Read Naked Treats Online

Authors: Pepper Anthony

Tags: #romance, #erotic, #love story, #contemporary, #food, #evernight, #pepper anthony

Naked Treats (2 page)

BOOK: Naked Treats
3.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Tonight she’d be preparing roast chicken and root
vegetables and a lovely apple crumble. As usual, he would have had
the groceries delivered fresh earlier that day. When she knocked at
his door at the end of the hall, he opened it eagerly. He must have
been leaning there against the jamb waiting for her.

“Good evening, doctor,” she said, giving him a pat on
his wizened cheek as she went past him.

“Good evening, Rose,” he said, following her like an
eager dog to the back of the apartment where the kitchen was.

He sat down at the scarred table and folded his
hands; his eyes bright as she removed her coat, washed her hands,
and began to unpack the groceries from the brown paper sack. She
hummed a wordless melody as she worked. A steady stream of gray
rain spattered against the little window above the sink.

“Are you making plans for the long weekend, doctor?”
Memorial Day was a week away.

“I’ll be going to see my daughter and grandchildren
in Providence.”

“How wonderful to have family close by.” She stood at
the sink, long, brown potato peels coiling onto the porcelain. From
the corner of her eye she saw him inch his chair a bit closer to
her then lift the cane. A slight draft kissed her thighs as he
elevated the hem of her skirt. She pretended not to notice but
added a bit more shimmy to her movements as she prepared the
potatoes, the carrots and turnips, the tiny onions. Finally she had
to move away to add the vegetables to the roasting pan. As she
piled them up against the side of the bird, she heard him sigh. She
smiled to herself as she slid the pan into the hot oven. There were
still a dozen apples to peel and core for the crumble. She would
make certain the doctor got his money’s worth before she left his
home this evening.

****

Zack picked up the Sunday paper and set it back down
again. Got up and grabbed a news magazine from the table and began
to leaf through it. In five minutes he tossed the magazine back on
the coffee table. He was fidgety today. Ever since Rose left the
apartment he’d been unable to keep his attention on any one thing
for more than a few minutes.

Not for the first time, he wondered about her. Where
did she go after she left here? Who would she see next?

More importantly, who would see
her
?

When he’d first heard about her service and decided
to hire her, more as a novelty than anything else, it hadn’t
mattered who Rose was. Payment for her services was anonymously
handled through his Paypal account. She was simply the gorgeous and
mysterious young woman who appeared in his kitchen twice a month in
the buff and prepared his yummy breakfast. He enjoyed her
unselfconscious availability. He liked just looking, no strings
attached, at her creamy thighs, her softly rounded ass, her great
breasts. He liked sneaking peeks at the dark triangle visible
behind the lace of her apron. That didn’t make him a bad person,
did it? Noticing her body on glorious display was rather the whole
point of her unique service, right?

But somewhere along the way, something changed.

He wanted to do more than look at her. Yes. He wanted
to touch her. He couldn’t deny it. Just the memory of the
Hollandaise smeared on her breast this morning made his cock hard
again.

But beyond the growing urge to take her in his arms,
he found himself wanting to know her. Who was Rose? What had led
her to this point in her life where she so willingly sold the
“visual rights” to her naked body? Unlike some stripper in a seedy
men’s club, this woman had real class. And her services weren’t
about sexual titillation at all, she was an excellent chef. She was
also very self-possessed and in control.

But mostly, Rose was a mystery.

He realized he might never get to know her better.
Without a last name there was no way to find out more about her.
The contract he’d signed specifically ruled out any type of
personal conversation. Their perfunctory breakfast chats usually
centered on weather predictions, sports scores, or menu ideas. The
irony of this wasn’t lost on him. For years he’d sought only
shallow relationships with sexually available women. Now he’d give
anything to know Rose’s birthday, her favorite color, or the story
of where she grew up.

He got up from the couch and strode to the massive
picture window. Arms folded over his chest, he watched as the late
afternoon sun found its way through the rain and glinted off the
glass in a neighboring high rise. Building after building, gray and
tan and brick red, marched away into the distance. The city was
massive. And somewhere out there, Rose was probably standing naked
in some other guy’s kitchen stirring his sauce.

So to speak.

The thought made him crazy.

That settled it. Tomorrow he would call the agency
and book Rose for all the Sunday mornings of the month.

