against his.

  “Only when my mouth is otherwise occupied,” he says. “And since there’s no way you’re going to kiss me right now, I guess I’ll just keep —”

  I kiss him. It’s the wrong thing to do for about a thousand reasons, but it feels like walking out of the shade and into the sunlight, that warm full-body bliss.

  He kisses me back, hard. Our bodies crush together, his hand on my back, his mouth opening, the kiss deepening.

  “Liar,” I whisper, pulling back.

  He grabs my hips and spins me, walks me backward, eyes blazing, teasing smile on his face.

  “You can’t say I don’t know you,” he says.

  My butt hits the conference table and he kisses me again, boosting me up onto it. I’ve got his shirt in one fist and I draw him in, closer, his body between my knees.

  His tongue’s in my mouth. My other hand is in his hair, fingers woven through the unruly strands, his body firm against mine as his fingers knead my spine, like he’s trying to draw me in even closer.

  God, bad ideas feel so good. I let his shirt go and run my hand over his torso, the muscles flexing under his shirt as I do. Heat pools inside me, dangerous and overwhelming.

  He nips at my bottom lip, and my eyelids flutter open.

  “You’re right,” he murmurs. “This is a terrible idea.”

  We kiss again, mouths open. He slides one hand under my shirt, his hand warm on my back.

  “Awful,” I agree, gasping for breath.

  I wrap my legs around him, pulling him in. I realize with a shock that he’s already hard, his thick length pressing against me and without meaning to, I rock my hips against him.

  Eli groans. It’s quiet, but the noise vibrates through me like a symphony and I pull at him harder. I want more: more of that noise, more of this kiss, more of him.

  His hand under my shirt slides up. I squeeze him with my thighs, my nails digging into his back, and he traces the bottom of one underwire with his thumb. My back arches and I gasp. Eli chuckles, taking my bottom lip between his teeth.

  “Right,” says a voice outside. “So we’ll move the chairs first, and then when the other two get here we’ll tackle —”

  I practically leap off the table, shoving Eli away with both hands and sliding off, landing on one foot. I manage to pivot and land in one of the chairs, where I instantly cross my legs and lace my hands together over my head in the world’s most casual pose.

  Eli leans against the table.

  “ — The tables, and then we can deal with the centerpieces — oh hey, guys!”

  Monica, one of our coworkers, walks past the open door of the conference room and waves at us.

  “Hi,” I call back. Eli waves.

  “ — So I think can can get that all finished by nine…”

  Eli starts laughing.

  “What?” I hiss, adjusting my shirt. I’m pretty sure my face is bright red.

  “You,” he says, still grinning. “That’s the most suspicious I’ve ever seen a person look.”

  I rake my eyes down his body, aftershocks still running through my own. He looks perfectly casual, like we’ve been standing here and talking about oyster sliders or something.

  “I told you not to do it,” he says, grinning, his words a slow drawl. “You should listen to me more often.”

  See? Infuriating.

  I stand, running a hand through my probably-insane hair, and look him straight in the eye. Shivers prickle down my spine.

  “Don’t you dare —"

  “Fool me once, Loveless,” I say, and walk past him, to the boxes of paper cranes against the far wall. “Don’t you have a job to get to?”

  I’m very, very tempted to close the conference room door, lock it, and go back to what we were doing. Insanely tempted. Instead I stand in front of the boxes, staring at a blank wall, my arms folded over my chest.

  “I guess,” he says, his footsteps coming closer. “You need help carrying those somewhere?”

  I shake my head, still facing the wall. I’m a little afraid that if I look at him I’ll do something crazy, like tear all my clothes off.

  “We’ve still gotta string them up,” I say, and pause. Now he’s standing right behind me, and I can feel him there, even though we’re not touching. “Thanks, though. For everything.”

  “Any time, Violet,” he says, his low, slow voice sending shivers down my spine. “Just holler.”

  Gently, he takes my hair in one hand, moves it to the side. Before I can ask what he’s doing he presses his warm lips to the back of my neck.

  I gasp. My eyes shut, but it’s already over and he walks away. I turn my head and look at him, just as he gets to the door.

  Eli looks at me. He winks.

  Then he’s gone.

  I think I’m
in for a very long day.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Eli

  This wedding is the wedding from hell.

