Chapter 5
FIVE
“You expect me to wait an hour before getting a taste?”
I glare at Slate, where he sits perched on my kitchen counter, dipping his fingers into the hot wax of a particularly fat candle as if he doesn’t feel the burn. More likely, he enjoys it.
“Yeah, so don’t try anything.” With gentle hands, I set my perfect loaf of sourdough on the cooling rack. “The inside is still baking. The whole thing will be ruined if I cut it now.”
The Stoner eyes the golden loaf. “Looks done to me.”
“That’s why I’m a chef, and you work in a dungeon. I know when bread finishes.” I throw him a not-so-innocent smile. “And you know when people do.”
His laughter fills my kitchen, along with the scent of freshly baked bread and rosemary. Somehow, the metal elemental fits here, with me. He’s the perfect fertilizer for my happiness.
The sound of the front door swinging open distracts me from our exchange.
Slate meets my wide eyes. “Are you expecting someone?”
“Not until later.” And not arriving on my doorstep. I still have a few more hours before I need to pick my sister and parents up from the airport.
“I smell bread! I demand sustenance!” Rose’s voice bounces off the walls. My younger sister has never entered my life quietly.
Why the hell is she here?
“Be right back.” I wave for Slate to stay put.
When I round the corner, Rose and I barely avoid a collision. Meaning she narrowly misses face-planting into my boobs. I like to say Mom and Dad didn’t water my sister enough when she was younger because little Rosey stopped growing six inches short of me, and I’m only slightly above average.
Even with the height difference, people call us twins with our matching raven black hair, high cheekbones, and perpetually tan skin.
That last comes from our dad, but the hair and kick-ass bone structure could easily have come from our mother, plus the curves.
Mom’s a plump pinup to Dad’s underfed bean pole.
“Hey, bread bitch.” The loving greeting comes from the unexpectedly early pain-in-my-ass.
“Insult the baker, and you get no bread. First and last warning.” I glare into her unrepentant eyes, a touch lighter brown than my own. “Your flight is supposed to be leaving Portland right now. How are you already here? Why didn’t you call me?”
Rose kicks off her flats, sending them flying across the hallway with a flick of her toes, the footwear almost landing in a potted pine tree.
“I lied.” She dives forward, wrapping a set of strong arms around my waist, lifting me off the ground in a combination hug/display of dominance.
“Look at you. Eating well down here, huh? Can barely get you off the ground.”
In retaliation, I tug on her braids. She yelps and drops me, jumping back a step to hold her hands up in mock defense. “Touchy.”
“Well yeah. I just found out you lied to me.” I bat at her fists, glowering all the while. I love the little demon, but her overly prompt arrival means I get no more orgasms today.
Damn little sisters.
Rose shrugs off the play fight and offers me a churro-sweet smile. “Mom and Dad were in on it, too. They’re already at their hotel. We knew if we told you the actual time our flights arrived, you’d want to come pick us up.”
“Of course I would!” I’d filled up my gas tank and everything. “What’s wrong with that?”
“You suck at driving.”
“I do not! My entire business is a vehicle.”
Rose rolls her eyes, and I consider making her sleep in the driveway. Or at least putting a scorpion in her room.
“Sure. You drive your food truck fine. Probably because it has your livelihood in the back. If only you cared as much for your sister’s life.
” She presses the back of her hand to her forehead and pretends to swoon.
“When you’re in a normal car, I’d rather have a grizzly bear behind the wheel.
That’s right. I said it.” Rose dodges around me.
“A five-hundred-pound bear has a lighter foot than you.” The menace enters my kitchen, and her teasing ends with a, “Hot damn.”
Guess she’s spotted Slate.
I come up behind her to see the Stoner has dismounted from the counter and offers my little sister a kind smile.
The man has somehow stifled a good portion of his sexual magnetism since I left him a moment ago.
Slate still exudes eroticism from his pores, but I’d say the level is more manageable now.
For me, at least. Rose lingers on the edge of drooling.
“Hi. I’m Slate.” He flicks his eyes to me, then away. “I’m Terra’s friend—”
“We slept together,” I say over top of his tame description and keep going when the man offers me a rueful grin.
“Like, just this morning. And we haven’t talked about anything else so don’t try getting nosy.
Slate, this is my baby sister, Rose.” Concerned most about my bread, I pass her to reach the oven, leaning down to check on the next loaf of sourdough.