 

 

Chapter Two

 

“Every Sunday morning?” Rose repeated to the woman on
the phone. “But I always reserve the second and fourth Sundays for
my family.”

“The client, Mr. Cranston, is very insistent. He’s
willing to double your usual fee.” Of course that meant a bigger
fee to the agency. The woman’s voice sounded thick with
avarice.

“I’ll have to talk it over with Mr. Cranston when I
see him next.”

“He advised me that he’d like an answer by this
evening.”

“Fine. I’ll give him a call. What’s his number?”
Normally she let the agency handle all prospective client
communications. But since he’d already been a client for over six
months, Rose felt she could call Zack–Mr. Cranston—and explain to
him why she’d be unable to grant his request.

****

Zack answered his cell phone on the second ring.
“Hello?”

“Hello. This is Rose, your Sunday chef.”

A shiver ran down Zack’s spine. Bombarded as his
senses always were by her naked beauty, he had never noticed before
the rich, sultry qualities of her voice.

“Yes. Rose. I was expecting a call from the
agency.”

“I told them I’d call you.”

“Yes?”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, “but I can’t give you my
other Sunday mornings. I have an ongoing obligation that cannot be
rescheduled.”

“I’ll double your fee.”

“Yes, the agency mentioned that, and that’s very
generous of you, but I really must reserve my other Sundays. I’m
sorry.”

She did sound sorry. It must be something very
important that kept her from accepting his offer. Perhaps some
other client. An arrow of pain shot through his gut.

“I see.” Another man watching Rose at the stove,
another man sitting across from her at the table, peeking through
the sheer lace of her apron. Or did she even wear the apron with
this other man? A second pain shot through him.

“I do have most of my Friday evenings open,” she
offered.

“Friday?” His usual night to party. The night he
dated Paige or Kathy or Dawn or whoever, and brought her back here
for a night of wild sex. Was he really willing to give up a sure
thing to have Rose here, naked, but only cooking his dinner?

“Fridays would be great,” he said.

“Wonderful,” she purred. “I’m busy this coming
Friday, but I can come the Friday after that. What time should I
arrive?”

“Seven?”

“And what would you like to eat?”

He thought about the dark delights that hid behind
her lacy apron. He swallowed hard.

“Surprise me.”

Oh yeah, he had it bad.

****

The following Sunday morning Rose sat in the brightly
painted family visitor’s room at the Mid-Orange Correctional
Facility. She never got used to the sight of the armed guards
stationed at strategic points around the room, the same guards who
also dispensed sets of dominos and decks of cards to approved
visitors. In one corner, a group of toddlers gathered around a
television set to watch a Disney video. Seated in anxious knots at
the other thirty or forty tables scattered around the room, adult
visitors awaited the arrival of their incarcerated loved ones from
the cell blocks.

Finally, Rose spotted Mikey coming through the metal
door. Always a slight kid, he’d bulked up a lot in the eighteen
months he’d been here. He told her being bigger kept him safer. She
didn’t like to think about what he meant by that. And she still
couldn’t shake the thought that if she’d been paying closer
attention to him instead of throwing herself into culinary school,
she might have prevented him getting into trouble in the first
place.

Their parents had died suddenly several years before,
leaving Rose, only nineteen, as the guardian of her two younger
siblings. Keeping them fed and going to school every day had seemed
a major accomplishment at the time. She hadn’t meant to let Mikey
go astray.

Visitors and inmates were allowed a short hug, and
Rose almost cried when Mikey clung to her for several seconds past
the regulation twenty. They sat down across from each other and she
dealt out the playing cards as usual. They played gin together
every time she came. The game gave them something to focus on for
the hour she was there.

After the second hand, she leaned across the table
and looked him in the eye.

“I’m going to get you out of here, Mikey.” She’d been
making that promise to him every time she visited. Saying the words
did nothing to dull the sharp edge of guilt she always carried. But
now, with Zack Cranston paying her double for Friday nights, she’d
have the money to cover a new attorney’s retainer in a matter of a
few months.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I just got a big raise from one of my clients.
In no time you’ll be getting a visit from one of those hot-shot
lawyers at Feinstein, Jackson and Lowe. Once they hear how the DA
railroaded you, I’m sure they’ll take your case. If they’re half as
good as I’ve heard they are, you’ll get that appeal and you just
might make it home for Christmas.

