Taste It (4 page)

Chapter Five

‘GOOD MORNING, CHEFS,’ KAT Stephens said. She was in a red and black polka dotted dress that made Jill think of Minnie Mouse. All she needed were yellow heels and white gloves.

And big giant ears … and a tail ...

For some reason that struck her as hysterical and she had to stifle a laugh. She was giddy. Lack of sleep, stunning sex and late night confessions had all banded together to create a slightly loopy but much calmer version of herself.

‘Today we are down to three. By the end of the day we’ll be down to the final two. Are you ready for your mystery ingredient?’

Jill and Ginger and Cole all nodded in near unison and Kat smiled for the camera more than at them. ‘You may open your grocery sacks.’

Going by the guest judge who was standing there in overalls and a sleeveless top and a feed cap, Jill was going to have to guess the ingredient was rustic. Something farm-friendly. 

She was right. Inside was …

‘The mystery ingredient is corn!’ Kat crowed and Jill had to stifle another laugh at the woman’s apparent glee over the yellow vegetable.

‘You have 45 minutes to make this corn sing! And our guest judge, one of the country’s leading corn farmers from Bennett Farms, will help us get to the final two. Your time starts … now!’

Jill spared one glance at her tall handsome bedmate from the night before and felt a rush of blush in her cheeks. He grinned and her entire body undulated with dirty, dirty memories. 

Focus, woman! Focus!

He gave her a subtle thumbs up that she knew meant good luck and she smiled at him and nodded wishing him the same. Poor Ginger looked like she might swallow her own tongue or pass out.

Jill tried to wrangle her galloping mind and focus. Every other time people had done really well or won challenges it was due to evoking a memory in one or more judge. She stood at her station, closed her eyes – cameras be damned – and tried to call up childhood memories of corn. 

Corn … corn … corn … Corn fritters with bacon and maple syrup.

Jill grinned and when she saw Cole at his station furiously chopping onions and sweet peppers and yes, milking the corn cob for all its sweet opaque juice, her heart gave a little tug.

That was more than a bit unsettling, but no time for that now …

She raced to the pantry, dodging her least favourite camera man, Don, who always seemed to be in the way. Grabbing flour and bacon and sugar and all that stuff she turned and raced back.

Again her eyes shot to Cole and he glanced up just in time to give her a half grin with that lush mouth of his. She remembered kissing it, and how it felt on her skin … her hair … her pussy. 

That tug of lust yanked hard in her pelvis and tummy and she shook her head. But oddly, instead of distracting her from her mission, it seemed to fuel her.

Go figure. 

‘Forty minutes left, Chefs,’ Kat said and Jill kicked it into high gear. Setting the corn she’d shaved from the cob down in a pan with sizzling bacon. She too did her best to milk as much of the sugary white liquid from the ear of corn as she could manage. 

While that was all happy in the pan and the corn started to caramelise, she whipped up her batter using some club soda to make it extra fluffy. 

And then it was a blur. Putting sweet sugary corn and excellent, crispy smoked bacon in batter and frying up corn fritters. Locating and plating the individual servings of good Vermont maple syrup. Arranging her fluffy corn fritters on a plate. 

But she’d never sampled and as she raced to the pantry looking for confectioner’s sugar to give the slightest dusting on the red plate, she banged into Cole.

‘How ya doing, Calvert?’ he asked. He pressed so close to her she was sure only she could hear.

‘You tell me,’ she said and popped a bit of fritter in his mouth. Her tongue felt a bit too big and her heart a bit too light when she said, ‘Taste it.’

The night before came back in a flood of very intense and dirty mental images and he smiled, sucking her finger gently as she withdrew her hand. ‘Sweet, buttery, light, sensual … perfect,’ he said.

God but that man fucked with her head. ‘Good luck,’ she whispered. And then, ‘I’m rooting for you.’

He was startled, she could tell, and so was she, so she turned hurriedly to get back to her station even as Kat crowed, ‘One minute, Chefs!’

When the buzzer sounded, Jill realised that her heart was racing. But it didn’t seem to be from the cooking. It was more because she could feel the phantom tug of his mouth on her index finger. The heated velvet kiss of his tongue on her flesh. So when the judges gave a few comments for the viewers, she barely heard a word.

And then it was back to the pantry to wait.

*      *      *

She couldn’t focus. She couldn’t do anything. Ginger was tapping her poor leg up and down and up and down. Cole was the picture of calm but for his fingers. They swirled patterns and circles and lines on the leg of his jeans. 