  It’s not just because I stayed up all night drinking espresso and folding cranes with Violet. It’s not just because my mind wanders back to the conference room every ten seconds, to the way she grabbed my shirt and pulled me in, the way she rolled her hips against my dick.

  None of those things make the day feel any shorter, but it’s just a bad wedding.

  At nine that morning, I learn that the groom wants to make an eleventh-hour menu change. At eleven, after scrambling for two hours to try and make this fool happy, I learn that the bride has forbidden the menu change and the original item is back on, only now we have two fewer hours to make it.

  Other reports trickle into the kitchen, ones that have nothing to do with me: the mother of the bride is furious that the rose gold aisle runner is too rose and not enough gold. The mother of the groom insists on moving the entire ceremony last-minute, for fear that the glare of the sun will give her a migraine.

  Time flies. I run the kitchen. Violet darts in and out, here and there, and every single time I catch her eye I wink at her and she looks away instantly, turning pink.

  Then I watch her walk away in a pair of pinstriped pants that I guess she had in her office. Wherever they came from, her ass looks spectacular.

  The ceremony starts. The kitchen kicks into high gear. There are reports that the bride’s grandmother threw a fit about where she was seated and the rows at the ceremony had to be rearranged; the groom got his vows wrong; someone’s cousin was sobbing so dramatically that she had to be escorted out.

  We cook halloumi bites with mango chutney, crispy duck mini-tacos, and coconut shrimp skewers. We make a gallon of salad dressing. Zane sets out hundreds of salad plates and Naomi meticulously arranges organic microgreens on them.

  They can’t find the groom for pictures. The bride is crying. When he turns up, he’s in his brother’s suite in the lodge with all his groomsmen, and they’re smoking cigars in the strictly-no-smoking building.

  Salads go out. This development seems miraculously drama-free, but then again, it’s just salad. We start searing scallops and plating them, ready for the next course.

  The word comes out: we have to wait, the groom’s father is making a toast. It’s not when he was supposed to make a toast, but we wait any way.

  And we wait. The scallops get cold.

  His toast lasts half an hour. We try to send the scallops out while he’s toasting and the groom’s mother is so angry that a server comes back pale and visibly shaken. When he’s finally finished, we re-sear so they’re not cold, but now they’re overdone.

  Plenty of people send their scallops back. I don’t bother hearing why. Violet comes into the kitchen again, nods at me, asks Janice something about the cake. I wink at her.

  She winks back. I burn a filet mignon and have to throw it away.

  I swear that wink gets me through the rest of the night. I’m still thinking about it an hour later when we’re cleaning up, service finished, and she comes in again. She looks at me. I wink. She raises one eyebrow, heads back toward the walk-in freezer.

  I follow her.

  When I close the door behind us she turns around, surprised.

  I cross the tiny, cold space toward her. I take her face in my hands, her eyes widen.

  Before she can say a word, I kiss the hell out of her. Violet’s arms go around me. I kiss her harder. I kiss her like I’ve been to war. I kiss her like I haven’t seen her in years, her soft warmth flooding through me, bright against the cold room.

  I kiss her like I won’t be sleeping much tonight, either.

  Finally, I break the kiss, step away. She looks bewildered for a moment, her lips parted and slightly puffy, and then she smiles.

  I head for the door again, open it, wink at her, and leave.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Violet

  I stare at Re: Re: Re: Fwd: de la Rosa wedding requests. It’s ten o’clock on Saturday night. I’ve been at work since eight o’clock yesterday morning, and yet I’m blankly staring at an email about a wedding that’s not happening for two more weeks like it’s important.

  It’s got nothing to do with the fact that ten minutes ago, when I popped my head into the kitchen “just to check on everything,” Eli winked at me and mouthed the words five minutes.

  It’s got nothing to do with the fact that I’m a bundle of nerves and anticipation for what’s about to happen.

  I could just leave. If I were making better decisions today I’d just leave, but I’m not about to start that now. Not after I’ve spent today either kissing the hell out of him or thinking about kissing the hell out of him.

  It turns out that kissing Eli has two advantages: one, he’s not talking if we’re kissing, and two, it’s really, really fun. Fun enough that, technically, I’ve read this email ten times now and I haven’t absorbed the information even once, because I’m thinking about what else Eli and I could do that might be even more fun than kissing.

  My door darkens. My heart spin-kicks. I raise my eyes.

