Chapter Nine
Adrian wrapped his cast in a couple of plastic bags, snapping a rubber band tightly around the edges before stepping into the hot, welcome spray of the shower. His joints and muscles throbbed from both yesterday’s impact and last night’s overuse, but it was familiar territory, same song, second verse. A spectacular display of purples and blues marred his left shoulder, but he did his best to ignore the Technicolor bruise as he clumsily ran the soap over his skin.
Christ, he was grateful to be rid of the sling, even if it was only long enough to bathe. Lifting his arm more than a few inches without ripping pain was still out of the question, but it didn’t matter. Being able to strip the sling from his body along with his clothes was liberating, like he was on his way back to normal.
He’d found a kitchen, a purpose. Maybe, just maybe, this whole broken-arm thing wouldn’t be as bad as he’d thought. Even if he couldn’t cook, being in the kitchen with Teagan was sure to keep him occupied.
Damn, he hadn’t been occupied in far too long.
Adrian froze, but apparently his cock missed the memo, stirring to life at the thought of Teagan’s fiery mouth and attitude to match. Okay, so technically, they weren’t coworkers, and yeah, she had soft curves and tight angles in all the right places. Still, getting involved would only make helping her in the kitchen a lot more complicated, and it was his number one priority to avoid complications like a gaping pothole.
Which meant that much to his dick’s chagrin, Teagan was off-limits.
Adrian gave the shower knob a healthy turn toward cold and ran through the rest of his scrub-down as best he could with one arm. Getting toweled off and dressed threatened to reduce his patience to fumes, but he managed eventually. The pain in his arm had simmered down to a steady but manageable ache, and Adrian opted for a couple of ibuprofen to wash down the rest of the sleeve of saltines. Even money said Teagan would ask him point-blank what he’d eaten this morning, and even though his answer was bound to raise one of those feisty, red eyebrows of hers, at least he wouldn’t have to tell her “nothing.”
Off-limits, remember?
The sound of Adrian’s landline startled him halfway off the linoleum, and he stared at the thing where it sat, a few feet away on the counter. Only two people had this number—the two people who insisted he have a landline at all—and right about now, Adrian didn’t want to talk to either of them.
Of course, one could fire him permanently and the other wanted his ass back in jail, and both would come knocking down his door if he dodged their phone calls long enough.
Guess he should put his chatty pants on.
“Hello?” Adrian wedged the phone to his ear, and the scrape of it against his cheek reminded him that at some point he was going to have to master the art of one-handed shaving.
The voice at the other end sounded even crankier than he felt, sarcasm flowing like bad tequila at a bachelor party. “Good of you to finally answer, Holt. I was starting to take it personally.”
Shit. Of course Big Ed had probably tried to call already. “Sorry. I was a little busy.”
“Busy getting into trouble, I see. Went and banged yourself up real good, according to this police report on my desk.”
“I’m sure it makes it sound worse than it is.”
Disdain seeped into Big Ed’s sarcasm, hardening his thick New York accent another layer. “Says you went and played chicken with a minivan. I always knew that bike was bad news.”
“I got rear-ended by a lady on her cell phone. I wasn’t even issued a citation.” Adrian gritted his teeth hard enough to make dust. Forty-six days. In forty-six days, he would never have to deal with Big Ed again.
As long as the cantankerous bastard didn’t find a reason to have him incarcerated, anyway.
“Yeah, yeah, I verified everything with the police down there. I talked to your boss-lady, too. Sounds like you’ve got a little time on your hands now that you’ve got your ass in a sling.”
“It’s my arm.” Seriously, there wasn’t enough patience on the earth’s surface for this.
Big Ed snorted, clearly enjoying himself. “You say potato, I say ass in a sling. Anyway, since your hotshot boss vouched for you yet again, you’re off the hook with work release. For now.”
“Great,” Adrian said, working up some sarcasm of his own. God, he hated how much Carly put on the line for him. Screwing up his own reputation was one thing. Taking his best friend down with him? Not gonna happen.