Mikey’s hand covered hers and squeezed.

“I’m counting on turkey with all the trimmings,
sis.”

“Cranberry sauce, pie, the works,” she promised.

Mikey’s eyes went shiny.

“Thanks for believing in me.”

“What kind of big sister would I be if I didn’t?”

“You’d be surprised. Lotsa guys in here, their
families don’t stand by ‘em. I’m lucky to have you watching out for
me.”

Rose swallowed the lump rising in her throat. She
couldn’t imagine abandoning her brother, especially since she was
partly to blame. She was the lucky one to have found a way to make
a good living when so many other chefs were without jobs.

But she knew how Mikey would react if he found out
she cooked for her clients in the nude. The sooner she could get
this money set aside, the better.

****

The following Friday afternoon Rose stood at the meat
counter of her favorite gourmet grocery store surveying the
selection of aged prime beef. Finally deciding on a beautifully
marbled rib eye steak, she placed the package in her basket and
moved on to the produce aisle. Never having prepared an evening
meal for Mr. Cranston, she didn’t like assuming he was a
steak-and-potatoes kind of man, but she had to start somewhere. And
since he was obviously wealthy and not a vegetarian, a good aged
steak seemed like a safe bet this first time.

In the produce section she chose ingredients for a
simple salad, plus lemons and garlic for a homemade Caesar
dressing. Then she stocked up on eggs and cream, planning to make
custard for dessert. And last of all she bought a bottle of nice
cabernet.

Would he prefer cocktails? If so, he’d no doubt make
a point to maintain his own stock of liquor.

Everyone enjoyed a glass of fine red wine with beef,
didn’t they?

At the check-out counter it really began to bother
her that she didn’t know more about him. By the time she settled
back in the cab for the ten minute ride to his apartment, she had
an attack of full-blown curiosity going on.

How odd. This hadn’t happened with any of her other
clients. She’d had no problem at all maintaining a purely business
relationship with everyone else. But then none of her other clients
had insisted on hiring her for additional hours and paying her
twice her standard rate to do so. That ramped everything up a
notch.

So what did she know about Zack Cranston?

Well, aside from his obvious wealth, she knew he
liked fine art and had excellent taste. The walls of his impeccably
decorated apartment sported several pieces by well known
mid-century American painters. He seemed to be a neat person. Even
the little powder room where she changed her clothes always
sparkled. He probably had maid service once or twice a week. As for
what he did for a living, she hadn’t a clue. She’d had the agency
do all the screening, and she had never had reason to ask to see
his file.

And then there was the fact that he was absolutely
gorgeous. His hotness was something she’d tried her mightiest to
ignore, and up until tonight she’d done a pretty fair job of not
thinking much about him. As with her other four clients, she’d
managed to keep any personal feelings completely at bay. But she
was only human. Of course she had noticed his broad chest and
shoulders, the tousled wealth of his dark hair, the chiseled planes
of his face.

And his eyes. They were hazel, a changeable blend of
browns and greens and hints of steel blue. The most striking pair
of eyes she had ever seen. Not that she’d looked directly into them
very often. Doing so always seemed to cause havoc with the rhythm
of her heart.

Until now she’d only seen those eyes in the morning,
when long rays of yellow light slanted in through the east windows.
What color would they be tonight with only lamplight to pierce the
shadows that fell across his handsome face?

As the cab neared his building she took out her
compact and checked her makeup, then gave her reflection a stern
scowl. There was nothing different about tonight, she told herself.
She would just be fixing dinner instead of his usual breakfast.
He’d be the perfect gentleman, as he always was, and she’d cook a
fine meal and clean up afterwards just as she always did. It was
true that he sometimes liked to kid around with her, but she would
be silly to take his teasing seriously. He’d never come close to
crossing the line. And that was a good thing. There couldn’t be any
deviation from the rules outlined in their mutual contract, or her
whole plan would be in jeopardy.

BOOK: Naked Treats
3.43Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

As Night Falls by Jenny Milchman
The English Assassin by Michael Moorcock
Taken by Kelli Maine
Daughters of Iraq by Shiri-Horowitz, Revital
School of Deaths by Christopher Mannino