Chapter 5
Chapter Five
Claire
Draven bundles me up in my coat and carries me out the back door of Tartine in his arms, as if I’m made of glass.
I don’t fully comprehend what just happened back in the kitchen, but what I saw happen with Draven’s sauce…
it was extraordinary. A phenomenon that felt real and dreamlike, at the same time.
All I did was allow the spoon into my mouth.
When he dipped that spoon back into the pot, it changed. I saw it.
And I tasted it, too.
I’ve never been so overcome by a flavor in my life.
Could I really have had something to do with creating it?
My feet don’t touch the ground once on the way to Draven’s car. I’m expecting him to drive something big and expensive, considering Tartine is such a successful restaurant and he’s a nationally recognized chef. But no, he drives a modest gray BMW that looks like it was manufactured in the nineties.
“It belonged to my mother,” Draven explains as I’m buckled into the passenger seat. Once that task is done, he pulls back reluctantly, his eyes skimming my face, his fingertips tracing the curve of my cheekbone. “What happened in the kitchen…it was real. I’m not crazy, right?”
“You’re not crazy,” I whisper. “It really happened.”
A muscle shifts in his cheek, his knuckle tracing down the front of my body, between my breasts, which are still bare beneath my coat.
He slips a hand inside the wool and teases my nipple into a point, making my breath come faster, the possessiveness in his golden eyes causing my pulse to scatter.
“Is it crazy that I don’t want anyone to consume that sauce but me now? ”
“Yes, that is crazy,” I manage. “It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.”
“You are the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life, Claire.” He stares at my mouth like a thirsty man regards an ice-cold pint of water. “I don’t want anyone else to know your flavor.”
I reach out and run my fingers through his hair, the dark strands in a tousle from being beneath his chef cap all day. “Why don’t we worry about it tomorrow?”
“Yes.” His chest dips and rises dramatically, his attention traveling down the front of my body where a sliver of my belly and lap are showing beneath the parted coat.
“The only thing I should worry about tonight is how deep you can stand me.” Cursing, Draven pulls my coat back together with unsteady hands.
“It’ll be a miracle if I make it one thrust.”
Thrust.
I’m still marveling over that word and the image it conjures when Draven stands abruptly and closes the passenger side door.
Keeping his eyes on me through the windshield the whole time, he crosses in front of the bumper and climbs into the driver’s side, his body almost too large to fit, the bottom of the steering wheel cutting into the tops of his powerful thighs.
Thrust.
That word continues to dance in my head.
Is Draven going to get on top of me as soon as we’re inside his apartment and…
thrust inside of me? It’s such an aggressive word that helps paint the picture of what’s to come.
Draven’s thick and mighty body on top of my younger one, his appendage squeezed inside of me.
Will it hurt too badly? Or will it feel as extraordinary as his kisses?
Beneath the coat, my body shows signs of excitement, the wool chafing my sensitive nipples and turning my thighs restless inside the stockings.
“Where are you staying, Claire?” Draven asks me now, dragging me out of the fantasy.
“The Dixie Motel.”
His head turns slowly, disbelief etched into his masculine features. “Excuse me?”
“The Dixie Motel,” I say, digging into the pocket of my coat for the key and presenting it to him. “That’s the name.”
“That motel is a dive,” he blusters. “It rents by the hour.”
I raise a challenging eyebrow. “How do you know?”
He gives me a slightly withering look. “It’s common knowledge, Claire. Believe me, I’ve never experienced the Dixie firsthand.”
“It’s not that bad,” I say, shrugging. “I’ve only been propositioned twice.”
“What?” he shouts, the car swerving a tad on the road.
“Only kidding.” I maintain my cheeky smile until he glances over at me, a vein beginning to show in his temple. Ticking, ticking.
“You’re checking out of there tonight and never going back,” he growls. “Men prowl that place looking for one thing and if they get a look at you, it’s over.”
There is a part of me that knows Draven is right.
The Dixie is not the safest place to stay.
I’ve only been living there for two nights, but some of the sounds coming through the walls are interesting, to say the least. Furthermore, I saw what looked to be an exchange of drugs right outside my window this morning.
“The plan was to be there temporarily,” I say. “Until I can afford better. But…”
“But now you have me.”
Trepidation flutters in my stomach. “You don’t think we’re moving too fast—”
“No, little girl. I don’t.”
“Oh.” My nerves settle down again and I turn in my seat, helpless to do anything but moon over his handsome profile. The capability of his hands on the steering wheel. “Are people going to think it’s strange that you suddenly have a live-in girlfriend?”
“You’ve worked in my kitchen. Do you think I give a fuck what people think?”
I giggle. “No.”
He taps a row of fingers against the steering wheel. “Call yourself my girlfriend again.”
“I’m your girlfriend,” I whisper, reaching out to feel his bicep, my sex spasming when that muscle pops against my palm.
“Damn right you are.” He looks over at me in the near darkness, his features stern. “And that means I need to know what you’re running away from.”
I retract my touch from his arm, hugging myself reflexively in the seat. “How do you know I’m running away from something?”
“Eighteen-year-old girl turns up in a strange town, taking whatever jobs she can get, whether they’re appropriate or safe?
Living in some flea bag motel?” The steering wheel creaks beneath his grip.
Is he mad on my behalf? “You’re running from something.
” We stop at a traffic light, and Draven reaches across the console to cup my jaw firmly. “Tell Daddy what it is.”
Wowsers.
Does he know how much that authoritative tone affects me?
He must.
He’s watching me squirm in the seat with knowing eyes.
As if he’s well-aware that the title I’ve bestowed on him makes me warm and wet.
“After my parents divorced, I lived with my father and stepmother. She came with a lot of kids and…she really didn’t like having me there.
I’m a reminder of my mother, and they’d grown up together.
Always fighting over my father, which I never understood.
He’s nothing but a lazy, bitter, chimney smoking jerk. ”
Draven’s lips twitch with a show of humor, but immediately he’s serious again. “Did he ever hurt you, Claire?”
“No,” I whisper, casting my eyes down to the console “But she did. Even though I cleaned and cooked and tried to earn my keep. And as her kids got older, they adopted their mother’s behavior.
They thought it was normal to kick me as I passed or throw an elbow.
They always made it seem like accidents and…
” This part hurt the most. “My father believed them.”
The stoplight turns green, but Draven doesn’t move, his hand shaking where it holds my jaw.
“If anyone ever hurts you again,” he says in a low pitch, “I will strangle them to death without hesitation.” A wave of pure agony moves across his face.
“I’m sorry I was so mean to you tonight when you walked into the kitchen. God, I hate myself for that.”
“It’s okay. You have a scary reputation to maintain,” I say, teasingly. Breathless over his utter devotion to me. To protecting me. No one has ever worried about my safety before.
“It’s not okay.” He shakes his head. “You were so brave and beautiful, I felt the fucking ground quaking under my feet—and I reacted. That’s no excuse, though, and I’m going to make up for how I acted. I need you to forget I was ever anything but good to you.”
I turn my head to kiss his wrist. “I’m already forgetting.”
A horn toots behind us. Draven continues to stare at me, his adoring gaze tracing my face over and over again, like he can’t believe I’m real.
“I’m pretty sure the stoplight has been green three times since we stopped,” I whisper.
“How am I ever going to be a productive human being again when I have you to look at?” he asks, wetting his lips. “Fuck, I want to kiss you, but that taste will go right to my head. We need to get home first.”
“Okay,” I murmur, feeling dainty and worshipped and special.
For the first time in my life.
But I’ve only gotten the first glimpse into how special I really am.