Sweet as Sin (8 page)

“Since you’re ready for bed—” his head dipped to nuzzle her ear, “—think I could interest you in my bed rather than the guest room?”

“Uh, I tried that. You didn’t even look up when I got naked.” The look of confusion on his face prompted a giggle and she brought one hand up to stroke his bristly cheek. “But it’s not going to 80

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happen tonight for three reasons. One, I’m exhausted. Two, you need a shower and three, it’s not the right time.” His brows shot up quizzically and she rolled her eyes slightly. “Of the month, Murphy. Wrong time.”

Understanding dawned and he nodded before bending to take her mouth in his. Light and tender, his kiss fit her mood. His body molded into hers, hard where she was soft, firm where she was yielding. The rightness surprised her. Even his height seemed to fit perfectly with hers, his chin at easy rest on her crown.

He drained the orange juice, then pulled her out of the den and down the hall. The kitchen light shone harshly and he squinted while opening the refrigerator door. His rumbling stomach brought a wry smile to her lips. “If you shower, I’ll fix you something to eat.”

“You don’t have to cook for me, Liv. Despite what my sister thinks, I can take care of myself.”

He upended the carton of orange juice and drank directly from it. Livvy opened her mouth to protest, then remembered this was his house. He could do as he pleased. His throat moved as he swallowed, and she fought the urge to kiss his Adam’s apple. Would the stubble feel like sandpaper under her lips? The imagined coarse sensation spiraled lusty thoughts into erotic visions and she shook her head to clear her mind.

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“Did you sleep at all?”

John tossed the carton into the trash and turned to the cabinet. “I conked out for a few hours in the chair yesterday then went to bed this morning for a while.” He dug peanut butter out of the jar with a tablespoon and ate it.

Livvy cringed, took the jar from him and

recapped it. He was such a bachelor. “Let me feed you real food.” John leaned on the bar while she scavenged in the refrigerator. “I’m glad you’re over your writer’s block.”

“Yeah, first time that’s happened. I’m not ashamed to say it scared the shit out of me. I don’t like being without my monsters.”

“You talk like they’re real.”

“They are, to me anyway.”

“Hungry enough for pasta?”

“Anything that’s easy, I’m not picky.” He shrugged and flipped through the full sketchpad.

He frowned at something then tossed it in the trashcan. He scratched his jaw furiously. “Do you care if I go shower now? I need to shave. My chin is itching like crazy.”

“Go clean up.” She smiled. “Food in five

minutes.”

Livvy set leftover marinara sauce to heat and dumped dried bowtie pasta in a pot of water. The sketchpad in the trashcan caught her eyes and she lifted it out. How could he just throw something 82

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full of such creativity away? She opened the book, searching for one picture.

A pixified Livvy stared out at her and she grinned. Did he really think her breasts were that big? And could he possibly draw her eyes any wider? Snorting in soft humor, Livvy tucked the notepad in her oversized purse. His trash was her secret treasure.

After retrieving some sausage from the

refrigerator, she sautéed it with onions and peppers. The lateness of the hour dawned on her.

This might be too spicy a meal. One flick switched the burner off and she went to ask about his stomach’s tolerance.

She peeked around the half-open bedroom door, listening for the shower. Silence met her and she frowned. The bathroom door stood ajar and she didn’t want to barge in. He’d probably left it open out of habit, not spiteful invitation as she had.

“Murphy?”

“Yeah?”

“You decent?”

“Depends on who you ask. Door’s open

though.” Livvy crossed the bedroom and stuck her head inside. John stood at his bathroom vanity with a deep green towel wrapped around his hips and his eyes closed, a bottle of contact solution in his hand.

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Sexual awareness slammed into her like a

bulldozer. Construction work had done wonders for his body. A thin white line above the towel edge suggested he spent long hours outdoors shirtless. The dark hair on his chest was neither too thick nor too thin. It was just enough to make her follow the narrowing arrow down to where it disappeared beneath the terrycloth low on his hips.

It would be so easy to begin at his neck and travel that path downward with her fingers or her mouth.