He looked at her and winked and she felt herself flush from brow to breast. Good Lord. She needed to move. And she needed to be away from the cameras for like … four seconds. Which meant one thing as the camera men took a short break to grab a drink. The contestants weren’t the only ones who had to wait many boring hours until deliberation. 

She stood, brushed imaginary whatever off her pants and went down the short hall to the bathroom.

She shut the door giving herself a moment to breathe and just one single moment to worry. The worry and anxiety and fear simmered in her and turned to a good raging boil. But only for a moment.

‘What’s the worst that can happen?’ She stared at herself in the mirror and assessed what she saw. Her dark hair was braided in two thick plaits to keep it out of the way. The camera make-up seemed surreal in the bathroom light but it wasn’t too terrible. They simply made her look natural and not ‘done up’. Her hands were shaking just a bit but the colour high in her cheeks was all from the game and the man. It had zero to do with the make-up. ‘The worst that could happen,’ she said to herself calmly, ‘is that Cole can win. Ginger will not win. So if you lose, he wins. And if he wins, he deserves it.’

‘Who are you talking to?’ She turned and faced the door. No one. Just that sexy rumble of a voice.

She laughed. He had his face pressed to the door jamb again. He could hear her talking but that was about it. ‘Cole?’

‘Nope. It’s I … your fairy godfather um … well, I don’t know about the fairy part. I just mean. Hey,’ he said finally. ‘Let me in.’

‘Are they out there?’

‘Nope. I owe Don a fifty for letting me sneak past him unawares.’

‘Now you’re bribing camera men?’ she sighed, but opened the door.

He was in and locking the door in less than a heartbeat. Pressing her against the cool tile wall in less than that. ‘I’d bribe anyone to get a minute or ten alone with you. We all know they’re gonna be hours, more probably.’

‘I know.’

His fingers insinuated themselves between her waistband and her hot skin. The muscles in her stomach rippled under his touch and a whole flock of butterflies started to fly around in her gut. He kissed her and it was all she could do to not climb him like a crazy woman. Instead, she fisted her hands in his chef’s coat and kissed him back.

‘You made chowder,’ she said.

His lips were rough but still tender under all the intensity of it on the slope of her throat and he shoved his hands higher along her ribcage. His fingers teased just the underside of her breast and that was all it took for her nipples to bloom rock hard inside her blue tank top.

‘I did. I made chowder.’ Cole plucked one nipple hard and a jolt of pleasure shot through her and her cunt flexed up greedily around nothing but its own need. 

‘I made fritters,’ she said dumbly, playing her fingers over the extremely hard hump of his cock in his jeans. God, what that cock could do. It would make her blush were she not already blushing.

‘I like fritters,’ he growled. Cole yanked her coat open and hiked her tank over her breasts. His lips and tongue and teeth set on her and her whole body thrust towards him in a silent command to take her. 

‘I like chowder,’ she said and shoved her hand into his jeans. She pushed past the smooth cotton of his underwear and found him ready for her. A silken smooth but bullet-hard erection just for her.

Cole tugged her braids and said, ‘It’s OK if you win. I want you to know that. You work your ass off and –’

She kissed him quiet and unbuttoned his jeans to get her hands on him properly. ‘Shh, it’s OK with me if you win, if anyone deserves it … you are so, so good.’

‘Is that a sex reference?’ he chuckled and moved his big fingers over her jean button. He had her bare to her knees in a second. 

‘No. I mean it. You are so good. Inside, outside, in the kitchen.’ Her throat closed up a little and she blinked, staring up at him. His eyes were the colour of well laundered denim. And honest – she’d never seen such honesty in a man’s eyes.

‘Wow. What is it with us? We’re competition. We should hate each other. Be champing at the bit to kick each other’s asses and not to –’

‘Get naked?’ she asked and stroked him once. Hard. With a tight fist. 

It brought him down to a sigh, that one stroke and his eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t think I can get you all the way naked, but close e-fucking-nough.’

Her brain jumpstarted and she stared. ‘Oh shit. Condom?’

He tugged a foil packet from his small breast pocket on his coat. ‘Ready. I was hoping against hope – daydreaming really – that if we could just get alone for a few moments we could …’

Jill snagged it and tore it open. Wanting another serving of Cole Roberts was making her bold. She rolled the condom on his jutting erection after giving the head of his cock an appreciative stroke. ‘Distract ourselves from the pressure?’

