Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Lu
“Gotcha!” He tosses the cup up and catches it without taking his eyes off of mine. “This reason enough?”
My brow furrows and I frown. So busted.
“Shit.”
“Shit is right, thief. I saw it in your pocket as soon as I walked in, but I had my suspicions before.”
“You’re good,” I add, purposely lacing my words with boredom. “You pass the test.” I look down and fiddle with the garbage bag, trying to open the end, but when I sneak a glance up, I can’t help but swallow.
He crosses his arms, pudding still in hand, and rolls his eyes before pinning me with them. “Don’t even.”
“What?” I shrug, shaking the bag open with exaggeration. “I like to make sure the security around here is good.”
“Uh-huh.” He cocks his head, this time eyeing me from head to toe. And then he does something that makes my heart stutter. He uncrosses his arm and extends it, attempting to hand me the pudding. It throws me off, just like with the candy bars.
“Take it. I hate pudding.”
I stare at the pudding, blinking, my mouth turned down. I want to tell him to shove his pudding up his ass; Lu takes charity from no one… except for the candy bars, but I earned them…
Yeah right, by being a good girl?
Suddenly my stomach makes the loudest growling noise I’ve ever heard and I swallow thickly. I’m famished. Beyond famished. Think forty-days-lost-at-sea starved. Except it’s actually been months. And all I’ve had is pudding, the food Python brings me on payday, and the occasional donut when the boss at my day job brings them into the staff room.
“It’s yours?” I point. “You’re Sharpie Jeff?” My voice is ripe with disbelief. How on earth could someone as hot as SSD also be pudding Jeff?
“Er… if you mean it’s my name written in sharpie on the pudding lid, then yes.” His brow furrows. “Sharpie Jeff? You don’t actually call me that, do you?”
“Uh, no.” I look sideways and scratch my eyebrow. “I call you something entirely different, actually.” I look up and my gaze sharpens on his face. “If you hate pudding so much, why do you have it in your lunch every day?” My words are crusty and accusing and my hands fly to my hips. Searching his ring finger, I continue. “Doesn’t your girlfriend know you’re a pudding hater?” God, I sound like a brat.
His mouth curves up on the right.
“What do you call me then?” His grin deepens. “And I don’t have a girlfriend.” He looks down at his left hand then too. “Or a wife.” He holds it up and wiggles those long, thick fingers.
Long and thick. I bet they’re masterful.
It’s amazing when you’re in the end of times, well, my end of times anyway, how much your base instincts are on the forefront. Food and sex basically haunt me. All. The. Time.
Steak and beefcake.
I push air out of my mouth in a rude sound. Knowing he has the upper hand now, I look at my feet instead of him or the damn pudding still in his hand. “I don’t care if you have a girlfriend or a wife,” I murmur.
“So what do you call me?” he prompts.
“SSD.” I grumble it.
“SSD?”
I sigh, forcefully, eyeing him impatiently. “Sexy Security Dude.” My words are loud and clear this time and loaded with contempt. “It’s not a compliment,” I add, disgruntled.
He laughs. “Uh, hell yes, it is.”
“Pfft, nah, sexy people are only good for one thing.”
He nods with that stupid grin on his face. “Sure. I’m definitely good for that.”
The wash of heat his words cause have me grinding out my next few sentences.
“Whatever, now you’re Grizzly Jeff anyway. And clearly, Grizzly Jeff is brainless because who puts something they hate in their lunch daily?”
“My niece puts the pudding in my lunch.” He reaches forward, grabs my hand, and slaps the cup in it. “She’s four and loves pudding. Especially?—”
I blink first at the pudding cup in my hand and then at him and finally, I finish his sentence.
“Butterscotch.”
A smile splits his handsome face and my heart flips.
“Right. I guess since you’re the Pudding Pilferer you’d know that.”
“The pudding… what?”
He cuts me off, shrugging his deliciously wide shoulders. “That’s what she calls you.”
My brows shoot up. “She calls me the Pudding Pilferer? She knows someone steals your pudding every night?”
He nods.
“So why?—?”
He sighs. “At first it was because she wanted to share her favorite thing with her favorite uncle.” His eyes harden, warning me not to comment. “But then it was because the person who steals my pudding must need it more than I do, or they love it as much as she does and that makes the Pudding Pilferer her kindred spirit. And yes, she actually uses the words kindred spirit and pilferer.”
He shakes his head. “My mother reads to her a lot. And in my opinion, above her level.”
He smiles fondly a moment, as if picturing his mother and the young child and then adds, “She says, ‘please don’t be mad at my kindred spirit, Uncle Jeff.’ And who can argue with an angel with big blue eyes?” He looks up and stares as if just noticing my blue eyes which I know look huge because of my too-thin face.
“But you are mad,” I accuse, but it comes out in a gentle whisper as I’m ensnared in his soft look. I give my head a small shake and clear my throat, speaking more succinctly. “According to your note I’m a jackass,” I say with a laugh. “That reminds me.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the note from today.
