Chapter 16
HARLOW
As usual when someone has plans, the universe has other plans.
All of the night's customers decided to linger over their cups of coffee for a while, enjoying the conversation and each other's company.
Cass and I had the kitchen cleaned up. I sent Shelly and Yvette home for the night. We could handle cleaning up the last table once the customers finished up and left.
"Should I tell them to leave?" Cass said, looking like he might step over and order them out the door.
"No," I said with a sigh. "Let them enjoy the rest of the evening for a while longer. They'll leave when they're ready."
I'd give them another half an hour before I kicked them out. Part of being a good host meant not being pushy when people were relaxing, even if I had other plans.
"Can you tell them it's an emergency?" He adjusted the front of his pants.
I pressed my chest against his and gave him a kiss. "Is it?"
"Yes," he said, his voice strained. "Unless you want me to pop."
"Not after we just finished cleaning up," I said, with a small laugh.
He gave me a look like he was hoping for more sympathy than that. Truthfully, he might not be the only one who was going to pop. I'd ruined my panties a couple of hours ago.
"You know what Boner would say," he whispered.
"Lingering after dinner is not a good reason to…dispose of someone," I said firmly. "No matter how needy we are."
Cass sighed, but I saw the smile he was trying to hold back. The anticipation. He could wait a little longer, and had no intention of killing my customers. Unless, of course, they came at us first.
I quickly checked on them. Just in case.
They were pushing their chairs back, laughing over something before they headed out the door.
"Thank fuck." Cass said, drawing the words out. He trotted over to lock the door behind them. He even had the presence of mind to pick up the last of the coffee cups and carry them into the kitchen. He had them in the dishwasher and the machine on before he turned to me.
"Now, where were we?"
I leaned back against the counter and regarded him.
"Unless I'm mistaken, we were discussing how frustrated we were."
"That's a good place to start." He stalked toward me, pressed his hands to the countertop on either side of me, boxing me in.
"I’ve been frustrated all night, waiting to get you alone."
"You have?" I cocked my head and gave him an innocent smile. "Why is that?"
"Because I can't resist you," he said, carefully enunciating each word at a time. "The first time I saw you, I couldn't even breathe."
"You could order a milkshake," I said teasingly, even though my heart was racing like crazy.
"You make the best milkshakes." He leaned in until his nose was brushing my cheek. "You make the best noises when you come. You make me crazy." He hesitated for a moment before adding, "Crazier than I already was."
He slammed his mouth down on mine, cutting my laughter off. He slid his tongue against my lips, pressing them open and pushing inside. Slowly, he explored my mouth, tasting me and reminding me how he felt about me. As if I could possibly forget.
Working his hands under my chef jacket, he ran them up the back of my shirt and over my skin, unhooking my bra when he reached the strap. He pulled it down and cupped my breasts under my clothes.
"Everything about you is perfect," he said. He kneaded my breasts gently, making my nipples hard.
I shoved out of my jacket, pulled off my shirt and let my bra drop to his wrists. He pulled them away so it could fall to the floor, adding to the rapidly growing pile of clothes.
Tugging my hand, he drew me down to my knees, then onto my back on the floor. He got to work pulling off my shoes, socks and pants. Then grabbed my panties and pulled them away.
"If you could work like that…” he said admiring my bare body.
"I'd risk getting burned," I pointed out.
"We wouldn't want that." He lowered himself to his elbow beside me and tickled my stomach with the tip of his tongue, then gradually worked his way up, kissing my skin, my breasts, lavishing attention on one nipple, then the other.
His hand went the other way, moving down my stomach and between my thighs.
"You're so wet," he marveled. "So incredible."
"You're incredible," I told him, letting my legs fall apart wider so he could slide his hand up and down my pussy, and his fingers inside me.
"I’m incredibly lucky," he said. He fucked me harder with his hand, spreading my arousal around my pussy, making me slick. At the same time, he took off his own clothes, throwing things in all directions.
"On your hands and knees," he said, his dominant side reasserting itself again. He slid his hand out of me and slapped my ass as I scrambled to do what he told me.
He grabbed my thighs, pulling them apart before pressing his face between my legs, licking all around my pussy and up to my rear hole. I quivered with every sensation he sent all the way through my core.
"Cass," I whispered.
"Harlow," he whispered back, at the same volume and with the same urgency.
"Are you mocking me?" I asked, looking at him over my shoulder.
He grinned. "Never," and went back to lapping at me.
With a groan, he pulled his mouth back, knelt behind me and pushed the tip of his cock into my pussy. Then the rest of him in one swift thrust.
"How do you do that?" he asked once he was fully seated inside me. "How do you feel even better every time?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing," I said. Each time he was inside me was better than the last.
