Chapter 7
7
Jake
It’s been two days since the cut. Three since I told Kit I’d get her pregnant and it sure looks like I’ve underestimated my body’s ability to withstand the constant assault of her presence.
It’s early Sunday morning and, rather than sleeping late like I planned, I’m downstairs in Ricky’s gym, beating the living shit out of the heavy bag. The door to outside opens and I turn to watch Ricky meander over.
“Did you even sleep?”
I swipe an arm over my forehead. “What do you mean?”
“Drove by last night. Saw the lights on so I swung into the lot.”
I snort. “Spying on me?”
“Wanted to make sure Travis hadn’t left it on.”
“Nope. It was all me.” I don’t mention that I let the kid sleep on the mats in the corner again. Ricky and I don’t see eye to eye about that.
He wants to support the kid, let it go.
I want to have a talk with the mother.
He glances up at the big clock hanging on the bare brick wall. I can’t believe the damn thing’s still working after all these years. Or maybe Ricky’s got a supplier for them.
I turn and throw another punch, follow it up with a left, then another right.
“You working today?” There’s a smile in his voice.
“Yep. Brunch.” I flick a look his way. “You should bring the lady in.”
“Maybe I will.”
He won’t. Just like he hasn’t put the damn gym on the market yet, despite our many, many discussions.
“You talk to the real estate agent?” I send a quick combo of punches to the bag, my bones craving the strike as much as my muscles want the strain of repeated movement and my lungs need to struggle for air.
“She’s hard to get ahold of.”
“Bullshit.”
“Aw, come on!” Ricky’s hurt act needs work, which I guess is what happens when you spend most of your time keeping teenage boys out of trouble. “You know I’m busy.”
I throw him a grin. “Yeah. Dolores keeping you occupied?”
“She’s a full-time job.”
“Then let’s sell the gym, man. Give her your full attention.”
He walks around and catches the bag. “The gym’s yours.”
“Building’s mine, but the business is yours,” I say, although really the whole thing was a gift. Repayment for everything the man’s done for me in this lifetime. And still, it doesn’t even come close.
“It was an investment. You should come in and run it.”
I stop, lungs heaving, sweat pouring down every part of me, and let my arms drop to my sides. “I’m not taking over the gym. Told you. I’m not moving back here.”
“Then I’m not selling.”
Ricky’s got one of those faces that’s like a map of his life story, carved out one piece at a time. There’s the nose—broken a time or two when he was a kid in a local gang, then smashed to a pulp in prison and again, later, in the ring. His mouth’s bisected by a long, angry scar, courtesy of his father who, by all accounts was one hell of a piece of work. When I met him, he had smile lines fanning out from his eyes, but now, at over sixty years of age, they’re more like trenches, dug deeper by all the years of laughter and yelling and all the other shit that goes on in a place like this.
A place that saves literal lives just by its very existence.
“Wish you’d take over the gym.”
“I wish you’d let me sell it and go on the cruise Dolores keeps asking for.”
He coughs out a laugh. “Asking? More like demanding. Says if I don’t take her this year, we’re over.”
Dolores, Ricky’s long-time girlfriend, has been threatening that for at least five years, but Ricky, no matter what he claims, is no more interested in retiring than I am.
“Let me sell the gym. You can retire.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Behind us, the door slams open, hard.
“Fuckin’ kids,” Ricky mutters under his breath, before turning to yell. “Where are your fuckin’ manners, Jones?”
“Sorry, coach.”
“Yeah, well, get down and give me twenty.”
“Make it fifty,” I call out, just to fuck with the kid, who moans a complaint while dropping to the floor.
“On your knuckles!” says Ricky, starting to walk away.
“Call the agent, Ricky,” I tell him as I turn back to give the bag one more good thump. “Or I will.”
An hour later, showered and shaved, I pull up to Parlor and stare at the white-painted facade, wishing the pain in my knuckles would distract me from the ache in my balls.
My body’s not falling for it. Not last night, not this morning. Back at Ricky’s gym or up in my apartment, whether I’m pounding the bag, in bed, or in the shower, all I can think about is getting inside of Kit.
I head inside, say hello to Cora, who’s prepping the front of house, and catch Kit’s eye as I round the bar to the kitchen door.
“You good?” I ask.
She nods with one of those forced smiles she’s been wearing since I made my proposal.