“How’d you two meet?” Rose asks in her overly innocent voice, prying anyway.
“Through Harley.” When I straighten and glance back at my sister, her stare lights with glee as she examines Slate.
“Harley?” She draws out my friend’s name. “Do you work at the dungeon, too?”
Slate blinks a rapid rhythm, staring between the two of us in a hesitant way that makes me think he doesn’t have any siblings. Rose and I have a brutal honesty clause in our relationship that leaves everything on the table. Sometimes that includes tears and clumps of hair, but we make it work.
“I do,” he offers, after giving me a moment to cut the conversation off.
“Ooo, you kinky weirdo!” Rose’s feigned sweetness disappears, leaving pure evil in its place. “She’s into some fucked up shit, right?”
“Am not,” I mutter as I arrange a second cooling rack on the counter.
Rose ignores me. “I make good money. I’ll pay you handsomely for any and all dirt. What d’you say, Slate?”
The man lets out a hesitant chuckle. “Thanks, but no. I’m going to stick to Team Terra.” He even moves a few inches closer to me, as if I’ll protect him from my no-boundaries sister.
“Disappointing.” Rose shakes her head. “Are you staying for the Solstice?”
Like always, I fluctuate between wanting to shake and to hug my sister. Ever since we finished in the greenhouse, I’ve been brainstorming how to ask Slate to stay longer. So, of course, Rose does it in the first five minutes.
“If you don’t have any plans, you should stay,” I say.
Leaving my bread to finish baking, I face Slate to find him watching me intently.
“We don’t do anything fancy, but there’s plenty of food.
” I gesture at the pot of beef stew on my stove top that’s been simmering all day, adding its own savory fragrance to the cedar and pine and bread.
“Nothing fancy!” Rose gasps, as if I insulted the Gods. “How dare you! Our Winter Solstice cactus is the definition of fancy.”
“Winter Solstice cactus?” Slate tilts one dark brow.
“Our dad started the tradition,” Rose explains. “We decorate a—well the official name is a Christmas cactus, but we’re rebranding it. Anyway, we decorate a Winter Solstice cactus together. It’s the bell of the ball. Very fancy.”
“We get a young one,” I add. “Help it grow until the flowers bloom.” Then to my sister, “Slate’s a Stoner.”
“Ah ha! I knew it.” She points a triumphant finger at the metal elemental, as if he tried to hide his identity from her. I wonder if that’s how she, as a defense lawyer, approaches witnesses on the stand. Probably not recommended.
“Even more reason for you to stay. You can watch us pump that lucky cactus full of the Earth Mother’s magic and start the new year off right. You in?”
Slate holds my eyes. “How would your parents feel about me joining?”
The true question he’s asking lingers under his words. How would my parents feel about having a sex worker over for the holiday?
Just as I open my mouth to tell him not to worry, Rose scoffs, waving a hand in the air.
“Because of the dungeon thing? Please. Dad met mom at a burlesque show in France. She was the main event. You’re joining an open-minded family.
” My sister strolls back the way she came.
“I’m going to throw my stuff in my room.
I expect food to be available in the next five minutes. ”
“I thought we could fast this year instead,” I yell after her retreating form.
She flips me off, then disappears down the hall. When I turn around, I catch Slate grinning.
“What?”
“I like this argumentative side of you.” He saunters toward me. “Makes me want to bring you in line.”
My nipples tighten, and I dig my teeth into my bottom lip to keep from making an inappropriate noise. When Slate stops directly in front of me, he hooks a finger under my chin, tilting my mouth up for a chaste kiss.
“Seems I’m going to meet your family.” The words are a soft request of approval.
“Is that too fast for you?”
The slow shake of his head has our noses brushing.
“This is exactly the right speed. Besides, I’ve got the same safe words you do.
Don’t think I’ll need them, though.” The metal bracelet I’m still wearing drags my hand up between us.
He places a weighty object in the center of my palm.
“Here’s my Solstice offering. For your cactus. ”
Glancing down, I gasp at the perfectly formed metal star.
“This is beautiful. Where did you…” The shimmer of the titanium glints in a familiar way, and the connection snaps into place. “Slate! We’re not putting this on the cactus!”
I try handing the gift back, but he’s too busy smirking in satisfaction to accept it. “Why not?”
“Because we don’t make decorations out of toys that were in my vagina!”
“Little chef.” The metal elemental swoops in for a searing kiss before whispering against my lips. “You need to be open to new traditions.”