  “Still here?” Eli asks, sauntering in as if he didn’t know I would be.

  He looks like hot rough hell. There are circles under his eyes and stubble on his face, and his hair looks like someone’s been running their hands through it. He’s wearing a white undershirt with his jacket tossed over his shoulder, and it’s still clinging to him slightly with the heat of the kitchen he just left.

  And now I’m no longer thinking of kissing Eli. Now I’m thinking of that shirt balled up in the corner of my bedroom while he’s on top of me, my legs wrapped around his waist, feeling the muscles in his back ripple beneath my touch…

  “Just catching up on email,” I say, tilting my head to one side, still entranced by the way his shoulders swell against the sleeves of his shirt.

  Eli just grins. It’s full of swagger and slightly feral, exactly the grin that would normally irritate me to no end.

  It does irritate me, just a little. But it thrills me more, especially because he comes around my desk and leans on it, right next to where I’m sitting, while he’s grinning. I look up at him, still in my office chair, mouth dry.

  “Must be mighty important emails,” he says.

  Our legs are touching, and that single point of heat sets off fireworks inside me.

  “Most of my emails are life or death situations,” I deadpan.

  God, I want to lean forward and touch him, run one hand down his muscled chest, pull up his shirt and lick his abs. Instead I glance at my open office door, certain that the moment I make a move someone will talk by.

  “Once we got the wrong kind of tablecloths and someone died,” I say.

  “Did they?” Eli says, still teasing. “Then don’t let me distract you from your important, lifesaving work.”

  I glance at my office door again. I feel like one of those hand-cranked spinners you pick bingo numbers from, jumbled and spinning.

  Anyone who caught me would totally understand, right?

  “Unless you’re looking for distraction, of course,” he goes on, voice lowering. “Then I’m happy to be of service.”

  I swallow, heartbeat rising, but I manage to raise one eyebrow at him.

  “Well, this email is about what kind of fabric to use for napkins, so I’m not sure what you could possibly do that would tear my attention away —”

  Eli kisses me again, right in front of my open office door.

  God, it’s nice.

  It’s needy and ferocious. It’s barely restrained. It’s incendiary, and already I’ve got one hand winding through his already-mussed hair, the other closing around the front of his shirt as I sit up straighter, leaning into him.

  His strong hand is already on my cheek, sliding into my hair. I kiss him back as hard as I can, despite my open door. I kiss him back without abandon because for half the day I thought about our kiss this morning
and for the other half I thought about our kiss in the kitchen, and I already decided I’m not making good decisions.

  Everything about this is a bad idea, and I couldn’t care less.

  After a moment we separate and I pull back, one hand on Eli’s chest.

  He narrows his eyes.

  “If you’re about to tell me again all the reasons we shouldn’t be doing this I have to admit I’m not terribly interested,” he drawls.

  He takes my hand and pulls me to my feet.

  He pulls me right into him, our bodies pressed together from shoulder to toe. He’s already hard and I’m sure he knows I know. I’m filled with slow-burning fire, ready to shove him down on my desk and climb on top of him.

  “Are you interested in my open door?” I tease, twisting his shirt in my fingers.

  “Less than I should be,” he says, his hand sliding along the top of my waistband, where my blouse is tucked into my pants.

  He kisses me again. I lean into him. My fingers find their way under his shirt and onto his warm skin, muscles flexing and bunching underneath, sending shivers of anticipation down my spine.

  He palms my ass, my ache intensifying. I bite his lower lip and his breath catches, his other hand wandering up my torso, his thumb stroking the spot right below my underwire.

  I gasp softly. He squeezes harder and I press myself against him.

  You’re at work. Stop it.

  I don’t stop it. I tug lightly at the waistband of his pants, pulling his hips forward against mine, his hardness against my belly as fire pools inside me. He groans, running one thumb over my nipple. Even through my blouse and bra, I shiver.

  “ — See if Violet’s still here, she might want to come.”

  I jump back so fast that I fall into my chair again. It spins slightly as Kevin appears in my door.

  “Hi there!” I say, hoping that I sound perfectly normal.

  If Kevin thinks it’s weird that the hot chef is standing very close to me right now, his face doesn’t betray it, bless him.

  “A bunch of us are going out to McMahon’s to celebrate today being over,” Kevin says, jerking one thumb over his shoulder. “You two are welcome if you want to come.”