“Yeah well, just ’cause you’re straight with them doesn’t mean you’re straight with me. We both know how you get when you’ve got nothing better to do, and I ain’t a snot-nosed rookie. You may have weaseled your way out of the state all special on your fancy boss’s name, but you’re still a fuck-up waiting to happen. Don’t think just because I’m not right there on you, I ain’t watching. You so much as gulp the same air as anyone with a misdemeanor, and I’ll have you and that superstar boss of yours dragged back here on parole violations. You feel me?”
Adrian’s pulse was nothing but white noise and black anger in his veins. “Yeah. I feel you.”
“Good. And next time I call you, answer the damn phone.”
It took five minutes of solid breathing and the most imaginative curse words Adrian could conjure up before he was calm enough to consider driving, but once he managed to get on the road, he gathered his thoughts as rationally as he could.
As much as Adrian had hated every second of the exchange with the guy, at the very least, the conversation proved that Big Ed couldn’t do anything with that police report other than file it. He wasn’t the kind of guy to hold his cards, and if he’d managed to drum up some way to make the accident work against Adrian, he’d have done it. Not that he probably hadn’t given it the old college try.
Still, Adrian was going to have to keep himself clean enough to make squeaky spit with envy if he wanted to get through the next forty-six days.
He pulled into the Double Shot’s deserted lot and parked, taking in the details that had gone unnoticed in the dark of last night. The clapboard was comfortably weathered, as if it had been allowed to stay that way rather than being neglected, and the glossy black shutters made favorable companions to the wide, thickly paned windows. Brass lanternlike light fixtures hung at regular intervals along the overhang of the porch, with two matching sconces on either side of the oversized front door.
It was a far cry from many of the bars in New York, with their dank, underground smells and even danker underground activities. Although some of the upscale places were still worse, with drugs and money and who knew what else moving in and out the door.
Adrian’s feet jerked to a halt on the strip of pavement separating his parking spot from the building. Was he out of his mind when he’d all but begged Teagan to let him work here? Sure, the place looked decent enough, but he knew from experience that appearances weren’t always an accurate barometer. He’d asked to make sure, but of course she’d said everything was legit—who the hell came right out and admitted that shady things happened behind the scenes? And as much Adrian needed to stay busy, he needed to stay out of trouble more.
But when Teagan had told him in that dead-serious tone that everything here was legit, he’d believed her. And considering his bullshit meter had been raised on a steady diet of foster care, rough neighborhoods, and nine months of gen pop at Rikers, when Adrian believed somebody, it was a very big deal. Still, he’d have to keep his eyes wide open. Innocent until proven guilty didn’t mean innocent no matter what. And as streetwise as Teagan seemed, he’d learned the hard way that sometimes owners don’t know everything.
Adrian walked up to the building, but skipped the formality of the front door, heading instead for the side entrance where he’d first seen Teagan last night. The aging dark blue Corolla she’d driven away in a few hours ago was parked in the back lot, and Adrian put a solid knock on the door with his good hand. After a minute of stand-and-whistle, he tried again, with the same results. A test of the door shocked him by proving it unlocked, with a quiet kitchen beyond.
Adrian stood still on the industrial, flat brown tile, taking in the nearly noiseless hum of the walk-in and the shadows cast by the emergency lighting overhead. The kitchen was filled with rare calm, and he took in the sounds of the space’s normalcy out of deeply ingrained habit. Once you knew what business as usual sounded like, it was a hell of a lot easier to pick out when things weren’t quite right.
He moved past the open-air metal racks in the dishwashing alcove, noting that Jesse had been true to his word about getting everything prepped for today. Flat-sided trays of pint glasses stood stacked and at the ready on a rolling cart, and stainless steel pots and pans of various sizes dangled from drying hooks, silently begging to be called into action. All in good time, Adrian thought, though his chest panged at the delayed realization that it wouldn’t be him cooking at all. It would be Teagan.
If he could figure out where the hell she was.
A handful of steps brought him to the pass-through dividing the front of the house from the back, and he peered through the large, circular window set in the swinging door. Although the darkened vantage point of the kitchen gave him a perfect view of things on the other side of the glass, he was wholly unprepared for what he saw.
