Scrumptious (3 page)

“Joe? You never gave me an answer.”

Olivia was the closest thing to a little sister he’d ever had, and if she needed him, he wasn’t going anywhere. He couldn’t change his mind now just because the pastry chef gave him a hard-on, even if he was trying to turn over a new leaf.

“I’ll stay.”

Olivia’s smile lit up the whole smoky bar. “Two weeks, Joe, that’s all I need. Advertisement goes in the paper tomorrow, and I’m meeting with my lawyer this weekend. Thank you.”

“No problem, kiddo. It’ll be like old times.”

Her lips tightened. “Keep an eye on me, cowboy. I’m a little afraid of what I might do if Keith tries to come back to work. Lorena Bobbitt did not have my knife skills.”

“You sound really pissed,” he observed.

“Watching your husband screw the hired help has that effect on a girl.”

“Really? You saw them?”

Olivia nodded.

“Then I’ll help you carve,” he said grimly.

Olivia hopped off the bar stool and gave him a brief hug. “I’m going home. Rough day. You need a place to stay?”

Joe shook his head and pointed at his almost empty glass. “I want another beer.” And more information.

“Right. I’m sure that’s what you want.”

Olivia’s mocking green eyes said he also wanted Marly, and Joe didn’t correct her. “Get some sleep, kiddo. Leave the late nights to the professionals.”

He walked her to the door and watched until she climbed into a blue Honda parked across the street. She started it up and waved.

Joe turned back to the bar and locked eyes with Marlene, who was now waiting for him. No doubt, he was headed for trouble.

Marlene took a sip of her fresh drink, feeling the bottom drop out of her important parts when Joe claimed the bar stool next to her and downed his beer. The flickering light of the votive candles played across the hollows in his cheeks, throwing his cheekbones into sharp relief. He had at least a day’s growth of beard on his face, and she was finding it increasingly difficult not to rasp her fingers across his cheek, just to see if it would make a sound. Joe gestured for another beer, then turned back to her.

“What’s really going on around here?” he asked, giving her that wicked smile again. This time, Marlene managed to still her beating heart.

“Do you mean with Olivia and Keith or are you talking about in the larger sense of the word?” Marlene lounged against the bar, feeling expansive.

“Start with today,” he said.

“Olivia didn’t give you the dirty details?”

“Nope.”

She grimaced. “I found Keith in dry storage putting it to sweet Nikki, the bartender. Olivia walked in right behind me. It was ugly, but I think she’s finally done with that jerk.”

Joe snorted and shook his head. “You wish.”

“She means it. Trust me. I’ve seen her in denial for, like, the last year at least. This was different. She called her lawyer. Things are going to change around here.”

“Things never change,” he stated.

“Cynical much?”

“More like honest. And realistic.”

“Or jaded?” Marlene suggested.

He shrugged.

Marlene sipped her martini. She didn’t want to get into all this right now. She and Olivia would handle Keith together, just as they handled almost everything else. Olivia had gone to culinary school alone, and she had certainly decided to marry Keith all by herself, but other than that, they had been a team since they were fifteen and Olivia had found her sobbing after school. She changed the subject. “You know, I’ve heard more than a few stories about
you
and women over the years.”

Joe frowned. “How about I buy you another drink and we talk about something else?”

“What fun is that? I’ve got burning questions about the logistics involved with you and all those cheerleaders in high school.”

“Huh? Oh.” Recognition dawned, chasing the distant look from Joe’s eyes. “I never should have told Olivia about that.”

For the first time in Marlene’s entire life, she envied a cheerleader. All of them, in fact. Joe was hot in the first place, but when his eyes lit up with sexy memories, he was positively volcanic. She began to tingle. If he could do that to her with a simple look, she couldn’t imagine what he could do with the rest of his body. Thank God she had something all those skinny, perky, blond eighteen-year-old cheerleaders hadn’t had.

Experience.

She grinned. “C’mon, quarterback, it’s halftime, and I’m hungry. Want to get something to eat?”

“Sure, sugar, what’s your pleasure?” he asked.

Marly drained her martini and set the top-heavy glass carefully on the bar. “My place. I’ve got a full fridge, and it’s just around the corner,” she answered, looking him squarely in the eyes.

He looked at her silently.

“Scared?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Of a little thing like you? Hardly.” He stood and stretched. “I’m beat, though. Long day.”

Marlene followed him up, standing so close that she could smell the beer on his breath and feel the heat of his body through his clothes. Her eyes drifted shut, but a wave of dizziness snapped them open again. She staggered, and Joe caught her around the waist, steadying her with his body. She looked up at him. “If you need a more noble reason to take me home, I could use a ride.”

