13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter thirteen
M elody couldn’t stop thinking about her conversation with Fox. One day soon, he’d have to return to his home and company. It wasn’t like he could move his entire business. Not just to be with her. That was absurd. And she couldn’t expect him to work remotely. Maybe that was okay for a limited time because of his sick mother, but long-term, that wasn’t a viable option.
And after living in the city, rural life probably wasn’t exciting for him. If he’d wanted that, he’d have opened his business somewhere less bustling than Boston.
She pressed the buzzer on the center’s door and waited.
A woman’s voice came over the speaker. “Can I help you?”
“I’m here to see Fox.”
“Do you have an appointment?” The upbeat voice had turned hesitant.
Do I need one? “Uh, I’m a friend of his.”
“Only staff and students are allowed on the premises,” the clipped voice stated emphatically.
“He asked me to stop by.”
“I believe he’s in a meeting.”
Seriously? “He’s expecting me,” she grumbled and pulled out her phone to text Fox because this was getting ridiculous. All she wanted to do was see him. And she didn’t have a lot of time before she needed to be at the bar.
The door opened before she sent the text and a woman about her age with blonde hair, blue eyes, and sporting a chef’s hat poked her head out. “The receptionist just came back. Fox told her you were coming, so I guess you can come in.”
She walked in behind the blonde and looked around the reception area. Mostly it was a huge set of stairs that went up to the second level on one side and the reception desk and seating area on the other. There was a door on both sides with electronic locks.
“I’m Amy. I’m the resident chef.” Amy looked Melody up and down, then asked, “Who are you?”
Melody had on a pair of super-comfy biker-style boots, a black jean skirt that hit her mid-thigh, and a Dark Horse Dive Bar T-shirt with the bar name and logo over her left breast. Her hair was down for now. She loved the look.
Amy seemed to disapprove. Not that Melody cared.
They were obviously very different.
Amy tall and slim with soft curves.
Melody a little shorter with a whole lot more in the curves department.
“I’m Melody.” Should she say she was Fox’s girlfriend? She kept it to herself, unsure if Fox wanted everyone to know about them, and went with something relevant that explained her presence here today. “I’ll be teaching a class on setting up an Etsy store and running your own online business.”
“Oh wow. That’s great.” Amy’s eyes went bright. “I’ve thought about setting up my own little cookie company.”
“Well, I guess you can join the class and I can give you all the tips and tricks I’ve learned running my two businesses.”
The chef quickly glanced at Melody’s chest. “Don’t you work at the bar?”
“I own it.” With her siblings Aria, Lyric, and Jax. “But I also make custom leather belts and bracelets in one shop and custom horse bridles in another.”
Amy started up the stairs and Melody followed.
“Wow. That’s cool.” Amy used a badge to get through the door on the right side of the stairs.
“Thanks.” They passed several rooms with glass-fronted doors. One was empty. Two had students and an instructor in them.
Amy led her past an office marked SECURITY, another marked DIRECTOR, and finally to one with no description, where Fox sat behind a desk with three monitors as he typed like a hundred words a minute, staring at the screens. “Fox, you have a visitor.”
It took Fox a second to look up as he finished whatever he was typing. “Huh. What?”
Amy stepped out of the way so Fox could see Melody.
“Hey.” She grinned at him, loving the way his glazed eyes went bright when he saw her.
His whole face lit up and a big smile bloomed on his face. All for her. He’d just seen her not even two hours ago. And he was this happy to see her? “Hello, gorgeous.”
She tried not to blush and failed miserably because he’d surprised her by saying something so sweet in front of someone else, even though he’d told her several times that he thought she was beautiful.
Fox rose and came around his desk. “Come in.”
Oddly, Amy stepped in first, instead of leaving them alone.
Fox stopped and stared at Amy.
She put her hand on his arm. “You didn’t tell me your friend was coming on board to teach a class.”
Fox took a small step away from Amy, putting some distance between them, so Amy’s hand dropped away.
Melody looked from Amy to Fox and back again, wondering if she’d missed something. Why would Fox tell her about Melody teaching the class?
“We have several students who want to start their own businesses and be their own bosses,” Fox explained now.
“Like you,” Amy chimed in. “You did it all on your own.”
“I had help. Dean and Max backed me up.”
