13. Oliver
OLIVER
Igroaned around a mouthful of the casserole I was eating. “God, this is good, Kassie.”
“I’m glad you like it.”
I eyed the pan between us on the table. “You always make such big meals?”
She laughed, shaking her head and taking a sip of water. “No, but this recipe makes an enormous batch. I freeze it in portions. I do that a lot. It’s no fun cooking for one. I have soups, casseroles, pasta dishes in the freezer, so all I have to do is heat something up after I defrost it.”
“I appreciate you sharing with me.” I ate another few mouthfuls of the casserole, the chicken and cheese sauce oozing from the tortilla layers.
I copied Kassie and added salsa on top, plus some jalapenos she had chopped up, the spicy flavor hitting my tongue with every mouthful.
She had always liked spicy food. It was another thing we had in common.
“So you cook all your meals?”
“No, I like a takeout every so often. And I have lunch at least once a week with Quinn or Laura, so I eat my main meal then and have cheese and crackers those nights. Sometimes a sandwich.”
I found myself craving more details from her. To get to know her again. “What’s your favorite takeout?”
She looked at me as if I was crazy. “The Wong Man.”
I sat back, surprised. “He’s still here?”
She nodded.
I recalled driving that way, and I frowned. “But all those buildings are gone.”
“He moved to Smythe Street. A nicer, newer location. His son runs the place now. Still the best and busiest restaurant around.”
I searched my memories. “Joe, right?”
She smirked. “No, Joe Wong.”
I chuckled. It had been one of Joe’s running jokes. And the restaurant was called Wong’s Inn, but he’d always referred to his dad as “the Wong man,” and it stuck. Even his dad answered the phone, “Wong Man, what you want to order?” It was legendary. And the food was phenomenal.
“Does he still have the spicy beef and those crispy chili beans?”
“Yes,” she replied, pushing away her plate and sliding another piece of the casserole onto mine.
“Dinner’s on me next time. You order, I’ll pick up.”
“Who said there’ll be another dinner?”
“Hey, I’ve behaved.”
I mostly had. A few innuendos had slipped out. She’d caught me looking at her mouth more than once. I might have ogled her ass when she bent forward to lift the casserole from the oven.
She pursed her lips but didn’t deny my words.
I finished my dinner in silence. It was another thing I enjoyed. In Hollywood, everyone talked—all the time. Boasted, bragged, name-dropped. Rarely was there silence. It was as if the quiet would make a person think. Delve and realize maybe life wasn’t as perfect as they painted it.
So they rambled.
But Kassie didn’t do that. And I didn’t feel as if I had to either. The silence between us was surprisingly comfortable.
I pushed away my plate. “Incredible. And my headache is gone.” I stretched my arms over my head. “If only my backache would disappear. I hope a hot shower does the trick.”
She looked past my shoulder. Then at me. Past my shoulder again. “I have a hot tub,” she said quietly. “You could use it. Soak in the heat there. Maybe it would help.”
I sat back, surprised, touched, and pleased by her offer.
“Really?” I asked for the second time that night.
“Yes.”
I leaned on my arms, smirking. “Will you join me?”
Instantly, I got the glare. The fire I loved to see.
“No,” she stated obstinately. “I will not. I am offering it as a solution to your pain. Not a chance for you to…” She trailed off. “No.”
“A chance to what?” I teased. “Be close to you in a tub? Maybe rub up against you?” I widened my eyes in shock. “Oh, will we be naked?”
She stood, leaning over the table, bristling. “Listen—you in the tub. Alone. In your shorts, your underwear, I don’t care. Letting the water soothe your ache. That’s it. No nakedness. No closeness. No rubbing.”
I stood, mimicking her stance, our faces nose to nose. “But you could cure another ache, Kassie,” I murmured, arching my eyebrow suggestively. “A really, really hard one. It would only take a little rubbing, I promise.”
For a moment, she showed no reaction. Then it happened. Loud peals of amusement filled the room, and she sat down. “I give up, Oliver. Go use the tub while I clean up. You know where it is outside.”