“You don’t have a car here?” He scowled.

“Nope. I walked.”

“At night? In the dark?”

She shook her head. “I walked in to work this morning. I wasn’t expecting it to be such a late night
—
not that I’m complaining.”

“I’ll take you home then,” he said slowly, more slowly than she would have expected from a guy who was about to get lucky. He urged her toward the door with a broad hand on her lower back.

Joe pulled the door of the bar open for her, and she stepped out onto the sidewalk. The cool night air made her shiver. Western New York nights were never really warm until mid July, and tonight was no exception. He opened the door of a black Jeep parked on the street. “This is it.”

She grinned as she stepped up into the Jeep. It was a pity she wasn’t the type to pretend she needed a boost. Joe crossed to his side and climbed in, automatically fastening his seat belt and glancing down at hers.

“You wouldn’t really walk home alone, would you?” he asked.

His protective streak was cute. Predictable but cute. “I had no intention of going home alone.” She let the innuendo hang in the air for a minute as Joe pulled away from the curb, then she giggled. “Olivia was going to drop me off. Guess she decided you’d do a better job, huh?”

“She was tired.”

Marlene grinned. “How unfortunate.” She pointed down the road. “Turn right at the light. Then second house on the left past the stop sign.”

He followed her directions and pulled into her driveway two minutes later.

“Back entrance. The top floor is mine.” The bottom half of the two-story house was rented by Thomas and Bill, who were devoted to each other and to their beagle, Samson. Marlene met Joe on the other side of the Jeep and led him up the wooden decking staircase. When he paused at the top, she took his arm and pulled him into her kitchen.

“Come on, I’m starving,” she said.

She snapped on the kitchen light. Warm track lighting lit the butcher-block island in the center of the room. The island was ringed with shelves that held her favorite and most useful kitchen appliances
—
KitchenAid mixer, food processor, cappuccino machine. Wide drawers held the smaller stuff like a mandolin, all manner of peelers and zesters, scoops and spatulas. On top of the island, a sturdy, wooden knife rack and a sink put everything she might need close at hand.

Marlene flipped another switch to light up the wide gas range on the left-hand wall next to the fridge and kicked her clogs into the pile of shoes at the door. The tile was cold on her bare feet. She pulled two beers out of the fridge and handed one to Joe.

He shook his head. “I should get going.”

“Can I make you an omelet first?” she suggested, gazing into the fridge. Yellow peppers, ham off the bone…hmmm, cherry tomatoes, did she still have mushrooms? She dumped an armload of ingredients onto the counter next to the stove. Without turning around, she asked, “Am I making one or two?”

She got her answer in the form of a hiss as Joe twisted the cap off his beer. Hiding her triumph, she pulled a loaf of sourdough bread from the top of the fridge. “You can make the toast.” She tossed the loaf onto the island and pointed at the knife rack and the bright orange toaster.

Show time.

She pulled a ten-inch All-Clad sauté pan from the cupboard and set it on the flame. Her knife flew through vegetables and herbs. She whisked three eggs in a metal bowl with a splash of milk and tossed the onions in the hot pan, followed by the mushrooms. They hissed and screamed as she flipped them in the pan. Next, she added the tomatoes and ham to warm them, then the spinach, reaching over to the sink to add a few drops of water. She tossed everything once more and reserved the vegetables on a plate while she wiped out her non-stick pan and returned it to the fire, hyper aware of Joe watching her from the island.

Marlene tended the eggs carefully, moving them around the pan until they set. She spread the vegetables in a line down the top third of her perfect yellow circle.

“Feta or goat?” she asked.

“Feta.” Joe’s voice was rough.

Marlene added the cheese, flipped one side over, and rolled a perfect omelet out of the pan.

Then she wiped out the pan and did it again. Take that, cheffie boy.

“Want to eat on the roof?” she asked, as Joe piled buttered toast on the plates.

At his nod, Marly put everything on a tray and led him to her small balcony. She set the tray on a small table just outside the French doors and clambered, barefoot, over her balcony railing. “Up we go.” Reclaiming the tray of food, she scaled the gentle slope of her dining room roof. Joe followed, carrying their beers.

They reached the top and stepped down over the wooden railing.

She was proud of her rooftop garden patio, complete with tomato plants, herb garden, and two padded lounge chairs stretched out on either side of a low, wicker table. She set their plates on the table and beckoned to Joe, patting the spot next to her, trying to read his expression.

The heat was still there, but she didn’t feel the pull, the opening she needed to draw him closer to her. Instead of sitting down beside her, he took the opposite chair. Marlene swallowed a bite of her eggs, washed it down with a long swig of cold beer, and wondered how she was going to get him to kiss her.

