Chapter 25 #2
The door between our rooms is unlocked. It hasn’t been locked in weeks, so I open it to find a wide-awake Miller sitting at the desk with her laptop open and notepad covered in messy scribbles.
She’s got one foot on the chair as she rests her chin on her knee, espresso brown hair pulled up in a knot as the light from the computer illuminates her face.
She’s sitting so close, as if hoping whatever information is on the screen will magically transfer to her brain, and even from the doorway, I can tell she’s stressing over recipes.
“Mills, put your bathing suit on. You’re coming with me.”
She whips around. “Why?”
“Because I need to loosen my shoulder in the pool.”
“But—” She gestures towards her computer.
“You don’t have to put your suit on, but you’re coming with me. In fact, I prefer you naked anyway.”
She chuckles, rolling her eyes as she closes her computer. “Fine.”
Once Isaiah is settled in my room, Miller and I find the pool. I thought this one would be an indoor one, seeing as Boston freezes over in the winter, but it’s outside and on the rooftop.
She’s in that forest green swimsuit again, and now that I know what’s underneath, I refuse to hide my gawking as she leaves her towel on a chair and walks her ass to the pool.
Her hips sway, her thick thighs rubbing together with every step, fucking mouthwatering with all that tanned and tatted skin.
“This is exactly why I needed you to come with me. This is the kind of motivation I was looking for.”
“So you brought me out here just to objectify me?” she asks as she slips into the water.
“Yeah... obviously.”
I follow behind, trying to adjust my growing erection in my swim trunks, but there’s not a chance in hell it’s going away being this close to her almost naked body now that I know what it feels like to be inside of her.
It’s dark out and the pool is closed, but breaking and entering a hotel pool is nothing new for either of us.
Miller stays in the shallow end where she can stand, and I do a couple of leisurely laps while I allow her a moment to be in her head. I’m going to get in there in a minute anyway.
She’s sitting on the top step of the pool stairs when I make it back to her.
“I need you to get more tattoos,” she states as I crest the water.
“Where did that come from?”
“Just from looking at you. They look good on your skin.”
“Well.” I wade through the water to her. “I need you to wear less clothes.”
“Where did that come from?”
I shrug. “Just from looking at you.”
She smiles, a bit of that previous stress gone for a moment.
“Want to talk about it?” I ask, pushing my wet hair back.
“No.”
“Okay. Why don’t you talk about it anyway.” Pulling her off the step, my fingers slide down her forearms, fiddling with her hands, and maybe it’s because they’re under the water or because no one else is here to see it, but she gives in to the physical contact.
Pressing my luck, I lean back on the ledge, ushering her to stand in front of me. I wrap my arms around her waist from behind, holding her close when she says, “I have to go to LA.”
I freeze, panic zipping through me. “But you said—”
“Not for good. I’ll be back, but the photographer for the magazine cover needs to get the photos shot and edited before September. I’ll do the interview when I get back to work, but the magazine issue is releasing only two weeks later, I guess.”
She drops her head back against my chest as if she’s falling with defeat.
I don’t like this. The idea of her leaving doesn’t sit right. What if she gets there and doesn’t want to come back? What if she gets back to her real life and realizes she’s done passing through Chicago?
Wracking my brain, I search for a solution. “You have to be in that particular kitchen for the shoot?”
“No, but I don’t have any kitchen connections in Chicago.”
“Use mine.”
Her head whips back as she looks up at me.
“Would mine work? It’s just for photos, right? You said it yourself, it’s nice to look at.”
She furrows her brow. “Yes, but—”
“Then it’s settled.”
“Kai, are you sure? There’s going to be a whole team of people involved. They’ll take over your house for an entire day.”
“If it keeps you from leaving then yes, I’m sure.”
Miller’s eyes soften, tracing my face before she exhales and falls against me again, but this time it’s with relief. “Thank you.”
Now that she’s a bit more relaxed, I let my hands wander under the water, skimming against her ribs. “That’s what had you so stressed out? That’s no big deal.”
“I think I forgot about what’s waiting for me after this.
What if I never get it back, Kai? What if I’m not good enough anymore?
I’ve spent my whole life chasing this career and to end up where?
Making chocolate chip cookies and banana bread for a baseball team?
God.” She buries her face in her hands. “This is too important for me to be fucking around all summer. I should’ve been focusing on work, and now it’s coming up so fast and I have nothing prepared.