Follow the yellow brick road…

She yanked her gaze back to his face and

forced the pictures from her mind. Blinking several times, he set the bottle aside and reached for a can of shaving cream. As a small child, Livvy had loved watching her father shave. It seemed like a magic trick when his smooth cheeks would appear.

“Can I watch?”

John raised his eyebrows. “I guess. Nothing exciting, though. Just me, a razor and two days’

worth of stubble. I always get shaving cream on my glasses so I had to pop my contacts in first.

Besides, showering blind sucks. Thank God for extended-wear lenses.”

“I like your glasses.”

“Contacts are safer, can’t get knocked off your face.”

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Livvy shrugged. She supposed working in

construction had made that a concern. The white foam hissed into his palm. He lathered his face as she watched in fascination. The razor slid down, stroke by stroke, removing the whiskers and revealing smooth wet skin. His head rose to skim the blade down his neck and her tongue flicked out as if to taste the slick flesh. The sandpaper had been transformed to what, silk? Velvet? Supple suede?

This is ridiculous.
Shaking her head, she remembered why she came back here. “Are

sausage, peppers and onions too spicy for you this late?”

He shook his head while dragging a hand towel across his now smooth face. He caught her eyes in the mirror. His mouth split into a wolfish grin. “I like spicy.”

It should be illegal to be so damn sexy on so little sleep. Her feet itched to walk to him, to loosen his knotted towel and steam up the bathroom without water. But she couldn’t so she backed out of the room. His chuckle followed her.

By the time he rejoined her in the kitchen, she had his meal ready and her hormones under control. One was an easier task than the other.

Thankfully, he was dressed in a pair of gray sweats and a black tee shirt. He looked at the food on the dining table and shook his head.

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“Damn, Livvy. I’d have been fine with a bowl of cereal. Thank you. You didn’t have to do all this.” He smiled before sitting down.

Pure satisfaction filled her and she brought the parmesan cheese to the table. Pulling one leg under her chin, she sat across from him and sipped a mug of green tea. “It wasn’t any trouble. Gina made the sauce. I just boiled and sautéed some stuff and boom, dinner. Easy.”

Freshly scrubbed and fed, he didn’t seem very menacing. He simply reeked of sex appeal. His eyes caught her gaze and he held a fork up, offering her a bite with raised brows. The invitation was for more than food. He flirted even without words. But his words entranced her when spoken in a rich butterscotch voice.

“This is good. So are you a
chef
chef or is pastry chef a whole different animal?”

“I took the core courses but specialized in pastry early on.” She wrinkled her nose at him over her cup. “I like the sweet stuff.”

“And I like the spicy,” he teased, spearing a bright red pepper.

“Remind me and I’ll bring you a Chocolate Orgasm.”

His fork halted in front of his mouth.

“Chocolate orgasm? They come in flavors now?

Damn, I didn’t think it had been that long since I got laid.”

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Livvy laughed. “It’s a brownie, dummy. Dark Belgian chocolate, chili pepper, and…well, it’s a spicy sweet. I think you’ll like it.”

“Liv, I’ll like any flavor orgasm you give me.”

She shook her head, hiding her smile. “Eat your pasta.”

“You’re bossy.” He chuckled.

Her brow arched. “I’m the boss. That’s what I do. I boss and bake.”

“Always?”

“Pretty much. You could say I grew into it.

Mom and Daddy…they didn’t have the best

marriage. And my mother was not the world’s greatest cook. More than once we had Cheerios for dinner. I hung out in the kitchen to stay out of their way. After a while, I started reading cookbooks. Cooking kept me busy, kept me from feeling too much. I just kept doing it until I was doing it all the time, every meal.”

“Sucks having to be a grownup when you’re still a kid, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it does.” They shared an understanding smile. “You too?”

He nodded. “Worked under the table from the time I was thirteen. Started with picking fruit crops, moved to stocking grocery stores, then…

Yeah, it sucked. But money was tight so every bit helped.”

“Same here, especially after my father died.”

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“Sorry. When was that?”