Right away, I pull a bin of whole chickens from the walk-in and start prepping them for the Sunday roast Parlor is most famous for. It’s a brunch/British pub roast experience that appeals to all kinds of people. Kit puts soccer and rugby on the screens and puts on one of her perfectly selected playlists, and people line up for hours for a table.
I’ve got nothing but admiration for Kit and everything she’s built here, the way she’s made a brand for herself that’s more than just a fun place to hang out.
The door swings open and the sous-chef comes in, washes up and gets to work. Frida’s an older woman—late fifties, I’d guess, maybe older. She’s tall and tough and easy as hell to work with. Kit told me Frida took over the kitchen before I got here, but she’s got no interest in being in charge. “Wanna get the biscuits prepped?”
“On it,” she says. Concise, to the point.
We get into our usual groove pretty quick and have everything ready before the doors open. Throughout the shift, I do my best to ignore Kit’s occasional pass-throughs, although not noticing her is impossible when there’s so much of her. Curves and presence and competence. It’s so goddamn sexy. We’re a few minutes from the end of service when one final order comes in and I don’t have all the pasta I need. They’ve got apps, so I put water on and cut through the restaurant to the back hall and the extra dry storage closet I just built new shelves for.
Inside, I grab a couple big bags of pasta, turn, and run smack into Kit, who’s just quickly turned the corner.
Steadying her with my free hand, I come to a full stop and look down.
“I need straws,” she says, low and husky. Pure sex. Pure sin.
“Have at it.”
They’re on the shelf right beside her, but she doesn’t move to get them, just stands there, looking up at me, her chest rising and falling, quick and shallow.
I don’t have to shut my eyes right now to picture the way she’d look under me, her tits bouncing hard with every thrust.
“Need something else?”
She blinks up. “I… Would you… Can we talk?”
“Now?”
“No. No, after the shift. When…”
When everybody’s gone, she means. It’ll be Sunday afternoon, edging into nighttime and Frida will take off to be with her wife, the two waitstaff always rush out, too. It’ll just be me and her. “Yep,” I tell her, unclear from her expression whether this little chat will be a good thing or not. “Better get back. Pasta needs boiling.”
“Right. Yeah.”
She backs up and I move by her, leaving enough space so she won’t feel my pounding hard-on, but if she looks down, she’ll know.
I use the pasta to hide her effect on me as I return to the kitchen. Thankfully, Frida doesn’t pay me the slightest attention, unless it’s to reply when I call orders, and Toni, the dishwasher kid’s in his own world, headphones in place, dancing like if he stops, he’ll deflate.
It feels like hours later when the last of them leaves. The place is sparkling, pristine in a way few kitchens are after a shift, but I’m an asshole like that. Like Dad insisted on back in the day, nobody leaves until the work space shines.
Finally, anticipation edging into every part of my body, I wipe off my hands, undo my apron, and head out to the front.
Kit
“We need a contract.”
“Yeah?”
I shove the papers I’ve just printed in the office at him and stand behind the bar once again, pouring myself a drink. Wine, this time. I need something tamer than whiskey.
It occurs to me as I take my first sip, that I might not be able to drink by this time next month. Would it be that early? I can’t remember when you know, at first. Weeks, right? Nine weeks? No. No, it’s less. You tell people at twelve. I’d already told everyone, back then, when I miscarried.
“Pretty detailed,” Jake says, eyes still on the sheaf of papers in front of where he’s seated at the bar.
“I figured it was a good idea. To be thorough.”
“When’d you do this?”
“I had a lull.”
“During the shift?”
“Last night and today.”
Nodding, he edges the papers aside, his focus on me.
“Want a drink?” I ask.
“You trying to get me buzzed so I’ll sign this thing?” His eyes crinkle with a wry sort of humor. “Not sure it’ll stand up in a court of law if I’m over the limit.”
“No! That’s not what I’m trying to?—”
“Slow your roll, Katarina. I’m just kiddin’.”
Annoyance flares at that easy, good ole boy way of talking. It reminds me of my brother. When we were kids, Frank was always telling me to relax. Stop worrying. Calm down. None of it useful, of course, unless his plan was to get me ridiculously riled up.
“Right. That’s just great.” I lean to grab the papers, suddenly irritated as hell that this guy has the gall to waltz in here out of nowhere and tell me how to act in my own goddamn restaurant. When we’re talking about my body. This is for me, after all, not for him. He’s just coming along to get his rocks off. “You know what. Let’s forget about it. You’re a little too bossy for what I?—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” He’s got the contract in one hand, held above his head, the pen in the other.
