Cooking up a Storm (12 page)

‘ “Poke!”,’ she exclaimed, wriggling greedily down his cock. ‘I’ll give you a poke!’

They were tickling each other when they came, and when they came down she didn’t know whether to be happy or horrified.

‘I am a sex maniac,’ she moaned, much to Jack’s amusement.

One thing was certain. She was going to be late for breakfast.

*   *   *

Jack drove her back to the inn — actually, to a side road short of the inn where he pulled up beneath a shady tree and kissed her breathless. He didn’t ask to see her again, but she knew he wanted to. She knew she wanted to, too.

She walked the two remaining streets to the inn and told herself she wasn’t sneaking around. She and Storm didn’t have a relationship: they were having a fling. What was his motto–
no obligations, only pleasure?
She could sleep with whomever she pleased. As for not telling him about it, that was only common sense. She might be inexperienced but she knew he liked thinking of her as his creation, the woman he was awakening to the true extent of her desires.

He’d awakened her, all right, but she suspected he wouldn’t like knowing she’d turned to another man for satisfaction. Men just were that way — most of them anyway. That much even Abby knew.

*   *   *

‘We can’t let you do this,’ Francine said.

She and Sandra sat at the big mahogany table in the cottage dining room; the same table they’d had food fights across as children. Both her older sisters had matching prim expressions on their faces, though Sandra’s was marred by the splotch of blue ink on her left cheek. She’d obviously spent the morning writing. Her long wavy hair hadn’t been combed and she wore one of her ex-husband’s pin-striped office shirts — a habit that disturbed Abby no end. The divorce had not been Sandra’s idea, but it was more than time she let go.

She blew her breath out wearily. She’d been hoping to get this meeting over with quickly. It was almost time to prep for lunch. Since prepping for lunch involved working elbow to elbow with Storm, the responsibility seemed more pressing than usual.

Her encounter with Jack this morning had done nothing to calm her overactive libido. She’d missed breakfast altogether. Worse, images of Jack and Storm — and even Bill — had been barraging her ever since. Naked men danced across the screen of her mind, big cocks, little cocks, grunting and groaning and soft kisses, hard kisses, sand under her back and satin sheets and high-heeled shoes and that moment, that breath-stealing moment when the head of it all, the heart of it all, pushed past the tiny resistance at her gate. Damn it, she was hot and wet and grumpy and, if Storm gave her so much as a five-minute opening, she’d screw him silly.

What’s more, she didn’t care if the waiters did watch!

Good Lord, she thought. I’m going to have to stop eating his cooking.

Fighting for composure, she gripped the back of the tall Queen Anne chair behind which she stood and faced her sisters with a level stare. ‘What do you mean, you can’t “let” me do it? I’m not asking your permission. I’m informing you as a matter of courtesy and because I thought you’d be interested. Renovations on the upstairs dining room will begin next week so that we can open in time for the tourist season. I’m not asking the estate to kick in any money. I’ll be paying the bills with current income.’

And what’s left from my second mortgage, she added silently.

‘But our investment,’ Sandra protested. Though generously supported by her ex, Sandra behaved as if she were perpetually one step from the poorhouse.

‘What investment?’ Abby said, thoroughly exasperated. ‘Neither of you have invested a dime of your money or a minute of your time at the inn. Every penny has either come from Dad’s life insurance or my own pocket.’

‘All the more reason to be careful.’ Sandra folded her hands on the tabletop. ‘You don’t want to impoverish yourself.’

‘Jesus H. Christ.’ Abby pressed the heels of her palms to her forehead and ignored her sisters’ gasps. ‘Don’t you get it? I can’t make the profit I need to turn the inn around unless I have both dining rooms open this summer. Look.’ She let her breath out slowly and loosened her grip on the chair. ‘You know Daddy intended that money as a capital reserve to support the inn.’

‘And he wanted the inn to provide support for us,’ Sandra interjected.

‘Yes, he did.’ Abby pushed a lock of hair off her forehead. ‘But there won’t be any income unless I get the inn back on its feet and I can’t do that unless I put more money into it. We will make a profit, Sandra, if you just give me time to undo Dad’s — well, his oversights. I do have a business degree, remember. I’m not making this up. And by rights I could demand the estate pay me a salary, no matter what the inn’s profit or loss. I really don’t see how you can object to my plans.’

‘He left you the cottage,’ Sandra said, as though that explained everything.

‘Daddy left me the cottage because I set aside a promising career to help him when he got sick. He didn’t leave it to me because he loved me better than you.’

Finally shamed to silence, Sandra stared down at her ink-stained hands.