Teagan sat directly in front of him on the customer side of the glossy, mahogany bar, the overhead light mingling with strains of sunshine from the far window to brighten her hair to a coppery gold. Head dipped down low, she pored over a thick sheaf of computer printouts, a tiny crease forming between her brows as she punched the numbers on the calculator topping the stack. Concentration stamped her pretty features, and she shook her head, pulling her lower lip between her teeth in thought.
Adrian’s pulse heated in his veins, and although he knew he was ripping past the bounds of propriety by standing there staring, he was incapable of doing anything but exactly that. She looked serious, yet open, as if all her guarded toughness had been swept aside to reveal the unvarnished version underneath. She propped one elbow on the bar, leaning in so her forearm edged the swell of her breasts into the danger zone of visible skin in the deep V of her shirt, and the heat in Adrian’s blood threatened full-on spontaneous combustion.
Christ above, this woman was stunning. And he realized, too late, that she was also staring right back at him.
Even stone-cold busted, he couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Hey,” he said, not trusting his idiot voice with anything more as he blanked his expression, moving through the door to stand behind the bar. Nothing like a few feet of solid mahogany to hide a raging hard-on. “I didn’t mean to barge in on you. I knocked, but . . .” Adrian gestured to the stack of papers in front of her.
Teagan shook her head, apology painting her expression. “Oh, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to get a handle on the, ah, ordering. I must’ve been too preoccupied to hear you.”
“You really shouldn’t leave your side door unlocked. It’s dangerous, especially when you’re here by yourself.” His eyes did a methodical sweep of the interior of the bar, another habit he’d likely never break.
“Pine Mountain is a small town.” The corners of her lush, red mouth tugged up in the suggestion of a smile, although her demeanor had regained its tough outer layer. “Plus, I’m not exactly a wallflower. I can handle myself just fine.”
Something dark crackled to life in his chest, replacing the heat that had been under his skin just seconds ago. “Yeah? You bulletproof?” Savvy or not, she really shouldn’t be here by herself, period.
She lowered her pencil, but not her guard. “Something like that.”
“It’s a safety issue, Red. It’s not smart to invite trouble.”
Adrian’s mind tilted back to the night, nearly a year ago, when Teagan had jumped between him and Carly’s now-husband, Jackson. The circumstances had been extreme—enough so that Adrian had shattered every one of his cardinal rules to go after Jackson without remorse. And yet Teagan had barged out of that ambulance and planted herself chin-up and attitude blazing, right in the thick of things, to the point that she’d actually defused the fight.
She’d been lucky he wasn’t some strung-out junkie, or some lunatic. Or something worse.
“I’ll take it under advisement.” She gathered the papers from the bar with quick hands and hopped off her bar stool with ease that said she’d done it thousands of times before. “How’s your arm feeling?”
He made a mental note to revisit the side door issue later. Maybe if he did it with Brennan or Jesse around, he could get one of them to sway her a little. “A step up from yesterday.”
“Mmm. A step up from hurts-like-a-bitch still hurts. Did you eat anything this morning?”
His lips twitched with a smile at how well he’d pegged her, and what the hell, he let it loose. “Half a sleeve of saltines and some ibuprofen. You?”
“Plain low-fat yogurt and nine-grain granola.” The words came out like a translation of old rubber cement with a side of chunky sawdust.
“My condolences. You got something against real food?” He eyed her carefully. She seemed too tough to be one of those chicks who freaked out and ran a goddamn marathon out of guilt every time she threw the occasional Snickers bar down the hatch.
Teagan shook her head, putting the paperwork behind the bar before moving toward the kitchen. “I had breakfast with my father.”
Understanding dawned, and Adrian followed her through the swinging door, flipping the light switch with his good hand. “Ah. So how did he take your plan?”
“About as well as he enjoyed breakfast. But even though both were tough to swallow, he knows there’s no other way to do this until he gets better.” She cast her eyes back toward the door to the bar. “Most of it, anyway.”
Talk about something Adrian could relate to. “I can show you some things to make for him that’ll go over better than twigs and berries, if you want.”
Teagan’s hands screeched to a stop under the hand-washing sink by the door, her gaze flashing over him with unflinching certainty. “I don’t cook for my dad.”