I grinned. She was even lovelier when laughing.
With her head tilted back, her hair hanging down her back, the braid moving as she chortled.
I had forgotten how striking she was. Or maybe I didn’t allow myself to remember it.
She was pretty all those years ago. Now, she was beautiful.
And the more time I spent with her, the more beauty I saw in her.
I headed to the patio door, pausing. “Feel free to change your mind, sweetheart. I’ll be naked, but it’s nothing you haven’t seen before. Often, if my memory serves me right. And I won’t object if you join me.”
She waved me off like a pesky fly, but I wasn’t upset. I’d made her laugh. She’d fed me dinner. I got to spend time with her.
Well worth the backache.
The water was hot and bubbly. The sun was setting, the air cooler as I sank into the deep well of the hot tub.
The mist hung in the air around me, the heat and jets doing the trick.
I felt my muscles relax, the clutch of the pain diminishing in the soothing swirls of the therapeutic tub.
I leaned my head back, enjoying the peace and tranquility around me.
Smiling to myself as I thought about teasing Kassie.
Her reactions. She’d always been easy to rile up, get a reaction from. I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it.
I had forgotten a lot of things.
Like how much I wanted her all the time. Now that I was back in her orbit, had tasted her mouth again, that old desire had flared to life. I wanted to kiss her. Hold her. Make her mine again.
I wanted to hear her moan my name as she came around me. Fuck her a hundred different ways, giving her pleasure. Taking mine.
I wanted to talk to her every evening. Sit out here on her deck and listen to the silence. Watch the sunset. Eat her delicious cooking. Her pies.
Her.
I fought my growing erection just thinking about her. About us.
I startled as a cool cloth was pressed against my head. My eyes flew open, and I met Kassie’s gaze. “That will help finish off your headache. The cool plus the heat works wonders for me.”
I grasped her hand before she could pull back.
I kissed her knuckles, then turned her hand over and pressed my mouth to her palm.
“Thank you,” I breathed. I ran my mouth up to her wrist, inhaling the fragrance on her skin.
“You still smell like honey and flowers,” I murmured. “You always did. I never forgot that.”
I felt her shiver. I was sure she whimpered a little low in her throat.
I looked up at her, her eyes now wide with a new emotion.
Passion. Need. Her breathing was faster, her chest moving in rapid pumps.
The flush on her skin wasn’t only from the heat coming from the tub.
I tugged on her hand, and she bent lower.
“Kassie,” I whispered, wanting, needing her closer. “Please.”
The heat that bubbled between us had nothing to do with the temperature of the water I was sitting in.
Or the steam that swirled around us. It was a living, breathing thing.
We both felt it. She bent closer, our lips almost touching.
I wrapped my hand around the nape of her neck, inhaling the sweet scent of honey that clung to her skin.
I breathed her name, about to claim her mouth, when my phone rang from the table. Loud, insistent.
She jumped, and I shook my head. “Ignore it.”
I let it go to voice mail, internally cursing whoever was calling. But it was too late. She moved back, and I dropped my hand. “Kassie,” I pleaded.
“I can’t.” She shook her head. “I just can’t.”
Then she was gone, leaving me alone.
Friday was the day Davis had a special lunch brought in.
All the talent and crew sat around, eating together, the lines separating us no longer in place.
He firmly believed that the entire project was a fine-tuned collaboration.
The actors needed the services of the crew to do their job.
The crew needed the actors in order to have a job.
“One doesn’t work without the other,” he told me one day.
I liked his attitude. I liked how he ran his sets.
No-nonsense but fair. He never yelled. Not once had I seen him lose his cool.
If he had something negative to say, he said it to your face privately, refusing to embarrass his actors.
Having worked with some hotheaded directors and producers, I found it a refreshing change.
It was something to strive for in the future. I was learning with Davis. Soaking up the knowledge he imparted daily. He was always ready to explain something, answer a question.