‘Something like that,’ he said.

When he was sheathed, he banded her in his strong arms and hugged her close. His kiss was controlled dominance, harnessed need. He grabbed her up by her ass and hitched her high. Jill spread her legs, wrapped them to his trim waist and held on tight when he positioned himself. 

‘Do it,’ she said in his ear. ‘Put it in me.’ Then she nipped his lobe and he growled against her neck.

‘Dirty. I love it.’

He thrust once and entered her smoothly, her body pinned completely between him and the wall. She was so wet and so ready his girth was no issue. Her body welcomed the heated length of his cock and gripped up around it joyously. Already a small spasm of pleasure was working through her. 

‘I’m going to come really, really fast,’ she warned.

‘We don’t have much time,’ he said, squeezing her bottom. The tiny bite of discomfort bled smoothly into the pleasure of the friction they were creating. 

‘Then I have a good excuse.’

Each thrust bumped Cole’s pelvis to her and the shockwave worked through her clit. He hefted her a tiny bit higher and she thanked the gods of working out for his strength and exceptional muscle tone. Jill tilted her body to the wall just a touch, just enough that every driving jerk of his hips made the head of his cock bang her G-spot and when he kissed her one more time, his tongue sliding along hers, she cried out into his mouth as she came.

‘Shhh.’ He pressed a finger to her lips, balancing her weight with his hips and one strong arm. ‘No one can hear. Silent orgasms,’ he said.

That only made it worse – the excitement and danger and secrecy. So when he turned from the wall and placed her ass along the lip of the clean, shiny marble counter in the restroom, she swallowed a gasp. He pushed her legs high so her heels touched the edge of the counter and she was wide open for him – for his appraisal. 

Cole watched himself entering her, his eyes tracked each hard thrust and he reached out to press her distended clit with the tip of his thumb. The goodness of it all made her skin hot and her heart fast. She watched his eyes watching their union and when he met her gaze and said, ‘I’m done in,’ she came. Just like that. 

A grease fire of an orgasm. Springing up out of nowhere but hotter than hell. And utterly uncontrollable.

He pushed his hand to her lips to silence her noises and the other hand he placed over his own lips. They came in that blissful second of escape – completely silent but eye to eye.

Chapter Six

‘WE HAVE A VERDICT, Chefs,’ Kat Stephens said with TV seriousness. 

Jill held her breath. Inside, secretly – but not from herself – she was hoping to hear that both she and Cole would be staying. She loved Ginger but her dish didn’t seem to work wonders for the judges. 

‘Chef Roberts, we loved that the sweet crab and fresh cream and other ingredients seemed to accent the fresh corn without burying the flavour. The corn was without a doubt the shining star. Good job. You will stay for a chance to be Best Chef.’ 

Cole nodded once and his gaze slid to her. Jill smiled, wanting to give him a thumbs up or a whoop or something. Instead she just smiled again while he stepped back from the judgment line.

‘Chef Calvert …’

Here is where Jill’s stomach bottomed out like she was in free fall. She swallowed hard, put her hands in her pockets and waited for the verdict. There were only two options. Pass or fail. She would stay in or she’d be out. And that was a liberating feeling – knowing she was staring down the worst case scenario and soon it would be over.

‘Yes, judges?’

‘Your lovely sinful fritters took us back to childhood …’

Her heart leapt and she blew out a small breath she’d been holding. That had been the goal. Nostalgia and evoking memories. Jill felt successful all the way around.

She nodded, hopeful. One quick look at Cole showed he was hopeful too. Good man.

‘The flavour of the bacon heightened the flavour of the corn and the corn milk in that batter added an extra dimension of flavour that made the corn sing. It was a sweet, sweet song, too.’

She blushed. The guest judge said, ‘And little Miss, serving it with that nice maple syrup was spot on.’

‘Good job, Chef Calvert,’ Kat Stephens said. ‘You are safe.’

She then turned to poor Ginger and said, ‘Unfortunately Chef Mann, that means you will be leaving us. You can leave the kitchen now.’

Jill turned to hug Ginger and tell her how good she’d done. She tried to hide the joy thrumming through her over being one of the final two. And over Cole being the other. 

He waited until they were in the hall outside the suites. No camera men. Not even any other guests. Cole pushed her to the wall, crowding against her back with his bulk. His hands trapped her hands high near her butt cheeks as if he were about to frisk her. Instead of frisking her, he rested his mouth to her earlobe and said, ‘Final two, Calvert.’