Francine cleared her throat. ‘Maybe we should consider paying you a salary, instead of just your share of the profit.’

Sandra’s head came up sharply. She cheeped in distress.

‘Well, we don’t have to decide right now,’ Francine soothed her. ‘We can take it under advisement. There is one other thing that concerns me, however.’ She turned back to Abby with her sister-knows-best face. ‘You seem to be putting a lot of faith in this new chef of yours. I know he’s increased business a gazillion per cent, but how do you know he won’t pack up one day and leave you in the lurch?’

‘He won’t do that,’ Abby said firmly, as sure of that as she was of her own name. ‘Storm Dupré is a man of integrity.’

He might break my heart, she thought, but he’d never harm my business.

Marissa was combing Abby’s pale blonde hair with long, slow strokes that had Abby purring and Marissa creaming in her snug white shorts. The object of her fantasies slouched before her dressing table in a worn wicker chair. Her eyes were closed, her arms limp on the low, curved rests. It was Monday — the inn’s off day. Storm had driven to Provincetown to meet one of their suppliers and Marissa had Abby all to herself.

The only thing that would have made her happier was actually having Abby.

Stroking another thick blonde sheaf down Abby’s back, Marissa watched her boss in the mirror. Her breathing was regular, her cheeks pink. One strap of a baby-blue tank top fell off her shoulder. The top was tucked into a pair of khaki walking shorts. The combination was more revealing than her usual twin sets and skirts, especially considering the bareness of her breasts. Beneath the ribbed cotton her nipples rose almost as sharply as Marissa’s own.

Marissa knew Abby must be daydreaming. The flush on her neck told her so; the way she squirmed in the chair and curled and uncurled her toes. She was probably fantasising about Storm, but at the moment Marissa didn’t care. She’d never been in the same room with Abby when she was aroused. The scent of her secret heat made her tremble. Someday, maybe, someday…

‘Your hair is so pretty,’ she said, brushing it up into the sunlight and letting it fall. A hundred golden strands danced in the air. ‘It’s as fine as a baby’s. Just like silk. I could brush it all day.’

‘And I could let you,’ Abby said, her sweet voice husky. ‘When I was little, Francine used to do this. It’s funny–’ she shifted in the chair and stretched her beautiful bare legs under the table ‘–Sandra was the eldest, but Francine always played mother.’

‘Still does,’ said Marissa.

Abby’s lashes shadowed her sun-kissed cheeks. She looked so relaxed. She looked like she’d just been fucked. Her heart in her throat, Marissa set down the brush and stroked Abby’s hair with her bare hands.

‘Mm.’ Abby squirmed deeper into the chair’s cushion. ‘You’ll put me to sleep.’

‘You deserve it,’ she said, venturing cautiously on to Abby’s arms. ‘You’ve been working hard.’ But she didn’t look as if she’d been working hard. She looked as if she were getting eight solid hours of sleep a night. Her skin glowed. Her hair gleamed. Her eyes sparkled like a woman with a secret, or a woman in love.

Marissa shook off the thought. Even Abby wasn’t stupid enough to fall for that playboy. Still, Marissa couldn’t deny that Storm had been good for her.

‘How are your folks?’ Abby asked as Marissa’s fingers trailed lightly back to her shoulders. ‘Is your dad still trying to get you to return to Boston?’

‘He never stops.’ Marissa moved her hands to Abby’s forehead and stroked them down her hairline. Her skin was soft as butter. She stared at the shadow between her breasts and wished she dared explore that curving darkness. She forced herself to breathe evenly. ‘He doesn’t understand why I’d leave a perfectly good teaching position to wait at tables. “Stifled-schmifled,” he says. “Harvard is a great university.” Mom thinks I’m dissatisfied because I only earned a sociology degree. “What use is that except for teaching?” she says. She thinks I should go back to school so I can be a psychiatrist like her and Dad, and no doubt grow up to raise kids who are just as fucked up as me.’

Abby’s eyes fluttered open. A crease appeared between her brows. Marissa could have kicked herself for spoiling the mood.

‘You are not fucked up,’ she said. ‘Lots of people your age don’t know what they want to do.’

But I do know, Marissa thought. I want to lock us in this room and not come out for a month. She picked up the brush and started braiding Abby’s hair.

Abby closed her eyes again. ‘Maybe your purpose in life has nothing to do with a regular career. As long as you’re happy with what you’re doing, that’s all that matters.’

‘You should have been the therapist,’ Marissa said, ‘instead of my batty parents.’