I don’t want him to sign. To make this bizarre situation real. I want him to disappear and stop confusing me with his too-big-for-this-place presence. Not larger than life, exactly, since he’s not loud the way that would insinuate, or overbearing. At all. He’s just…too real .
I smelled him the other day when he bandaged up my hand and there were none of the things I’d have imagined for him. No cedar or leather or other so-called guy scents. No. Jake Brand smelled exactly like what he is: A man. Soap and skin with the faintest hint of sweat.
The scent wasn’t put together in some lab by a perfumer in an attempt to titillate the senses, it was created by nature and genetics and singlehandedly awoke some base, animalistic thing inside me.
In a series of flame-fresh images, I picture myself licking him, running my nose along his biceps, his chest, under his arms, his nape. I imagine touching all that skin and the body hair I’ve only guessed at from my few glimpses at his corded forearms. I’d taste him with my lips and tongue, test him with my teeth. I’d get to hear the sounds he makes when he loses control. And, now, since he whispered those things into my ear on Friday, I can’t stop thinking about how his face will look when he comes.
Decided not to let myself come until I’m deep inside you, Kit.
Two full days of reliving those words in my ear. Over and over.
None of this was part of the bargain.
Which is why I wrote up a contract with clear, concise parameters. Rules.
“We’ll do it when you’re ovulating?”
“Yep.” I nod, working hard to keep eye contact until he starts reading again. “A one-time deal.”
“No petting,” he goes on, glancing up at me with brows raised. “No licking?” He leans his head back and keeps reading from the papers he’s holding out of my reach. “No unnecessary foreplay. Unnecessary, huh? Well, sheeyit. I had my heart set on suckin’ those cute little toes and now you’ve gone and?—”
“No kissing .” I’m breathing hard again. God, why can’t I catch my breath around him?
“No?” His eyes glisten under the light of two dozen vintage crystal chandeliers. “We talkin’ lips or other places, too?” Like the steady stroke of a hand, his gaze slides over my face, my mouth, my neck, and shoulders, to my breasts, where it lingers.
“No. Kissing. Anywhere.” At least I sound firm. A true feat, given that he’s turned my insides to jelly with just that look. Which is exactly why I’ve got to set up firm boundaries right here, right now.
For a handful of seconds, he watches me, a muscle ticking in his jaw, those tendons in his neck standing out with stark tension. Though there’s no discernible expression on his face, I’d say that flexing jaw, along with the way his eyes are narrowed means he’s pissed.
Slowly, he loosens up, the tension eases, and then, with absolute seriousness, he nods. “All right. All right.” I don’t know if I trust his easy tone. “You’re in charge.” His perusal of me continues, over my belly, my hips, to that hot, aching place between my legs.
The way he’s eyeing me—like I’m a steak he’s about to eat or, worse, some kind of prey he’ll tear apart with this teeth—pushes me to add, “It happens once. One time.”
His only reaction is a sardonic lift of his brows. “Yeah?”
Why does this non-response make me think I’m the one who’ll be begging him for seconds when the time comes?
No. No, I am resolute on this matter. Once. If it doesn’t stick, well…that’s it.
I nod. “Once.”
“All right. Anything else, boss?”
“Don’t call me boss.”
His momentary smirk tells me he’s needling me. “Fair enough.”
“And don’t mention this. To anyone.”
“I won’t.”
“My brother never finds out.”
He snorts, clearly stunned that I’d suggest it. “That I’m the father?”
“The donor ,” I correct, sounding prissy. But I realized over these last couple of days, that I need these guidelines. Without them, I’m just a woman screwing an employee. With the contract, I can think of this as glorified IVF, with limits and structure and enough fine print to drive him out of his mind. That, I can make work.
We’ll both get our way. He can get his rocks off and I’ll get the child I want more than anything in this world.
It’s simple. A good plan.
He drops the contract, flips to the last page and signs it, stands up, then steps back from the bar. “I’ll let you know when the results come in.” There’s no expression on his face, no inflection in his voice as he says, “Night, Kit,” grabs his coat, and leaves.
It’s a relief when he steps outside. Or, it should be. He signed my contract, which I am absolutely certain has no legal value whatsoever, but which at least makes me feel like I’m heading into this thing with rules I can abide by. And with a plan. Plans are important.
As long as I stick to them, everything will be just fine.
It has to be.