I’m going to get eaten alive by critics and—”
“Hey,” I soothe, running my hands up her arms to pull them away from her face. “Take a deep breath.”
She does as I say while I trail my palms up to her shoulders, feeling the tension bunched there. I knead her flesh. “You’re supposed to be the fun one, remember? I’m the one who stresses.”
She huffs a laugh, a bit of tension dissolving, but not enough.
I won’t lie. Her words kind of make me feel like shit.
I’m the reason she hasn’t been able to work or practice in the kitchen.
We’ve been distracting her all summer, keeping her away from this world she’s worked so hard to succeed in, and now she’s panicking because the weeks she was supposed to have been regaining her confidence in the kitchen, she’s spent traveling with my team and taking care of my son.
I press my thumbs into the tension of her shoulders. “What is the worst-case scenario in all of this?”
She thinks on it for a second. “I never get my groove back. I’m never able to create a high-end dessert again.
My waitlist of chefs dump me and I never get hired again.
I’m forced out of the industry and end up working in the bakery department of a grocery store, decorating cakes for Karen’s retirement party, but then of course, she fucking complains because the purple frosting isn’t the right shade of violet.
So, I cuss her out because there are worse problems in the world than her frosting leaning more eggplant than violet, causing me to get fired from there too and now I’m living in my dad’s house and sleeping on his couch and he’s devastatingly disappointed because he’s given up his entire life for me and now I’m unemployed and couch surfing. ”
I can’t help but laugh, which thankfully pulls one from her too. “Dramatic as fuck, Mills.”
“It could happen.”
“It’s not going to happen. Even if you did leave the high-end world, you’re still a badass baker. You’d open your own bakery or something equally as amazing. You don’t get to where you are in your career out of luck. You’re a hard worker and ridiculously talented. That doesn’t just change.”
I don’t mention anything about Monty because it’s completely absurd that she’s worried about her dad’s disappointment and I think she knows it too. That guy looks at his daughter like she hung the fucking moon.
“I need to get serious in the kitchen when we get home.”
“Okay,” I agree calmly. “You’re right, but you can’t do anything about it tonight. So, there’s no point in stressing about it now.” Bending down, I place a kiss on the top of her shoulder. “Am I the one who needs to remind you how to have some fun?”
She relaxes back into my touch, pressing her ass against the cradle of my hips under the water. “You’re like a completely different man than you were at the beginning of summer.”
“Yeah, well, in the last two days I got laid and pitched a no-hitter, so things are looking up for me.” I trail my hands over her stomach and tits, barely grazing the pads of my thumbs against her nipples. “Besides, I told you, the old Kai was different. He had a wild streak.”
“Hmm,” she hums against me, her body coming to life under my touch. “And what did the old Kai do to have fun?”
Dipping lower, I toy with the strings of her bikini bottoms sitting against her hip. Finding the end of one, I tug. “He skinny-dipped.”
The fabric falls open as she looks down into the water, and Miller is all but writhing against me when I pull at the string on her opposite hip, her bottoms floating away in the water.
It didn’t take much and I’m hard as a fucking rock.
“Kai.” Her tone is laced with warning, but the need in her voice is a whole lot louder. “We could get caught.”
I nip her earlobe. “That’s all part of the fun, baby.”
I let my hand drift lower, skimming the skin of her belly before dipping my fingers between her folds. Palming her pussy, I give it a little tap under the water.
“This is the best pussy I’ve ever had, you know that?”
“Yeah?” Her voice is hoarse as she grips my forearms, partly to balance herself in the water, but mostly to keep my hand right where it is.
“I couldn’t believe how tight and warm it was around me. You’re all I’ve thought about since. How good you taste. How wet you get.”
She moans, rolling the entire length of her body against me.
Nipping against the skin of her throat, I whisper, “I want to be inside of you again.”
“Then do it.” Her nimble fingers undo the tie at the top of my shorts, dipping inside to grip me.
Groaning, I drop my head to her shoulder.
She feels fucking amazing. Just as amazing as she did the other night. She strokes me in the water, grinding her ass against me in tandem.
I slip a finger inside her cunt and she almost falls apart from that alone. “You should fuck me, Kai. That’d be a good distraction from my stress.”
“I don’t have a condom.”
“I don’t care.”