“But you were the one with the coding experience. You built your reputation and the company’s.” Amy gushed over Fox.
He looked a bit uncomfortable. “Anyway, Melody agreed to teach the class.”
Amy stepped closer to him. “I’d like to take it. I’ve been wanting to start my own thing too.”
Melody wondered if what she wanted to start was something with Fox.
He took a step away from Amy and closer to Melody. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with your job here, no problem. Some of the other staff have sat in on classes just to learn something new, too.”
“Great.” Amy threw her arms around Fox and hugged him. “Thank you so much.” She released Fox and headed for the door, but turned back before she disappeared. “I’ll see you soon.” The desire in her eyes couldn’t be missed.
If Fox saw it, he ignored it.
Melody tried to excuse it. Maybe the comment was for her, not Fox, and she raised a brow at him when they were finally alone. “Is there, or was there ever, something between you two?”
Fox caught himself from taking a step back. “No. Not now. Not ever. She works for me.”
“Apparently I will, too, when I teach this class.”
He held up his hands. “Not the same. Amy and I met casually at a business meeting and then a charity event several years ago. Since then, I’ve used the company she works for to cater business events, meetings, and a few things I’ve hosted at my place. I always request her because we’re…not really friends. We don’t hang out, outside of those things, but we are friendly acquaintances. She knows what I like and understands what I want.”
Melody raised a brow at that comment.
He huffed. “Not like that. Nothing like that. No. Clients appreciate a little wining and dining. It’s part of doing business. She’s a great chef. I can tell her what the event is, if there’s a theme, and she puts the menu together. That’s all. She’s personable and usually professional. So when I was looking for a chef to teach here, I hired her. While she is…interested, there’s nothing going on between us.” His hands dropped to his sides. “And I can’t believe you’d think that when we’ve been seeing each other for months.” The hurt in his eyes pinched her heart.
“Our online relationship wasn’t the same as what we have now.”
He took a step closer and cupped her face. “Now I have everything I ever wanted. And it’s not Amy. Never was.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “All I think about, all I see, is you.”
Well, wasn’t that just the most amazing thing anyone had ever said to her?
She hooked her hands on his wrists. “I’m sorry.”
He kissed her softly. “Don’t be. You’re jealous. That means you care.” And apparently it didn’t bother him that she was, in fact, jealous as hell.
“You know I do.”
He grinned, amusement in his eyes. “Yeah, but it does my ego good to know even you get jealous.”
She cocked her head. “What does that mean? Even me?”
“No other woman holds a candle to you, yet Amy’s friendliness—”
“Came off as you two having a close relationship.”
“Why would you think that?” He still didn’t get it.
“Why would she think you’d tell her about me teaching a class here?”
He brushed his thumb over her cheek. “I don’t know.”
“Why was she touching you like—”
“I won’t let it happen again.” He brushed his hand over her hair, soothing her. “It bothers you, so I won’t let her or any other woman touch me.”
She let her head drop back and rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “I’m being ridiculous.”
He pulled her head forward so they were eye to eye. “No, you’re not. Because if some guy put his hands on you, I’d make him stop.”
She had a feeling the guy would lose his hands based on the look on Fox’s face. And she felt the same way. In the moment, she’d wanted to rip Amy’s hands away from Fox.
And hadn’t he made it clear to Josh at the bar the other night to keep his hands off her? Yeah, she remembered that now.
Fox’s gaze turned thoughtful. “I don’t like it when she or others are so touchy-feely.”
“Why?”
“Because when you grow up with little to no affection, it’s weird when someone so casually touches you, because you’re always looking for a threat or their angle.”
Her shoulders sagged. “Fox. I hope you don’t feel that way when I touch you.”
He pulled her into a hug. “I can’t get enough of you touching me, or me touching you. It’s different. It’s…I trust you.”
She hugged him hard, not letting go, letting his words and what they meant sink in. She leaned her head back and looked up at him. “I could never hurt you.”
“I know. You hurt for me, because you care so deeply.”
“I do. And I know that’s how you feel about me.”
“I’d do anything to keep you safe.” The vehemence in his voice was tempered by something she couldn’t name. It felt like he was holding something back.
He took her hand and tugged her toward the door. “Come on. I’ll show you the classroom and you can tell me what you need to do your class.”