Abby smiled and reached up to press her hand. The gesture was friendly, even motherly, but it brought a quick rush of moisture from her core. A hot flash prickled across her chest and she had to squeeze her thighs together to contain a sharp stab of lust.

Even if Abby had guessed that she liked women, she couldn’t have known what this simple touch did to her. Marissa had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from crying out. She sagged in relief when Abby let go. ‘Old man Weston has been asking me to pose for him again,’ she said, more as a distraction than because she wanted advice.

Abby sat up and turned sideways in the chair. ‘Jack Weston?’

Marissa secured the end of Abby’s braid before she could pull it loose. ‘Yeah, and he wants me to pose nude. Can you imagine me baring my scrawny self for that dirty old man?’

Abby propped her chin on the back of the wicker chair. She looked Marissa thoughtfully up and down. ‘I’m sure any pictures he took would be beautiful. Besides, Marissa, he’s not that old.’ A blush stained Abby’s cheeks at her own words, a new blush.

My God, Marissa thought, horror spreading through her chest like cold, dark water. The old man had done her. It had to have happened recently, too, because Abby never would have two-timed Bill.

The bastard. The lousy, rutting bastard. He knew how Marissa felt about Abby and he still slipped her the salami. Just wait till she gave him a piece of her mind. He’d wish he’d kept his cock locked up tighter than his precious Hasselblad.

*   *   *

Like a lot of old-timers, Jack didn’t lock his doors. Marissa let herself into his fifties-style rancher and slammed into his darkroom without bothering to knock. The regular light was on and he was examining a stack of proofs. He looked up at her entrance, surprised but not furious. She was disappointed. In her current mood, she would have been happy to ruin a week’s worth of work.

Make that a month’s.

‘You fucked her,’ she said, her voice breaking with emotion. ‘You knew how I felt and you fucked her anyway.’

He set the photographs down. ‘I take it you mean Abby.’

‘Yes, I mean Abby.’ She lashed at him with her fist.

‘Hey,’ he said, catching it.

She was quicker with the next blow. It struck the centre of his chest. ‘Bastard!’

He caught that fist, too, and trapped both behind her back. Screaming with fury, she kicked his shins and butted him with her head. Chemicals sloshed as she jostled an open bath. Cursing, he lifted her off her feet. She was so intent on injuring him she didn’t notice straight off that he was carrying her somewhere, out of the darkroom, through the living room of his L-shaped house, down the hall and–

The fucker was taking her to his bedroom!

‘Bastard,’ she said, and took a nip at his ear.

He threw her off him so hard she landed on her bottom and slid five feet down the narrow hall. The impact stunned her speechless.

‘Do that again and I’ll slap you into next week,’ he said. ‘I’m not too proud to hit a woman who’s biting me. Now–’ he stood over her with his hands on his hips, barely even breathing hard ‘–if I offer you a beer, will you drink it or smash it over my head?’

He made her feel so childish. She hated that worse than anything. She knew Abby didn’t belong to her; knew she’d never belong to her — never, never, never.

She started to cry.

‘Oh, baby.’ Jack knelt down on the floor and pulled her into his arms. He rubbed her back like a man who’d comforted a lot of sobbing women. She cried harder.

‘My butt hurts,’ she wailed, freeing a hand to rub her tailbone. ‘And I love her.’

‘Oh, honey.’ Jack rocked her from side to side, laughing through his sympathy. ‘I know. I know you love her and it hurts just awful. But we can never own the people we love, not even when they love us back.’

Marissa’s sobs diminished to a hiccuping snuffle. ‘It’s not fair.’

He hugged her tighter. ‘No, it isn’t.’

‘I can’t even fall in love with anyone else.’

This time his laugh was all amusement. ‘Don’t count on that, honey. The heart is a marvellously flexible organ.’ He stood and held out his hand to her. ‘Come. Pose for me. I want to catch you with the fire in your eyes.’

She sniffed. ‘How about the snot dripping from my nose?’

He winked. ‘I’ll loan you my hanky.’

His expression was soft and kind. She knew he pitied her. At the moment, however, she could do with a dose of pity. She took his hand and let him pull her to his studio.

He’d added this room to the house with the proceeds from his first book,
The Cape in Moonlight
. Along with the stunning photographs, his offbeat, philosophical prose had made it a surprise bestseller. He followed up that success with
Nantucket Rhapsody
and his latest photo essay,
The Art of Winter
.

Appropriately, nothing obscured the studio’s picture-perfect view of Cape Cod Bay. The space was glassed-in like a greenhouse and Jack’s land extended down a long grassy slope to the water’s edge. The shore birds that nested among the reeds were so used to his antics he could lie within feet of their hiding places and they wouldn’t stir a feather.