The don’t touch vibe pouring off her was so strong, Adrian didn’t push. “Okay. Just trying to help.”
Her shoulders dipped slightly before she righted herself, giving a tiny, apologetic smile. “Thank you. But you’ve got your work cut out for you here as it is, so why don’t we stick with that?”
“Sure.” Adrian’s mind switched gears, clicking seamlessly to the menu he’d been mulling over since last night. “I’m going to get you started on some of the basics while I check inventory and see what’s what in your walk-in. The key to a well-run kitchen is being prepared, which unfortunately means a lot of grunt work. But you’ve got to get it right, otherwise nothing else will happen. Think of it like the foundation for your house.”
She stood at rigid attention, hands in lockdown at her sides as she stood by the workstation opposite the grill. “Okay. What do I do first?”
“Relax.”
Although he’d thought it impossible, her body coiled even tighter. “What?”
Jesus, this was going to be more than he bargained for. “Being tense sucks the energy right out of you, sweetheart. If you don’t want to burn out before you even start, you have to relax.”
She faced the counter with military precision, both palms on the scuffed white cutting board covering half of the work surface. “But I am relaxed. Just give me a job. Tell me what to do.”
Whether it was the look he’d seen on her face just moments ago or the bossy dare me demand coming from her mouth, Adrian couldn’t be sure, but something dark and hot propelled him right past reason and into her space, eliminating the no-man’s-land of empty air between them until his chest pressed against the slim line of the back of her shoulders. She was probably going to deck him for this—hell, he might even deck himself—but he had to do something to get her to breathe.
“You’re not relaxed. See this line of tension, right here?” He traced a path from behind her ear all the way down her neck, fingers gliding from warm skin to soft cotton to land on the ridge of her shoulder. “You need to let it go if you want to be able to move in the kitchen.”
To his absolute shock, her muscles unfolded against his hand. “Like that?” Her voice, all husky and low, shot through him, and walking away was as impossible as moving the moon.
“Mmm.” He pressed his palm against the outline of her shoulder, and bit back the groan building in his throat. “Like that.”
“Where . . . where else?” Teagan whispered, and holy shit, this was going to go south really fast if she didn’t stop sighing like that. She leaned her head back just slightly, but it was enough to brush his pounding chest and resurrect that earlier hard-on he’d done his best to dismiss.
“Wherever you need it.” He dropped his mouth to her neck, the heat of her skin pushing him to take a taste, and for a second, he resisted. But then she arched into his hand, sliding her body so his fingers rested in the curve of her shoulder blade by the center of her back, and he gave in.
“There.” The word was barely audible as it spilled from her lips, but he answered as if she’d shouted, running the edge of his tongue along her delicate neck. He slipped his hand low against her back, sifting his fingers over her spine as he set his mouth to the spot where her hair met her neck. Her ponytail tickled against his cheek, but the heady scent of rosemary and the silky heat of the spot under his tongue had him so hard, he dove in without thinking. He tasted her in slow circles, working his hand over her back in tight, even strokes as he went.
“Oh God. There.” Teagan arced into him from the slope of her shoulders to the sweet swell of her ass, destroying his last shred of reason. He ground against the press of her hips just once, and the friction of her lush curves and the rough denim between them was enough to lift a groan from his chest.
More.
Adrian’s free arm darted around her, latching on to the belt loops on her jeans as he swung her to face him. Their mouths came together in a rush of raw want, lips parting, tongues sliding together, and goddamn, he’d never wanted anything so much, so fast, right now.
Maneuvering around the arm pinned between them by his sling, he angled his body against her, moving her backward toward the dishwashing alcove until her shoulders pressed against the wall. Using the leverage to his advantage, Adrian pushed beneath the hem of her thin T-shirt, fighting his knees for control as he reached the even thinner satin cradling her breasts.
More wasn’t going to be enough.
“Don’t stop,” Teagan said, and the throaty command had him pushing the material aside to bare one perfect, tightly drawn nipple, blush red and begging to be plucked, just like her mouth.
Adrian uttered a low oath, holding her fast as she braced her hands overhead, gripping the edge of the open-aired shelf above to allow him unfettered access.