He groans. “Just enjoy the damn pudding.” He pulls out one of the chairs at the table and his eyes motion to the seat. “Sit. When I wrote that first note I thought it was Tony stealing my lunch. He is not my niece’s kindred spirit. And he is one hundred percent jackass.” He looks at the paper in my hand and attempts to snatch it back. I shove it down my top.
Turning the pudding in my hand, I stare at him, daring him to fish for it. “Tony is a jackass. He gossips like a retiree at bridge club and thinks he knows everything. Everything. Reading one article on some obscure scientific topic does not an expert make.”
He laughs and the sound is almost as delectable as his growl. And because it is, I toss the pudding back at him. “I don’t want your pudding.”
Grizzly Jeff catches the pudding easily, but his jaw ticks.
“I can be a dick, Lu.” He chuffs impatiently just like a bear. “I can turn you in to management or you can damn well sit your ass down and eat.” He presses his lips in a no-nonsense line and puts the pudding down on the table.
“Your choice.”
“Is this about skinny-shaming me again?”
He says nothing, but his stern look speaks volumes. I am seriously pushing this guy’s buttons.
“It’s not like I can be arrested for stealing pudding,” I say, rolling my eyes.
His brows knit, creating the cutest wrinkle above his perfectly imperfect nose. It has a bump and slight curve that gives his quarterback-hometown-hero look just the perfect amount of rugged.
Grizzly Jeff leans back, crossing his arms. “No, but you could lose your job.” He rises then and walks to one of the drawers by the fridge. “You can be fired for stealing someone’s lunch. It makes you untrustworthy. Especially if the head of security pushes for it.” He opens the drawer and pulls out a plastic spoon.
My gut drops at that. I cannot lose this job. I need it to pay Satan’s Ransom. Fear ripples through my body. And I swear he smells it.
I sit, fiddling with the top of the pudding cup. My finger runs over the permanent marker scrawled on the top. He tosses the spoon across the table and pulls out the chair opposite mine. It scrapes across the floor as he pulls it out. “Hey! Those marks are a bitch to get off the floor!”
“My apologies,” he says and lifts the chair the final few inches before sitting in it.
“It’s not my break,” I say sullenly, slouching in the chair. “I could be fired for sitting around when I should be cleaning.” I sigh. “Brad is gonna freak out if he smells that garbage from his office.”
Jeff only cocks his left brow at me and takes the pudding cup. Peeling the top off, he puts the spoon in and slides it back at me. When I don’t move to take it, he rises, walks to my side of the table and sits his hip on it. He clears his throat and holds the lid in front of me, pudding side to my mouth.
“Lick,” he orders, and oh, my fucking god, my entire body ignites.
“Open up, babydoll. Don’t make me force you.”
I swallow hard. And we’re frozen staring at each other for a moment, the only sound is the ticking of the huge analog clock hanging on the wall behind me and the hum of the fridge. And then, he reaches out, puts his thumb and forefinger on my chin, and pulls my mouth open.
Fuuuuck.
“Be a good girl, Lu. Stick out that pretty tongue.”
“What if I’m not a good girl?” I blurt, attempting to quell the feeling of being a bug caught in a spider’s web. “Good girls get candy bars, but what do bad girls get?” My eyes flick down to his hip where his handcuffs hang. I have no shame when it comes to flirting my way back to having the upper hand.
But the air between us is electric. It practically crackles and the hair on my arms stands straight up, as do my nipples. Suddenly they’re tight and aching with need and I have to break the intensity before it breaks me—before I beg him to…
“All right. I’ll be good,” I say, my hungry gaze rising from his belt to his gorgeous eyes. And then I stick my tongue out flat. He smiles. And it’s both the dirtiest and sexiest smile I’ve ever seen and if I could swallow less awkwardly with my mouth open I would because, goddamn, he’s calling my bluff.
“That’s my good girl.” The wicked glint in his eye has my belly dipping and warmth pooling down there.
Holy. Shit. Instead of the words breaking the tension like I wanted, they’ve increased it, a hundred-fold, and Jesus! My insides, already warm, spike a fucking fever. The kind of fever that requires medical attention.
He smears the butterscotchy lid against my tongue and then pulls it a few inches away.
“Lick it clean.”
I obey with a quiver and when it’s clean, he sets it on the paper bag. I close my mouth, attempting to swallow the sweet smoothness but it feels more like cement. His thumb finds my lip and wipes, a smear of butterscotch coming off on his thumb.
“You never take a break, Lu,” he whispers and then pops his thumb into his mouth and sucks. He sucks slowly and thoroughly, making my thighs clench.
I whimper and his cocky half-smile deepens.
“You like that, babydoll?”
I nod, my head bobbing like a marionette.
He rises then, going back to his side of the table, leaving me breathless, dizzy, and so turned on I might combust.