She grinned. ‘I know. Be prepared for me to kick your ass.’

‘And be prepared for me to kiss yours,’ he whispered.

Her nape prickled with arousal and heat and she exhaled softly against the hideous patterned wallpaper, her face still pressed to the wall.

‘I’m glad it was you.’

‘Come to my room,’ Cole said. 

He kissed the back of her neck and she shivered. What a stupid place to be having an affair, she thought. But it was what it was. A nice diversion, a sexy man, stellar fucking. It was the best possible distraction ever, she reminded herself.

But nothing more. 

There was no time in her life or her career for anything more – for any kind of … relationship. And he was from Pennsylvania and she was from Maryland and they were having their fling in the nation’s capital for goodness sake …

When Cole reached around her to cup her breasts with his hands, and rocked his hips to her bottom, and kissed her hair so it tickled the back of her neck, she pushed all that worry away.

It was just a fling – of course it was. 

‘Come to my room,’ he said again, nudging her ass with his hard cock. It made her wet to feel his readiness. His desire.

‘I need a shower,’ Jill said, putting up very little fight.

‘Come to my room and take a shower with me. And then we’ll cook some food and then I’ll make you dirty again.’

Had she ever thought to fight him sincerely, she wondered. No. Not really. All her fight was in the kitchen and it all faded away when she was with Cole. All the aggressive, fight-fight-fight need she carried in her on a daily basis fled her. It was so exhausting constantly trying to prove yourself to yourself. And others – people you didn’t even know.

‘OK,’ she whispered. ‘Just let me get some clothes.’

‘Wear mine,’ he said. ‘You look so damn sexy in them.’ Cole pulled her from the wall and wrapped his arms around her waist from behind. His chin touched the side of her forehead he was so tall. He walked her toward his suite door, making sure that she could feel his erection.

Jesus, how she wanted him. Again. 

‘Come on, now,’ he said and reached around her to unlock his door. She let him lead her and embraced the surge of excitement and nerves when he kicked the door shut. 

He stripped her slowly. His fingers on the buttons of her chef’s coat made her feel like she’d swallowed a live wire. Moisture pooled in the crotch of her panties and when Jill imagined him sliding a finger or two … or three … into her wetness she felt a great hitch in her chest.

Cole growled low in his throat when he slid his fingers under the lace straps of her tank top. His skin was warm and it seemed to burn a pleasant line of fire wherever it touched her. 

‘Look at that. So pretty,’ he rasped. Then he thumbed her nipples, hard and eager, through her tank. ‘You are just so fucking gorgeous, Calvert. And a hell of a chef, too.’

She smiled at that. They always had it on their minds. And it was nice to be with someone who understood that part of her. ‘You too, Chef.’

Jill gave into the swell of emotion in her heart and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. She slid her fingers along the short clipped hair on his scalp and felt the heated length of his tongue dance along hers. His kiss was a million times more sexy than the kisses from the day before and Jill had thought those to be the sexiest kisses she had ever had. 

Cole gripped her ass in his big hands, palming her buttocks and squeezing her tight to the front of him. ‘Get out of the pants, Calvert.’

She snickered and worked the button and the zipper herself. Faster that way to get out of them. But he had zero patience with her small black panties, and he slid his fingers beneath the waistband and pushed until she was bare.

‘I still have boots on.’ She tried not to laugh because he looked so serious. And horny … and intense.

‘Hunh, so you do.’ He dropped to his knees and touched the back of her knee so she bent it. Then he tugged her boot off before moving on to the other foot. When she stood there in knee- high socks printed with cartoon sushi Cole assessed her. 

‘I think you should leave the socks on,’ he said, kissing her hipbone. The feel of his lips pressed to her flesh triggered another wet flex in her pussy.

‘To get in the shower?’ Jill asked with the tiny bit of voice she had left. 

‘No, just for this.’

Cole touched his tongue to her clit and she felt her knees sag just a bit. He held her hips hard and pushed her flush to the wall. His tongue moving back further to her wet opening and then dipping in and out, in and out until he returned to the fragile knot of swollen flesh that quite literally ached for his attention. 

‘I just want one sweet fast orgasm from you, Chef. You have the sweetest taste. Like agave syrup and really ripe melon all mixed together. And maybe some honeysuckle on my tongue.’ His thick fingers traced her outer lips and pinched softly so she jumped and hissed and got even wetter. Then he pushed his fingers – three thick digits – deep into her pussy and brushed her G-spot with a firm and talented touch. 