“A badge to get into the building. Amy almost didn’t let me in, even after I told her I was your friend and you’d asked me to meet you here.”
Fox kept walking, but glanced at her and raised a brow. “Friend?”
“Do you prefer something else?” She didn’t want to be presumptuous.
“We’re more than friends.”
“BFFs,” she suggested, teasing him.
He walked into an empty classroom that had a whiteboard at one end, cupboards at the back, chairs and desks in the center for at least twenty students, and a table and chair in front of the whiteboard with a laptop and projector.
As soon as the door closed behind them, he tugged her around so she ended up in his arms. He captured her mouth in a blazing kiss that had an eruption of heat and passion as his tongue licked into her mouth, tasting, tempting, destroying every thought except one. More.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and fell into the fire with him, pressing her body to his. Her breasts ached against his chest. She went up on tiptoe and rolled her hips into his, feeling his hard length against her. The mind-blowing sex they’d had earlier had satiated the sharp edge of her desire when he’d walked in her door with breakfast. But this ignited it all over again.
She bet that table, or even one of the desks, would support her as he stripped her bare and took her right here, right now. To let him know she was on board with that, she slipped her hands up under his shirt and over his rock-hard abs and up to his sculpted pecs.
The growly sound he made turned her on even more.
Someone pounded on the door. “We can see you through the window.”
Fox came up for air. “Fuck.” He stared down at her, his eyes blazing with sexual frustration. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.” She slid her hands down those washboard abs she loved and over his hard length.
He groaned.
“All that and this is for me. Never be sorry about that.”
He crushed her to him and looked over his shoulder at his buddy Dean. “Make her an all-access badge.” Fox turned back to her and, reluctantly by the look in his eyes and the groan of disappointment he let out, gently set her away from him. “Boyfriend.”
“Huh?” She tilted her head, making her long hair fall back over her shoulder.
“After the other night, this morning, what we feel for each other, you’re mine. So I believe the proper term for that, though I feel it’s wholly inadequate because I want to be more to you, is boyfriend.”
The smile she gave him made her cheeks hurt. “So now I’m your girlfriend? You used to think girls were yucky.”
“Yeah. But never you. You were always sweet Dee, the girl who made me smile and laugh and think that maybe life wasn’t so bad.”
She’d hated when he’d get those dark looks in his eyes when they were young. She didn’t understand exactly what they meant back then, but they scared her. They made her hold on to him all the more. “Can you believe we ended up here?”
He brushed his thumb over her kiss-swollen bottom lip. “We’re still just getting started.” Then he pulled something out of his pocket, took her hand, and set the hidden thing into her palm.
She held up the key. “What’s this for?”
“I can’t stand it that you came all the way to my place last night and I slept through you knocking on my door. I woke up missing you. I don’t want to do that anymore. So now you can come and go as you please. And I hope that means you’ll come by tonight, every night, and slip into bed with me.”
She gripped the key tight and grinned, loving that he trusted her with access to his place. She’d have to get a copy of her key made for him. “Don’t get grumpy with me when I wake you up.”
He hooked his hand at the back of her neck and pulled her close. “I’m begging you to wake me up.” He kissed her again, this time with heat but restraint since they’d already gotten caught lost in each other.
Good thing, too, because another knock sounded on the door. This time, Dean popped his head in. “Here’s your badge.” Dean tossed it to her.
She turned it over. “Where’d you get the picture?”
“Fox texted it to me after you sent it to him, so I could see what you looked like.”
She’d sent the picture of herself during one of their many online chats. Her wavy hair was a bit wild in the pic, but she looked cute in a pink blouse. Fox had not reciprocated. He’d still been pretending to be shy.
She glanced at the name below the picture and burst out laughing. “Seriously?” She held up the badge so Fox could read it.
“Fox’s Sexy Lady. Perfect.” Fox’s smile was amused and sultry before he turned to Dean. “Thanks, man.”
“No problem. Just part of the security job you pay me for.”
Which begged the question… “Why do you need so much security here? Isn’t Dean needed back at your company headquarters?”
Fox and Dean shared a look that told her nothing.
“I needed a break from Boston,” Dean answered. “And I wanted to see Fox get his girl back.”