Pulling out a sandwich bag, he sets his lunch on the table. I devour the pudding, loading the spoon as full as possible like I’ve never eaten before and shoving it into my mouth, hoping to staunch both my hunger and desire. I must look like I’ve been raised by wild animals, so I slow down after the first two huge bites that puff out my cheeks and squish between my teeth because they don’t quite fit in my mouth.
His sandwich is wrapped in cellophane. I breathe in deeply, involuntarily savoring the smell of roasted peanuts as he unwraps it. My stomach gurgles loudly again. I’d hated peanut butter before this. You wouldn’t find a jar anywhere near me. Peanut butter was a cheap protein, so it was a staple in every foster home I’d ever lived in. It was on the menu daily, often more than once. Eat something every day for lunch and it soon loses its appeal. To me it’s basically helplessness and fear churned into a spreadable topping for tasteless white bread.
But right now? Grizzly Jeff may as well be unwrapping a fresh Nova Scotia lobster the way I hunger for it.
“How do you know I never take a break?” I ask, to distract myself from a quickly forming fantasy involving pudding, his sandwich, and us buck naked.
“I’m observant.” He flattens the cellophane and picks up half the sandwich, handing it to me.
“No thanks,” I say, but my mouth waters. I fight the urge to rip the food from his fingers and tear into it like a savage stray dog.
“Reece will expect me to share my lunch with you. She made it.” He looks at it and my eyes follow his. There’s jam oozing out of the side and I lick my lips instead of what I really want to do, which is lick his friggin’ sandwich and then him.
All. Over.
“Reece?”
He picks up the other half of the sandwich and takes a bite, still holding the offered half out for me. His mouth moves, chewing the food thoroughly. I feel guilty, as if I’m watching porn because my body reacts with more salivating, a deep ache in my gut and a throbbing between my thighs. I shove my trembling hands under my pits to steady them. I’m not sure which one of my body’s needs is more prevalent. Am I hungrier or hornier? I’m horngry?
“My sister had an eating disorder. She struggled with it until the day she died.”
Does he think I’m anorexic? Anger flares in me at the thought. What, Grizzly Jeff, you think I need saving? That I can’t take care of myself ? I clench my jaw, but don’t say what I want because the rest of his words sink in.
His sister died. The flicker of intense grief in his eyes hits me straight in the chest, taking my air with it before it's gone.
“When I pick Reece up after school every day, we make food a big part of our time together. She helps me make dinner and our lunches every day before my mom picks her up.” He looks down, fiddling with the cellophane. “She’s smaller than other kids her age.”
He’s just worried about his niece. Down, Lu, down.
I swallow hard. I seem to do this a lot around him. I don’t know what to do with him… where he belongs in my head. He’s this tough, bossy guy one minute, sweet and funny the next, and then he goes ahead and shows his vulnerable side. This guy must be every girl’s wet dream.
He puts both halves of the sandwich down, sighs loudly, and leans back in the chair.
“Listen.”
The tough guy is back and I’m suddenly very conscious of my situation. I’m alone and in serious trouble. And this guy has some sort of philanthropic hero complex. As if saving me will somehow save his sister, or niece or whatever. Screw that.
“No, you listen.” I cut him off, rudely, narrowing my eyes when his harden on mine.
Yeah, yeah, I’m rude. Whatever, get over it.
I have to accept the mercy of Satan’s Ransom, but I do not have to accept charity or whatever it is this guy’s offering. I work hard, and yeah, right now things are tough, but hopefully in a few more months I’ll have my debt paid and can get back to my life – Tallulah Jane Olsen’s life. A life that won’t involve hot Grizzly Jeff and his goddamn pity pudding.
“I’m not anorexic, you judgmental prick.” I soften my tone as his eyes widen and that damn grief flashes again, eating my insides. “I’m sorry for your loss, but I’m not your sister. You can’t save me to make up for losing her.”
His eyes shutter as he seems to come to terms with my words. Words? Daggers is more like it. After an awkward moment of his eyes pinning me in place, and me doing my best impression of someone far more intimidating than a five-foot-four, ninety-eight-pound woman, I shove the chair back with a loud scrape and add, “And I don’t have time for a goddamn break.”
“You’ve got an impressive attitude, Lu.” His brow arcs sharply. “Might be enough to scare some off, but it’s nothing Grizzly Daddy can’t handle. If you think I’m going to jam the food down your throat, you’re wrong, babydoll.” His eyes narrow further. “I have other ways of getting naughty girls to do as they’re told.” He rises and I don’t actually trust that he won’t force feed me, but also that I won’t throw myself at him, so I shove past him and walk to my cart.
Grizzly Daddy. Pfft. I used it as a joke, not even a joke, an insult.
So why’s your heart thumping in your panties then?
God, I could brush off the heat that blossomed in my belly when I called him Daddy, but fuck, him calling himself Daddy is a hundred times hotter. And I’m sure every inch of my skin is flushing from it, so I lower my face. A shiver shoots up my spine when I hear the deep, crusty sound of his humourless chuckle as he leaves the room.
Good god, he does sound like a grizzly bear.