“I was fourteen. Mom just…she’d never

worked outside the house and suddenly, there she was with four kids and a mortgage. She panicked for a while but finally calmed down and decided we were going to shoestring it out on Daddy’s life insurance while she went to school. She became a CPA and I played stand-in Mommy until I was old enough to get a part-time job at a bakery. I found out I loved it and was good at it. So I went into a mountain of student-loan debt and the Culinary Institute. And here I am. Boring, huh?”

“Nothing about you bores me, Livvy. You use the kitchen like I do my stories, a place to escape, be your own lord and master.”

John had framed her feelings so perfectly, she smiled. “Yeah, I do. The kitchen has always been my safe place, where I find my grounding when life gets messy.” Her smile slid off her face. “I just hate when the messy seeps into the business.”

“Problems?”

One shoulder shrugged to hide her discomfort.

He made it feel so right to just pour out her troubles to him, she hadn’t censored her mouth.

“Just the economy and business is a little slow right now. I mean, the Shack is doing okay. I’ve got regular restaurant clients who are the backbone. I just wish the sidelines were doing better. I guess those lean years at home hit too 88

Sweet as Sin

close. I like a blacker bottom line than I have right now.”

John angled his head, looking under the table.

“Your bottom line looks fine to me.”

She scowled and he laughed. She rose for more tea, her hand automatically stroking his shoulder.

The memory of his cringe stilled her walk.

“Murphy, when I touched you in your st—”

John held his hand out. It sank slowly to the table. Eyes transfixed on his now empty plate, he spoke to the marinara smear, not to her.

“You have to understand, Livvy. I write some dark stuff, a magical world that only exists between my ears until I pull it out. To do that, sometimes I get pretty deep inside my monsters’

heads. Listening to them isn’t enough. I have to feel what they feel, see what they see. Sometimes, I have to
become
the monster. You just walked in on a tense moment, that’s all.”

He was lying. The certainty fell on Livvy like a rock. But the lie was so convincing she wanted to believe it. Stepping behind him, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged. He stroked her forearm with one hand. His damp hair tickled her cheek and her eyes squeezed shut. If he needed to lie, then the lie she would allow.

For now.

The mood changed like the flip of a switch. He pulled her around to sit on his lap. The burn of Inez Kelley

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peppers burst into her mouth as his tongue stroked hers. She lost track of time or perhaps it stood still.

All that existed was John’s mouth on hers, their tongues married in an erotic foreplay dance, and the increasing staccato of her heart.

Strong hands slid down her arms to cradle her braless breast and pull her snugly to him. The scent of minty shaving cream lingered on his jawline as she nibbled to his ear. Her path was cut short when he rolled and pinched her aching tip.

She hissed in pleasure. She felt him thicken under her thighs. She was too weak for this temptation.

“You feel so good, Livvy. And you always

taste like sugar. So sweet.”

She stilled the fingers at her breast. “Murphy, stop. We can’t.”

“We could,” he tempted, nuzzling her cheek.

“We’re not.” Rather than pull away, she circled his shoulders with her arms and buried her face in his neck. John wrapped his arms tighter and held her. She swallowed her own desperate appetite.

As he relaxed under her, she melted into his frame.

She laid her head on his shoulder and breathed in the soft fragrance of soap and spice. One finger ran up and down her arm, the slow trek seeming to hypnotize him.

“I’m tired.”

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“I bet. Why don’t you go on to bed? I’ll clean this up then I’m headed there myself. Morning comes too early.”

His eyes lifted and locked with hers. The embrace shifted from easing lust to comfort to something deeper, something fragile and sacred.

She pulled back and searched his face for a change, an explanation of the magic he’d spun from air. All she saw was the blue of his eyes as they worshipped her with a reverence she had yet to earn.

Something lurked in his exhausted gaze, a need, a question she couldn’t fathom. Livvy got the strongest sense he was afraid and clinging to her like a child’s security blanket. She quirked one brow, inviting his words. He dipped his head until he could press his cheek to her shoulder.

“Will you sleep with me, Livvy? Just sleep? I promise I’ll behave.”

His words turned her stomach to warm

pudding. He craved her touch, not her flesh. She wasn’t lusted for, just cherished and needed. Her throat choked with a tenderness no words would form. She walked shaky fingers through his hair and down his cheek before she nodded.