“But you’ve been here for months. Right?”
“Off and on. I like it here.” Dean glanced at Fox. “I’ve got a call about that firewall attack.”
“Let me know what you find out,” Fox said before Dean left them, closing the door for their privacy again.
“Did someone try to hack into your system?”
“Yeah, but they didn’t get through. Dean’s on it. Nothing for you to worry about.”
“I worry about you. If they get through, that could be catastrophic for your company.”
“That’s why I have Dean and a team of highly skilled IT people taking care of it.”
She raised a brow. “Are you sure you’re not needed in Boston?”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “I’ll let you know if I am. Until then, I’m here with you. So tell me what you think of the classroom and what you’ll need for your class.”
“The room is great. I’m not sure how many people you think will want to attend my class, but this seems adequate.”
“I put up the class on our site last night. Twenty-three of the forty students we have right now want to attend.”
“Seriously?” She couldn’t believe it. She’d hoped at least a handful of people would come. But that many? Wow.
“It’s a great way for people with limited means to start their own business. Some of them probably don’t have a clear idea of what their shop would be, but knowing how to do it is a first step into actually dreaming they could do it. Sometimes, that’s the hardest part working with people who have never been given a chance to dream because they’re too busy surviving.”
She’d always had the space and encouragement to dream. No one had told her she had to work at the bar. She’d wanted that because it meant working with the siblings she loved, carrying on the business her grandmother loved and left them. “My dad gave you that chance, didn’t he?”
“He made me think about the future and what steps I needed to take to get there. Every call, after I’d update him about my life, he’d ask the same question. ‘What’s next?’”
“He wanted you to succeed.”
“He encouraged me to rise above my circumstances.”
“And you did that with Dean and Max, didn’t you?”
“We were a team. Brothers. We helped each other. Now I want you to help my students so they can be like you. Independent. Successful, doing something they love.”
“Then I better put together a step-by-step presentation on how to do that.”
“Do it fast. The class starts in two weeks. I’ve set it up for a week, but let me know if you need more time. It’ll be two hours a day, starting at eleven in the morning. I know that means you’ll have to get up early.”
She put her hand on his chest. “It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
“If, as you go, you think you need more time, just let me know and I’ll adjust the schedule. Every student will have their own laptop, so they can follow along with whatever you do.”
“Do you expect them to set up a shop as we go along?”
“If they want to, and so long as they don’t fall behind what you’re teaching, but mostly they can take notes and create a folder of ideas and inspiration from what you teach them.”
That was actually incredibly helpful. She needed to think about not just setting up the shop, but also how to take pictures of products so they stood out and caught shoppers’ attention. Marketing. Advertising. How to use social media to draw people to the shop.
Before, she’d had a vague idea about what she could teach others, but now the ideas were flowing.
Fox brushed his fingers through her hair. “I see your wheels spinning.”
She grinned. “This was a good idea. The internet can walk anyone through setting up a store, but now I know what I need to tell the students about competing with others in the market and how to stand out.”
“That’s why I hired you.”
“Have you though?” She cocked her head.
“The paperwork is on my desk. Wait here. I’ll get it.” Fox left her, and she pulled out her phone, tapped on her notes app, and started jotting down her ideas while they were flowing.
“Oh. You’re still here.” Amy stood just inside the doorway. She glanced at Melody’s hand. “What’s that?”
Melody held up the badge. “It’s official. I work here.”
“And the key? Are you moving into one of the apartments?”
She shook her head. “No. It’s to Fox’s place.”
Amy’s brows shot up. “I guess you two really are friends.”
“We have been since preschool.”
Amy’s lips pressed tight. “I had no idea he grew up here. He never mentioned it in any of our many talks.”
Fox walked in behind Amy and headed for Melody, keeping a wide distance between himself and Amy. He handed Melody the paperwork. “Sign all that and give it back to me. Then you’ll be officially on the payroll.”
She didn’t bother to ask about the salary. Whatever it was, it was fine with her. She’d do this as a favor to him no matter what. She liked helping people. And it was only a couple hours a day for a week.
Fox took her hand. “I’ll walk you out.”
Amy watched them with open curiosity. “I can’t wait to take your class.”
Melody gave her a nod, thinking she probably wanted to take Fox instead of a class.