He took his time fucking me. Pulling out slowly and sliding back in. Carefully and methodically. He pushed his hand between us and stroked my clit just as slowly. Inching us forward, one step at a time.
"Come for me," he insisted.
I could have argued with him, could have tried to hold on, but I'd been thinking about this for hours. One more touch on my clit and I was spiraling. Shattering into so many pieces, I wasn't sure they'd come back together in the same way when I came back down.
I caught my breath and took stock. All my parts seemed to be intact. My hair had come out of my bun and tumbled down around my face. Apart from that, I was whole.
Speaking of holes, Cass was still thrusting into mine, still slow and deliberate, until his body stilled, his hands jerked against my hips, and he came, coming inside me with a grunt that almost sounded frustrated, like he'd been trying to make himself last for longer but couldn't hold on anymore.
He thrust into me a couple more times before sagging over me and sliding out.
"Magic," he whispered. "That's what you are."
I lowered myself onto my ass and smiled. "Of course I am. I'm really a witch. Didn't you notice the cauldron over in the corner?" I jerked my head toward the oven. "It's the modern version."
"That explains everything." He sat down beside me, his now flaccid, damp cock in his lap. "You put a love potion in the food."
"Only in your food," I told him. "And Boner and Archer."
"And Jules," he said.
"I don't know about that," I said.
"I do." He rubbed the ball of my foot. "You may not be able to see it. He might not even realize it yet. But he's head over heels. Almost as much as I am."
"Almost as much?" I asked.
He glanced up and grinned. "I know what I feel. I'm pretty sure no one comes close to it. They probably think they do, but they're wrong."
"You seem very sure of that," I teased lightly. Not casting aspersions on his feelings, but love was something we couldn't measure, especially in someone else.
"I’m more sure of that than I've ever been of anything else," he said, leaning over to kiss my ankle. "Have you ever thought about getting a tattoo there?"
I glanced down. "I thought about it, but never got around to it. I guess I've been prioritizing these." I nodded toward the lines on my arm and the strikes through five of them. "Have you?"
"Not on my ankle," he said. "Maybe something on my shoulder. Do you think it would be too obvious if I got a picture of you and the words ‘Chef Stabby?'"
I laughed. "It would raise a few questions. Especially if Detective Getzoff saw it."
We might as well wave a flag over our heads to say, ‘Here we are. The people you're looking for. The people who know the answers to the questions you have.’
"Maybe something else then," he said.
I opened my mouth to say something, then closed it again.
"What is it?" He tilted his head and frowned at me. He seemed worried I was keeping a secret from him.
Tentatively, I said, "I was going to tease you but it might be in poor taste."
"Try me," he challenged.
If he insisted. "I was going to suggest you could get a picture of meatballs tattooed on you."
He stared at me for a moment, then laughed, sticking his tongue out at the same time. "That’s one for the maybe pile."
"I have a feeling the maybe pile is going straight into the dumpster out the back." I jerked my head in that direction.
"Well…" he drawled.
I laughed again. "I don't have an appropriate sense of humor. That's how I get by."
He exhaled softly out his nose, and switched to my other foot. "Me too. That and milkshakes. Jules uses anger to get out his frustration."
"I noticed that. Do you think it helps?" I leaned my back against the cabinet.
"Sometimes," he said. "Sometimes it makes things worse. He'll say things that'll upset other people. When they bite back, he gets angrier."
"Like me," I suggested.
"No," he said quickly. "You stick up for yourself. That's different. Everything you give him, he deserves. Same with Boner and Archer. But I think he likes arguing with all of you. And me."
"So you're saying arguing is his love language?" I asked.
"Something like that." He grimaced. "He's always been like that. Even as a kid he was the grumpy one. The one most likely to get the whole class kept in for detention. He was always getting into fights with other kids, usually verbal, sometimes physical, often when defending me and Auggie."
"I can't imagine you needed much defending," I said. He was nice, and laid back. More likely to go with the flow than someone like his brother or me. There was an intensity, but he kept it under wraps until the right time.
"I didn't, but Jules did it anyway," Cass said. "Sometimes I think he enjoys picking fights."
"I’m shocked," I said sarcastically. "Just shocked. Okay, not that shocked." I wasn't even surprised.
Cass chuckled. "I know, he doesn't hide it very well, does he?"
Once again I laughed.
"Not at all," I said. "But that's okay. It's part of what makes him him. It'd be boring if we were all the same."
"Unless we were all the same as Boner," Cass said. "Things would be…interesting.”
"Interesting is one word for it," I agreed. We'd be laughing a lot, never taking anything seriously. Now I thought about it, that sounded pretty good.
Reluctantly, I said, "We should get home. The others will want to know Detective Getzoff was sniffing around again."
They weren't going to like it. I knew I didn't.