Chapter Six
Owen
“For the tiramisu flavour, I was thinking we could swirl mascarpone and coffee ice creams together, and add some pieces of coffee-liqueur-soaked sponge fingers, then dust it with cocoa powder at the end,” Darcy said as he tapped the end of a pencil against his notebook, leaving tiny dots on the corner of the paper.
It was well-past closing on Friday night, but the two of us were still in the kitchen at Lick It!, ready to get down to testing out some new flavours.
And if I had my way, it wasn’t the only thing we’d be doing.
I’d seen Darcy checking me out in my wetsuit. I’d felt the way he grabbed onto my chest when he tripped and noticed how pretty and pink his cheeks went. And yeah, maybe I shouldn’t be making explicit plans to try and fuck my boss, but the signs were all there.
And if I tried and Darcy said no, then I’d back off, no hard feelings.
Until he said no though, I was going to proceed with my awesome plan to get Darcy laid.
“That sounds amazing,” I said, shooting Darcy a smile and watching him flush. We were stood shoulder to shoulder, and I was way closer than I really needed to be, but he hadn’t moved away.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, it sounds fucking sweet.”
“Great, okay. I know we’ll need to strain the coffee custard, but we already strain custards for the masala chai and tea and biscuits, so it won’t be any different.”
“Easy peasy then,” I said and gently nudged him with my shoulder.
“Shall we start with that one then or did you want to try something else as well?” He had a bunch of notes written down for the other flavours we’d discussed, but I wasn’t sure if he was a nail one thing at a time kind of cook, or try a bunch of different things and see what sticks.
“Let’s start with this one first. I’d rather focus on getting this one perfect before we try some of the others.
Although, I do want to revisit the strawberry and basil cheesecake we tried, because I think there’s something in that and I want to see if we can do it again.
But better. I just want to tweak it slightly.
Maybe see if we can balance it a little more.
” He pursed his lips and scribbled himself a little note off to one side.
I nodded. “I don’t know if we have enough spare strawberries, but, like, I can always nip up to Tesco.”
“No, it’s fine. Let’s do the mascarpone and coffee custards tonight and see where we get to.
” He smiled at me and shifted slightly, leaning his elbows on the bench and pushing his butt back.
I didn’t know if it was deliberate or not, but damn did it make me look at his arse.
It was so cute and round and I really wanted to squeeze it. And bite it.
“Besides,” Darcy continued, seemingly unaware of what he was doing to me. “It’s a Friday night. I don’t want to keep you.”
“Come on, you and I both know I don’t have any other plans,” I said, leaning slightly closer and dropping my voice slightly. It was the tone I’d found had a pretty solid ninety-percent success rate of getting guys out of their pants or onto their knees.
Darcy shifted slightly, his eyes going wide, and I smirked.
“I mean, you could. I don’t know.”
“Trust me, I have nothing planned.” I let my eyes rake over him, slowly and deliberately. “Nothing that involves anyone else, anyway.”
For a second, I wondered if I’d pushed too hard but then Darcy laughed softly. “Your plans sound a lot like mine.”
“Yeah? And what exactly do yours involve?”
“Not much. Something ridiculously simple for dinner, because I can’t be arsed to cook much for myself, then I might watch something, but if not, I’ll just lie in bed with my laptop and phone watching random stuff.”
“What sort of random stuff?”
“I don’t know, just TikTok videos and shit,” Darcy said, but the way he glanced away made it feel like there was more to it.
I knew I shouldn’t say what I was thinking, but hey who needed professional boundaries?
Besides, it wasn’t like I was planning on being here long term.
If I totally fucked things with Darcy, I could easily leave.
But I wanted the fucking to be a totally different thing.
“Is that the polite way of saying you watch porn?” I asked with a teasing smirk. “’Cos I know my plans definitely involve watching porn.”
“I-I-I… It’s…” Darcy looked shocked but he didn’t move. I didn’t say anything, waiting to see what Darcy would do. “That’s very personal.”
“I know. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want. And you can tell me to completely sod off, no hard feelings.”
“It’s… just not the sort of question I expected you to ask.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know,” he said. Then he sighed and chuckled softly. “I’m usually really good at sidestepping questions about my personal life, even if it means inventing things. But this one has thrown me.”
“Inventing things?” I asked, tilting my head slightly. I knew Darcy kept things close to his chest, but I hadn’t realised he’d gone as far as lying about his personal life to get his friends off his back.
Darcy cringed slightly and put his face in his hands, mumbling quietly. “I had to go to the doctor about my stress and, to cover, I told Alfie and Milo I had a UTI.”
“What?” I asked, unsure if I’d heard him correctly.
“I told Alfie and Milo I had a UTI instead of admitting I’m struggling with my blood pressure because of stress,” Darcy said, turning his head slightly so his mouth was a little more exposed.