***

Joe watched Marly eat. She wasn’t at all self-conscious about enjoying her food. In fact, she smiled slightly to herself in anticipation of each bite, as if she knew it was going to be good. She glanced up and caught him looking at her.

“Something wrong with the food?” she asked.

“No, it’s good. Thanks.”

“Only good?” She made a face.

“It’s fantastic, sugar. Beats the hell out of IHOP.”

A slow smile spread across her lips, and Joe watched that too. She looked as if one sudden move would unravel her. One button undone, one more strand of hair slipping down, if she shrugged out of her sweater all else would move toward entropy and she would sprawl, naked and unhinged, on her chair. She was trouble, all right, serious trouble. The kind he usually welcomed, sought out, and definitely enjoyed. His gut twisted.

“Penny for your thoughts,” she said.

Joe placed his empty plate on the wicker table and stood to look out over the edge of the roof. “Just admiring the view.”

Marlene joined him and pointed out over the street. “You can see the restaurant from here.” Just over the trees, Joe could make out the roof of the bar. He leaned down to sight along her arm. It wobbled, just a bit. Beyond the bar, Joe recognized the dark front window of Chameleon and its adjacent parking lot. As her arm dropped back down to her side, he caught her scent: onions faintly, a damp smell of flowers from her hair, and then something sweet like vanilla.

He shouldn’t have let it get this far. He was a lot of bad things when it came to women, but a tease was not one of them. Selfish, now that Joe could cop to. He was trying to reform, but he was a guy after all. It was hard to work against his instincts. He had recovered his restraint on the way up the stairs, but then he’d caught a glimpse of her tricked-out kitchen from the doorway and wanted to see more.

Of her kitchen. Right. He could tell himself whatever he wanted, but all bullshit aside, he’d left the bar with her, walked into her house with her, and now he was alone on the roof with her. If he wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t a tease, what the hell was he doing here?

Exactly what he’d been doing for half his life, he decided disgustedly: taking the easy road with a beautiful and willing woman. It was as if the moment he made his decision to be good, the devil had tossed a woman up onto Earth who was everything he couldn’t resist. He swallowed hard against the urge to lean in to get a better whiff of her sweet scent. He clenched his hands into fists against the desire to touch her glorious curly hair, her sexy body, full of the curves of a woman who liked to cook. Her skin looked so soft he was already imagining how it would feel under his hands, against his bare chest, pressed against his groin as he shaped her body to fit his.

He should leave. Right now. He wasn’t that guy anymore; he was going to settle down, find some peace.

He didn’t move.

The selfishness that had led him out of the bar and into Marlene’s home demanded satisfaction. He looked down at her standing next to him, just the tiniest bit too close for politeness. He met her eyes. She didn’t look away. Instead, she smiled and turned toward him, tilting her head just a hair to the right. They both knew how to play this game. One kiss then. Clearly, she was waiting for it. Then he would go.

Abruptly, he leaned down to take her mouth.

Their lips touched and he welcomed the instant lust, the harsh need, the promise of forgetting that she offered to him. He had half expected a sloppy kiss, full of drunken enthusiasm. Instead, her lips were tentative, responsive to the slightest pressure of his questing mouth. When he deepened the kiss, she opened to him. When he pulled away, her lips danced lightly over his. He pressed her into the rail and she gave beneath him, arching, thrusting her full breasts toward him. She tilted her hips in blatant invitation as their tongues asked and answered questions in a rapid exchange of straightforward desire.

He pulled her closer, until they were joined at chest, hip, and thigh. They moved as one, with communication hardwired between them, bypassing speech, relying on touch. Her body screamed
Take
me!
and his body answered with a clear, violent affirmation. It felt comfortable, familiar. He was harder than he’d ever been in his life. Dimly, he knew his brain was telling him to hightail it out of there, but he was operating on instinct, and any rational thoughts were much less compelling than the woman slowly grinding herself on his left thigh.

Yes, he would take her. He’d been thinking about it from the minute Olivia had recalled Marlene’s existence to him in the bakeshop. Been pretty sure of it when her eyes met his with no-bullshit heat in the bar. He was dead certain of it now.

He bent to lift her into his arms, so intent on getting her to the chair without losing contact with her mouth
—
a mouth that promised oblivion with every slow, gliding movement of her tongue
—
that he didn’t pay attention to the banging noise coming from the vicinity of her front porch. Instead, he pulled her shirt above her breasts and cupped each warm curve in his hands. He flipped her black, lacy excuse for a bra below her breasts, so he could suck a pink nipple into his mouth and draw a long, low moan from her throat.