‘Back in a minute,’ he said, leaving Marissa to look around.

Though he didn’t take many indoor shots, Jack kept equipment in the studio — light meters and tripods and special screens to make the most of whatever light he found outside. He also did his writing there. His desk and computer sat at one end, turned so he could stare at the bay while he composed his deathless prose. That was his term for it. Marissa thought his prose probably was deathless. The shops in Boston carried his books. They were always on the shelves; even the old editions.

Must be nice, she thought, wishing she could do something deathless.

Pressing her nose to the window, she watched a tall white heron stalk an unsuspecting fish and wondered why the hell the famous Jack Weston wanted to photograph a screwed-up nobody like her. She heard his footsteps approach from behind and then he slid an ice-cold bottle of Sam Adams Boston Lager down the centre of her chest. A wisp of vapour curled from the open mouth. Marissa watched it for a moment before taking a melancholy swig.

‘The camera will love you,’ he said.

She closed her eyes and relaxed into his embrace. The moon loved her. The camera loved her. She wondered if a human being ever would.

Jack undid the fastenings of her snug white shorts and slid his hands down inside her panties. His palms were warm, slightly callused and surprisingly arousing. ‘This is new for me, too,’ he said. ‘I haven’t photographed many people.’

‘I’ve got a tattoo,’ she warned, clutching the bottle tighter.

His lips curved against the side of her neck. ‘I’m sure I’ll love your tattoo.’

He helped her finish the beer, then stripped her off. He began by posing her naked against the glass with the bay sparkling in the background and a small spotlight beaming up at her from the floor so the outside light wouldn’t black her out. He shot half a roll that way, crouching, then standing, his face entirely absorbed in the vagaries of light and composition.

‘Good,’ he said, after long minutes of silence. He handed her a white terry-cloth robe, grabbed a different camera and led her outside. Except for a few tiny fishing boats bobbing on the bay, their solitude was complete. He sat her cross-legged on the pier with her back to the water and the robe pooled around her hips. As though she were no more than another prop, he draped a thick hawser rope across her lap and up between her breasts. His impersonal attentions dissolved her last shreds of self-consciousness.

Weary from her earlier outburst, she rested her head against a piling and wondered how the pictures would turn out. Would he make her as beautiful as a snow-covered dune? She smiled and touched the blue Chinese lion that reared on the outer curve of her right breast. Jack’s arm shot out. She thought he was going to move her hand away from the tattoo, but he touched her nipple instead, very lightly, brushing it back and forth and then moving to its partner until they both stood out like tiny raspberries.

When he finally withdrew his hand, it was shaking — a fact that astonished her. She’d never seen anything ruffle Jack. She looked at the zip of his tan cotton trousers. It bulged like he’d stuffed a pair of socks in there.

‘You like this,’ she marvelled. ‘This turns you on.’

He scratched the side of his chin in apparent bemusement. ‘I’m afraid you’ve caught me out. This is a long-standing fantasy of mine.’

‘Do you want to–?’ She gestured towards her naked pubis.

He shook his head. ‘No. Not yet.’ He snapped another half-dozen shots in quick succession. ‘Lord, you’re a beautiful girl, Marissa. Don’t let anyone tell you different.’ He turned her on to her belly then and had her reach over the edge of the pier to dabble her fingers in the water. Kneeling over her buttocks, he shot her gazing at her wavery reflection.

‘So.’ She looked back at him over her shoulder while he changed film rolls. ‘Are my pictures going to end up out on the coffee table or hidden under the bed?’

He grinned at her. ‘Definitely coffee table. Although–’ he sank down far enough to brush her buttocks with his erection ‘–I may want to keep them to myself for a while.’

For a moment, she imagined him wanking off over her pictures. The thought was both amusing and arousing. She turned over between his spread legs and, after a quick glance to check the position of the fishing boats, kneaded his muscular thighs. ‘If you turn me into a book, will you write about me, too?’

He covered her hands, edging them closer to his balls. ‘No.’ He inhaled sharply as she swept her thumbs over their warm, bulging curve. ‘I’d hold forth about the mysteries of women in general.’

‘Know a bit about that, do you?’ She shifted her hands and began scratching his whole swollen package.

‘A bit.’ His hips pressed closer, and wagged a bit to direct the scratch where he wanted it most. ‘Marissa, you’re distracting me. I want to shoot another roll.’

She ran her nails backwards and tickled the seam that covered his anus. ‘You can shoot another roll later.’ She arched her back, putting her breasts on offer to his avid eyes. ‘Just think how nice I’ll look when I’m after-glowing.’