“Careful what you wish for, Red.” His thumb lingered over her nipple, wicked satisfaction pulsing through him as he watched her tighten even more. “I could taste you for hours.”
She answered with a frustrated whimper, snapping his control. He lowered his mouth to her breast, taking her in with one slick parting of his lips, and his moan twined with hers at the intimate contact. Teagan dropped a hand from above, lowering it toward her body before letting it veer off at the last second, and the move struck him with swift realization.
Adrian parted from her nipple, his breath coming in short bursts as he cast his eyes to her hand before locking his gaze on hers.
“Show me where you need it.”
She took the dare without hesitation this time, replacing his palm beneath her breast with her own while she used her other hand to guide his fingers to the hot seam of her jeans. Her boldness had him within inches of wanting to come, fully clothed and all. But his want was nothing compared to the decadent tension thrumming beneath Teagan’s skin, as if she didn’t just want to break apart, but needed the release, like food or water or breath.
And no way was he going to deny her.
Adrian curled his fingers against her sex, sliding them over her jeans with intention until he reached the indent between her thighs that told him he’d hit home. Keeping them pressed there, he lifted his thumb against the midline between her legs until she sucked in a breath, then he lowered his mouth back to her breast.
Teagan choked out his name on a sob. “There. There. I need it right there.”
Oh. Hell. Yes.
Finding a rhythm between the steady swirl of his tongue above and the purposeful glide of his fingers below, he worked her jeans open, sliding them from her hips just enough to reveal the top edge of her pale pink underwear. Her fingers went taut beneath her upturned breast, the wordless encouragement sending his fingers back into play, only this time without barriers.
He sank into her, letting his thumb discover the tight bundle of nerves hidden above her core while he returned his mouth to her flushed, straining nipple. The harder she thrust against him, the more he coaxed her to come undone, using his tongue, his fingers, the edge of his teeth. He buried his thumb more tightly at the apex of her thighs, pressing into her folds as he felt her muscles quicken around his fingers, threatening release. Although his cock was unbearably hard, screaming with the need for release of its own, Adrian refused to give in to his own base desire.
“Take what you need, sweetheart. Take it.”
With one last thrust of his fingers, she unraveled around him, clutching his shoulders with hot fists. The heat of her climax vibrated deep inside of him, wrapping them together in delicious tension before she went loose against his body. Adrian slowed his movements, lessening the contact between them but not the space, until he slipped his hand from the cradle of her hips to gently right her clothes.
Teagan looked at him, confusion covering the residual blush still on her face. “But you didn’t, ah . . .” She gestured downward, sliding her hand over his abdomen with a glint in her eyes. “Let me take care of you.”
“And would it be so bad if someone just took care of you for a change?”
He’d meant to tease her with the words, but the way her body jerked to stillness had him tensing right alongside her.
“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.” She pulled back, and just like that, her guard snapped right back into place, stamping out the sweet abandon of just moments ago.
“You sure about that?” He let his eyes linger on hers, just long enough to watch them go dark with heat, like liquid copper.
“Is that was this was about? You trying to ‘relax’ me?” She slashed air quotes around the word, but didn’t budge otherwise.
Adrian gave an involuntary flinch. He might be a lot of things, but that guy wasn’t one of them. “No.”
Teagan smoothed a hand over her T-shirt even though it was perfectly in place, repeating the process twice before continuing in a crisp tone, “I owe you an apology. You came here to help me in the kitchen, and clearly, I got carried away. It won’t happen again.”
He opened his mouth to call bullshit—it wasn’t as if he was an innocent bystander, for God’s sake, and he didn’t have any regrets. The last thing he wanted was an apology for what had just happened between them. But reality kept his jaw hinged shut, the sharp edges of truth like vicious bits of glass between his teeth.
He’d gotten carried away too, and that only led to bad things in the long run. Had he learned nothing five years ago?
“No big deal,” Adrian said, and yeah, that one burned coming out. “I’m square if you are.” As much as he hated it, snuffing out anything other than business between them was the best plan.
“I’m square.” Teagan’s voice softened just slightly as she spoke, but she cleared her throat, her next words infused with familiar resolve. “Now how do I get this kitchen ready for lunch service?”