“It’s so fucking embarrassing. Why couldn’t I tell them?
And why the hell did I say it was a UTI? Of all things!”
“I mean, it’s definitely a new one. But don’t sweat it.”
“Really? But they’re my best friends. Shouldn’t I be honest with them?”
“Yeah, probably. But I’m guessing you don’t want to worry them? Plus, we all know Milo can be kinda pushy.”
“So pushy,” Darcy said, his voice full of loving exasperation.
“I know it comes from a place of love but, like, sometimes I want my privacy. But I guess we do run this business together, so… maybe I need to be more honest when it’s stuff that could affect the shop.
I mean, if I can’t get my blood pressure or my stress down and something happens, that’s going to have a knock-on effect.
Everyone else will have to pick up the slack.
You’ll have to do more hours, so will Alfie and Milo and Ellie, and I can’t put than on any of you. And—”
“Hey, it’s okay.” I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed, gently breaking his worried rambling.
“Sorry, I’ve, er… I shouldn’t be bothering you with this.”
“You can always bother me with this,” I said, giving him a smile. “You need people to talk to, Darcy, you need to like, get this shit off your chest. It’s not good for you to keep everything bottled up. And you need to find a good form of stress relief.”
“It’s what the running is meant to be for.”
“Is it helping?”
“Sort of.”
“What else are you doing?”
“For what?”
“Stress relief. You know getting sleep, drinking water, meditating, sex, yoga, eating well.”
Darcy stared at me and I immediately knew he’d caught what I’d thrown into the middle. “What was the middle one?”
“Meditating?”
“No, after that.”
“Sex,” I said. My gaze met his and I saw a spark of hunger ignite there. It was the same look he gave me when he saw me on the beach, or when he thought I wasn’t looking when we were working. He wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was. And I was very glad.
It meant I knew exactly where I stood with him.
He snorted. “Yeah, well that usually involves a partner and I’m horrifically single. And I’m not sure my solo sessions are really helping.”
“That’s a shame. I guess you could always find someone to hook up with though… take the edge off… I bet there are enough tourists around.”
“Yeah, like I have time,” he said witheringly. “It’s not like someone is just going to stroll into my life and say ‘hey, Darcy, you’re stressed. Want to fuck?’. This isn’t porn.”
I smirked and tilted my head a little closer. “You haven’t asked me.” Darcy’s eyes widened, his mouth falling open with the most deliciously adorable shock.
“But I’m your boss…” He sounded unsure, or more like he was saying the words for the sake of saying them.
“So? We’re both consenting adults, and you don’t exactly hold my career in your hand, so it’s not like one of us is taking advantage of the other.
If we want to, why the hell can’t we?” I lowered my voice and moved closer so I was brushing up against him, my lips practically grazing the shell of his ear.
“Besides, orgasms are very good for stress relief and I’ll make sure you get a lot of them. ”
Darcy exhaled the softest gasp. It was almost like a moan.
“Let me help you unwind, Darcy,” I said, putting my hand on his lower back. “No strings attached, just really fucking good sex. I promise it’ll make you feel better.”
“Yes.” He turned towards me, his mouth suddenly level with mine. “Fuck me, Owen.”
I grinned and put my hand on his neck, drawing him in for a kiss.
Darcy’s mouth was desperate and needy, and he grabbed my shirt in a way that was almost feral, gasping and moaning into my mouth as he threw himself into my arms. He pushed me up against the bench, bowls clattering and spoons crashing onto the floor.
We probably needed to get out of the kitchen before this got any further, because I really didn’t want to have to deep clean shit because we got cum on the counter. But Darcy was kissing me with so much hunger I couldn’t bring myself to stop him.
Not yet anyway.
Not when I could push my tongue into his mouth and get the sweetest fucking noises in return.
My hand slid down his back to squeeze his arse and he pushed back into my touch, his body pleading for more. I could feel his cock getting hard against my thigh, and fuck, his desperation was the hottest thing I’d seen in years.
His hands slid under my T-shirt, his fingers roaming up across my stomach to my chest, squeezing my pecs and making me groan as he teased my nipples.
Then he started to draw his fingers down, running them under the waistband of my shorts.
And I knew we had to stop now before I lifted him onto the counter and fucked him here and now.
I gently put my hand on his chest to stop him, pulling my mouth away and watching him pout sweetly. “Not here, darlin’. Not if you don’t want to explain to Milo why we were in at five to deep clean everything.”
Darcy groaned and put his head on my shoulder. “But I… I want…”
“I know. Let’s go back to yours. And I’ll give you whatever you want, okay?”
“Okay.”
From the way Darcy looked at me, I knew I was in for one hell of a night.
And I couldn’t wait to see just what was under that angelic facade of his.