Cooking up a Storm (7 page)

‘They’re circling,’ she said, illustrating with both arms. ‘Better watch your back.’

Abby caught sight of Storm and choked on her giggle. ‘Storm! Good morning.’

He returned her greeting, and the less enthusiastic one he got from Marissa.

Abby had obviously been running. She sat on a stool at the work island, her hair caught back in a bright ponytail, her cheeks pleasantly pink. She wore a plain grey sports bra and running shorts. The tiniest roll of flesh swelled over their elastic waistband. He knew Abby must hate that hint of softness, but he found it endearing. A woman as beautiful as she was shouldn’t be perfect.

‘What are you looking at?’ Marissa said, when he continued to stare. ‘Has she got spinach on her teeth?’

Abby reached over and slapped her knee. ‘Marissa!’

Storm smiled at his deck shoes. ‘No, but she is a pleasant sight first thing in the morning.’

‘Oh, God,’ Marissa groaned, ‘another one.’

She left the kitchen muttering to herself. Storm didn’t ask what she’d meant. He suspected he didn’t want to know.

Abby was studying her neatly clipped nails. He wanted to take them in his mouth and suck each one. He wanted to slide her off the stool and on to his cock. He wanted to ask if she’d slept well, and if she’d dreamt of him. ‘Hungry?’ he said instead.

She gestured to her empty, crumb-filled plate. ‘We ate, and I need to take a shower before I stink up the place.’

He caught her wrist before she could get away. He pulled it not to his mouth, but to his nose, sniffing his way up the tender skin to her armpit. ‘You stink good,’ he said.

She squirmed away. ‘You are a very strange man.’

‘But you like me that way.’ He pulled her close like a tango dancer. The skin at the small of her back was still damp from her run, still warm. He stroked it with the tips of his fingers, up and down, down and up, the same path his cock had followed the night before.

Her breath came faster. ‘I’m not sure if I like you or not.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘Not yet.’

He wanted to kiss her into admitting it, but it seemed the wrong move. He settled for rubbing his hips lightly across hers. His cock stretched and lifted, thickening, elongating. A sheen of sweat broke out across her upper lip.

‘Not yet,’ she repeated, and he judged it best to let her go.

Too unsettled to work on anything as crucial as menu planning, Storm grabbed a picnic breakfast of red plums and French bread heels. He’d take them to the beach, he decided, watch the waves for a while and find his centre again.

But another surprise awaited him outside. In the neatly mown garden in front of the Coates Inn sat a white wrought-iron bench. Last night it had been empty, but this morning three men filled it. One was a thin, bespectacled college boy, one a fat businessman, and the last looked like a refugee from Muscle Beach. He smiled at Storm, the vacant smile of a surfer who’s taken one too many spills.

‘I’m afraid we don’t serve breakfast in the off season,’ Storm said.

‘We know that,’ said the fat businessman. ‘We thought we’d wait a bit and say good morning to Abby.’

Storm felt his eyebrows rise.

‘Yeah,’ said the skinny kid with the spectacles. ‘We heard about Bill and we, uh, we–’

‘We thought she might need cheering up,’ finished the surfer.

Then, as though their minds were working in sync, all three men looked him up and down, as if fearing he’d beat them to the punch — which, of course, he had.

Storm could have reassured them he was just the new chef. Under most circumstances he didn’t mind sharing, but Abby was a special case. He didn’t want anything, or anyone, distracting her from his pursuit. For all he knew, it might take all summer to probe her hidden depths. Consequently, he left the men with a grunt and stalked towards the back of the inn.

The scenery did improve his mood. The day was bright, the grass dewy, and the light breeze free of even the slightest whiff of smog. Flowers perfumed it and brine and sandy earth. Perfection, he thought. If only they could find a way to grow palm trees here. He gazed towards Abby’s pine and hemlock windbreak. Beyond that lay a field of wildflowers and beyond that, the ocean. He hungered to see it almost as much as he’d hungered for Abby when he woke this morning.

A stealthy movement near the closed north wing caught his eye. Storm squinted. A large, bearded man was peering in one of the windows. He looked vaguely familiar. Had an irate husband followed him here from LA? It was possible. If Storm expected an affair to be brief, he rarely inquired into his partner’s marital status, reckoning that if she was married, her infidelity was strictly her and her husband’s business.