‘Oh, Chef,’ she sighed. It was funny and ridiculous, but still the first thing to burst past her lips. 

‘Yes, Chef?’ he chuckled, thrusting deeply so she started to pant lightly. She was going to come.

‘That is too, too good.’ 

‘No such thing. Not in cooking and not in fucking.’

He shut up then, sucked her clit really hard and curled his fingers to her G-spot again and she came. Honey slow, lazy ripples working through her pussy and her pelvis and her stomach. Her limbs went heavy with the force of her release and she started to slide down the wall like a drunkard.

No man had ever gone down on her after they’d had sex before and the thrill of that thought alone had added to her orgasm. Some men were funny about that, but when it came to Cole, nothing that involved them being together – their coupling – seemed off limits to him. Anything she had to give, he’d take. And Jill realised she’d take anything he’d give her, too.

Cole stopped her half way down with strong, agile hands and scooped her up. 

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, feeling semi-buzzed though stone cold sober. 

‘To celebrate how awesome we are – in the shower. And then to eat – in the tiny kitchen. And then …’

‘We celebrate again?’ she guessed, laughing.

‘See, we think the same, Calvert. It’s why I know I could really l –’ he stopped for a single heartbeat and in that heartbeat her heart crimped a little in her chest. Jill was flooded with an intense mixture of fear and hope. And then his eyes darkened just a bit and he smiled. ‘Like you.’

‘I could really like you too,’ she said, breathing a sigh of disappointment and relief. What a weird mixture.

What if you win and it crushes him …?

Jill froze but shook the thought away and lost herself in a kiss instead. ‘Take me,’ she said. Meaning to the shower, but the other way too.

He nodded succinctly, turned on the water and managed to get her out of her socks and bra without fucking her right there against the wall. She knew he was feeling that way because she was feeling that way and the invisible sizzle of energy that ping-ponged between them was palpable.

Jill stepped under the warm spray. And just the night before she’d been in here nervous and soap covered. Alone. Now she pressed her back to the wall to make room for the wall of muscled man stepping in after her. 

‘Turn around,’ he growled. 

He knew her secret. That she truly got off from being taken from behind. That the feel of a man handling her and penetrating her that way added so much to the erotic experience it made her mouth go dry and her nipples peak just to think about it.

She turned and a shuddery breath snaked out of her as he kneed her legs apart and reached between her legs to test her. He slid a single finger into her pussy and moved it in a small circle. ‘Nice and wet. Primed,’ Cole said, his words raining down on her from above just like the warm water they stood in.

He pulled back and turned her, manoeuvring her in the small space so that she stood under the hot spray. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting you clean before I get you dirty. We both have the stink of stress and fear and war on us.’

‘Oh.’ But the confusion died off the moment he started to massage some sweetly scented shampoo into her long hair. The braids had left her hair a wavy mess and with each rush of hot water along her scalp the waves faded along with the tension of the day. 

‘I like the way you look wet,’ he said above the humming rush of water. Cole nuzzled her neck and pinched her nipples when they stood at attention. Then he tilted her head back to rinse it. When all the fragrant soap bubbles slid from her hair he bent to suck her nipples into his hot mouth. His tongue seared her skin the way the heated water couldn’t and as he suckled one, he pinched the other tender disc of flesh.

‘I could fuck you until your knees buckle right here,’ he said.

‘But?’ she gasped. ‘Problem?’

Their eyes met, his that startling storm-blue in the dim bathroom light. Outside a storm had started to rage and Jill wondered about the power when the overheads seemed to dim further for a moment. 

‘No condom,’ he sighed. ‘I forgot. You scrambled my brain.’

She grabbed his face in her hands, water beading on his cheeks and her fingers. ‘You look so different without your glasses.’

‘It’s called sorta blind.’ He smirked. Tried to kiss her. But Jill pulled back.

‘Can you see me?’

‘Yeah, babe. I’m far-sighted,’ he said and touched her nipples and then wrapped his hands to her wet waist.

His cock jutted out hard and true and she took him in hand keeping her eyes locked on his bright ones. ‘I am clean. I mean clean-clean. I haven’t been in a relationship – sexual or otherwise – for over six months. I was checked at my last yearly. Cleaner than the proverbial whistle.’ She swallowed hard and rushed on. ‘And if you are … and tell me you are … I will trust you and we can just …’