Regardless of the reason, however, the intruder had no business poking around Abby’s property. ‘What are you doing?’ Storm demanded, coming up behind the man.

He spun around, his face flushed, his expression guilty. He was five or six inches taller than Storm, and almost half as heavy again, but he seemed intimidated by the smaller man’s confident stance.

‘Whoa, there,’ said the intruder, putting his hands out in a stalling motion. ‘I, uh, just wanted to make sure none of the local kids have been trying to get in the windows. They do that sometimes, you know, to impress their girlfriends.’

‘And why is that any of your business?’ Storm asked, though he’d concluded this must be the well-hung, defunct boyfriend Bill.

Coins jingled as Bill pulled a handkerchief from his trouser pocket and wiped his sweating face. ‘Abby and I go way back a long way. She needs someone to look out for her. I keep telling her to board up those windows, but she says the customers might get nervous.’

‘She’s right,’ Storm said, not liking the man’s superior, not to mention proprietary, attitude.

‘Yeah, well–’ Bill scuffed his blocky brown shoes through the damp grass ‘–she oughta get her sisters to cough up the money to renovate then.’

‘Her sisters?’ Storm’s attention sharpened. This man might not interest him, but the financial resources of the inn definitely did. If Abby had someone to bail her out of her hole, buying the inn out from under her might be more difficult than he’d hoped.

Unfortunately, Bill chose that moment to realise he wasn’t the only man whose right to be there might be in question. He folded his arms across his barrel chest. The show of belligerence was not convincing. This man was the sort who bullied by manipulation, Storm decided, emotionally rather than physically — and never with anyone who might fight back.

‘Who are you?’ Bill said, his eyes betraying his nervousness.

‘I’m the new chef.’ Storm stared coolly until the other man blinked and dropped his gaze.

‘Oh, right,’ he said. ‘I know Abby has been looking for one. Are you any good?’

‘Better than you could imagine.’

Bill wiped his forehead again, then shoved both hands in his pockets. His trousers were polyester, his shirt an unfortunate brown and orange plaid. The thought of Abby spending two minutes in this oaf’s company, much less labouring under his insensitive bulk, offended every sensibility Storm possessed.

‘Yeah, well, maybe I’ll come by the inn and check out your cooking,’ he said.

A muscle in Storm’s jaw tightened. ‘Under the circumstances, it might be better to wait for an invitation.’

Bill’s eyes widened, then narrowed. Storm thought the man had finally found his spine, but his next words dispelled that notion. ‘I know you, don’t I? I’m Bill Harris from Harris Rent-a-Car. I leased you that green Miata, the ’95.’

‘That’s right.’

The big man smiled, his teeth white in his beard, his eyes shining with puppyish friendliness. At last, Storm understood what Abby might have seen in him.

‘Rides like a beaut, don’t she?’ he said. ‘Hugs the corners like your mother’s pussy.’

Storm didn’t know what to make of that analogy, so he said nothing.

Bill’s smile faded. ‘I guess she told you about us.’

‘In passing.’

‘Yeah, well.’ Bill jingled the coins in his pockets. ‘She’s just going through a phase. This break-up won’t last.’

It will if I have anything to say about it, Storm thought, deciding then and there that this would be his gift to Abby. By the time he was through with her, she’d think far too highly of herself to fall for a jerk like Bill Harris.

*   *   *

Storm wasn’t in the kitchen when Abby returned from greeting the terrible trio out front. She smoothed her pretty green and yellow skirt down her thighs and told herself she was foolish to feel so disappointed. What did one night mean to a man like Storm? As for this morning’s flirtation, he probably flirted with every woman he met. ‘No obligations,’ he’d said. ‘Only pleasure.’

She noticed he’d cleaned up her and Marissa’s breakfast things. She trailed her palm along the spotless counter top and wished she’d touched him more when she’d had the chance.

Do not chase him, she ordered herself. You’d be a fool to chase him.

Nonetheless, ten minutes later, she was tramping through the beach grass and sea rocket, just in case he’d come to see the ocean. She carried the book of samples Ivan had given her this morning. He was studying commercial art at the Rhode Island School of Design. Abby thought Storm might want to hire him to design the new menus.

Of course, she wasn’t really here to discuss menu design.

She saw him before he saw her. The beach was empty except for him. He was staring at the eroded sand cliffs that overhung the Outer Beach. They were a sight. Fifty metres high in spots, the bluffs curved north and west for a good fifteen miles. Majestic and fragile, topped with spring grass, they bore the deep sandy scars of their last winter battering.

Storm was a sight, too. He’d pulled off his shoes and shirt and stood admiring the view clad only in snug black jeans. His back formed a lovely triangle from shoulders to waist, perfectly muscled and golden brown. A trio of gulls took turns diving for breadcrumbs at his feet, as bold as if he weren’t present. Their fearless swoops made him seem as much a creature of nature as they were.

Abby’s womb contracted with a hard stab of longing. How would she ever get enough of him?

As though her thoughts had palpable weight, he turned and waved to her. Her heart raced as her sandals sploshed across the sandy beach, trying not to hurry, trying not to look too eager. His eyes, silver bright in the sun, held steady on hers. He was smiling.

When she was a few feet away, she waved the sample book. ‘I’ve brought some–’

He grabbed her and kissed her, a deep
From Here to
Eternity
kiss. The sample book dropped to the sand. Abby’s neck went limp. Storm steadied the back of her head with his palm and coaxed her lips wider.

Abby moaned and clutched his bare back as tightly as she could.

‘Here,’ he said harshly, breaking free. ‘Right now.’

Before she could ask if he was crazy, he kissed her again and started dragging her along — where she didn’t know or care. He’d lifted her up on her toes and mashed his swollen zip into her mound. She couldn’t help herself. She slid her right leg over his hip, wanting more, wanting to open herself completely.

The cliffs tipped sideways as he laid her down in the hollow between two dunes. Lips still locked to his, she heard him open his jeans — a quick snap for the button, a loud rasp for the zip. He gathered up her pretty skirt, pushing the front swiftly to her waist. Then he settled his warm cotton briefs against her damp cotton panties.

He poured his ‘ah’ of pleasure into her mouth and began to rock, a slow undulating grind of hard cock over soft pussy. His hands roamed her sides and she remembered that this was her chance to touch him. His back was warm brown satin under her hands, his muscles shifting, his spine rolling with his thrusts. She ventured on to his buttocks, cupping him over his jeans and wishing it was under. His tight, round cheeks tensed and released. She thought of the way he’d played with his anus the night before. Did she dare touch him there? She slid her hands into his pockets, and came before she could work up the nerve.

The swiftness of her orgasm embarrassed her. Surely he’d think she was desperate, but his mouth merely smiled against hers. He slipped his hand into her panties. She was running with cream.

Mortified, she tried to push him away.

‘What’s the matter?’ he said, his eyes alight with teasing fire. ‘Do you think you’re only allowed to come so many times in twenty-four hours?’ He kissed her flaming cheek. ‘It’s not true, you know.’ His longest finger slipped round her sopping folds, making a loud, squishy noise. ‘You can come as often as you like. It won’t hurt you. In fact, it’s good for you.’

‘But I don’t need…oh,’ she groaned as he found her clit and began rubbing it from side to side exactly the way she’d shown him the night before.

He licked the shell of her ear. ‘Don’t need this? But you do, Abby. You need a good deal more than you believe and I, for one, think you should have it.’

He pulled back so he could see her face, his fingers working steadily, deftly, driving her swiftly to a second culmination. His eyes drank in every expression along the way — especially her expression when she came. Abby had never been so embarrassed, or so aroused.

‘Now you,’ she insisted, once she’d stopped quaking. With a boldness she hadn’t known she possessed, she burrowed into his briefs and eased out his thick, shiny-capped erection. It was beautiful in the daylight, straight and strong and flushed like a summer sunset.

‘Show me what you like,’ she whispered, though she’d begun to caress him already.

They lay on their sides now, facing each other, bumping knees. He tightened her hand and slowed her pace. He lengthened her stroke until her palm swallowed the tip and her fingers rubbed the tight bulge of his balls. He made her squeeze them for a moment. She felt how firm they were inside, and how full.

Then he released her hand and resumed stroking her pussy. She couldn’t believe it. As soon as he touched her, she wanted to come again. Her hips tipped towards his hand, begging silently. Storm slid one finger inside her and covered her button with his thumb.

‘I want to come on you,’ he said, shifting close enough to nudge her belly with the head of his cock. ‘I want to shoot my cream across your belly. I want you to rub it in and wear it all day and count the minutes until I take you again.’