Chapter 23
Late Wednesday morning, Tuesday stood at her stove, wooden spoon in hand, stirring a big pot of collard greens complete with a large hambone.
The kitchen smelled like sautéed onions and garlic, smoky bacon, and the faint bite of red pepper.
She put the Worcestershire sauce and apple cider vinegar back in the fridge, and the brown sugar container back on its shelf.
While she loaded the prep dishes into the dishwasher, she decided Knife needed to see this, to know she only had a few hours until she’d find out if she’d made them as good as the restaurant.
She’d made careful notes while she cooked, thinking this might be a good recipe to put on her channel, but she really wanted to show it to Knife right now.
She wiped her hands, retrieved her phone, and initiated a video call. Seconds later, she saw his smiling face, hair still damp from a shower, wearing a black Rolling Thunder T-shirt that stretched across his chest.
The sight made something warm and dangerous flutter low in her belly, but she ignored it and said, “I wish you were here to smell this. Look!”
She flipped to the other camera, aimed the phone at the pot, lifted the lid, and got a good shot of what was inside, then flipped back to the front camera and smiled. “I made it! Now I only have to wait a few hours to try it!”
“Look at you,” he said, voice warm. “Cooking like a proper Southern woman. Looks damn good. You’ll have to let me know how they taste.”
She stirred them again, set the spoon to the side, covered the pot, and stepped away from the stove.
“Of course, but I didn’t just call to tell you about my collard greens.
A guy I’ve worked with in the past, a kind of famous chef, actually, is branching out on his own, and he’s about to open his own place.
He was actually offended that they brought me in when he worked for someone else, but now he wants me when it’s his place.
” She shrugged and smiled. “Kind of a compliment, I guess. Anyway, I’m driving to Atlanta next Tuesday. ”
Never would she volunteer that they’d wanted her to start Monday, and she’d told them she’d be there Tuesday evening so they could get started first thing Wednesday morning.
“He wants me there for a full two weeks, possibly longer, to help him put the menu together and then write up all the job aids while we train the top people he’s brought in on exactly how he wants everything prepared, cooked, and presented.”
And she was giving him way too many details. “So, our next Monday will be our last for a bit.”
His expression didn’t change much, but she saw the subtle shift in his eyes. “So, at least two Mondays?”
“Yeah.” She swallowed. “He wants me to handle some other stuff, too. Apparently, he’s overwhelmed with all the things that need to be decided, and he trusts me to take control of some of it for him, or at least break it down to a few things for him to decide from, instead of dozens.”
Again, too much information. “I want to plan something fun for our next Monday. An adventure. Something outside, assuming the weather cooperates, but I have an idea for an indoor adventure if it doesn’t.
Meet at your house, go have an adventure.
Return to your house. My treat this time, beginning to end. ”
His slow smile made her clit throb. How could a smile look dangerous? “Okay. You get to decide the day — within reason — but the evening and night are all mine.”
The low, possessive growl in his voice went straight between her legs, and she reached to press on her clit.
“Right. Of course.”
He tilted his head. “Are you playing with yourself?”
She felt her face flame hot. “Maybe.”
“Wishing you were in my ropes, little painslut?”
“Wishing you had me in them, Mr. Sadist?”
“Always.”
The simple word almost made her heart hurt, but he didn’t give it time before he growled out, “Scissor your clit, a finger on either side. No touching it. Press into the skin around it.”
She did as he ordered, and he said, “Good girl.” She hadn’t told him she’d followed orders. How did he know?
“Do you have your fingers in your panties? Or did you pull them off?”
“Inside my panties, Sir.”
“Oh, I do like the sound of that Sir. Wish I was there to stretch you open, but we can work with this — can have that little clitty of yours burning and aching in no time flat.” His voice dropped lower, rougher, the Dom slipping fully into place.
“Pinch your clit. Hard. Dig your nails in while I tell you what I’m going to do to that pretty little bundle of nerves next time I have you tied open and helpless. ”
She didn’t even think about disobeying, and a yelp escaped when her fingernails dug in.
He kept talking, his voice low, owning every word while he told her exactly how he was going to clamp it, shock it, whip it, make it swell and throb until she was crying.
He told her to pull it for a count of ten, talking dirty the whole time.
She begged for permission to finger herself, but he only said, “Denied, little painslut. You’re going to come from pain to your clit, and nothing else today — or you won’t come.” He shrugged. “At least not while you’re on the phone with me. What you do after we hang up… I don’t get a say in that.”
It was almost like a bucket of ice water, being reminded she didn’t actually belong to him, but he didn’t let it take hold.
“Count of ten again, little masochist. Dig those nails in and stretch it away from your body. Fight those leggings. Use your arm and shoulder to torture your little clit — for no other reason than I want to see your face while you hurt.”
Eventually, when she was right on the edge, shaking, he gave the command.
“Come for me. Let me watch you fall apart.”
She came hard, biting her lip to keep from crying out loudly, her hips jerking against her own hand while he watched her come apart on the screen.
When she finally caught her breath, she asked, voice shaky, “Did you…?”
He grinned, slow and satisfied. “I’m fine. What part of Atlanta?”
“Downtown, near the aquarium. My hotel’s less than a block from the restaurant. My car probably won’t come out of the garage until it’s time to drive home.”
They talked another couple of minutes, and she heard a phone ringing. He lifted another phone to look at it — not the one he was talking to her on — and then looked back to her.
“I need to take this.”
“Of course,” she replied, trying to sound casual.
He ended the call with her, but the image of the second phone lingered in her mind long after the screen went dark.
Two phones.
Because she was a secret.
She didn’t have the number to his main phone.
It made her feel like the other woman, even though she wasn’t his woman at all. They were fuckbuddies.
That was the deal.
She walked to the kitchen to stir the collard greens and told herself it was fine. He wasn’t just protecting himself, he was protecting their secret.
And she’d have to be good with that.
Just to prove to herself how good she was with it, she went to her laptop and started planning their next Monday adventure, determined to make it a day they’d both enjoy and remember.
- - - ? - - -
Knife heard the Maserati from over a mile away, sitting on his front porch drinking coffee when the engine sounds rose up through the trees.
No mistaking that powerhouse for any other car, and it was running at a speed that suggested the sexier-than-sin driver was treating the posted limits as mere suggestions.
She’d told him ten-thirty, and it was ten-twenty-eight.
He appreciated punctuality.
He’d already opened the gate, and he left it open when she came through, since they’d be leaving right away.
He stepped off his porch while she drove up his hill. He stood waiting for her to get out, but she sat and stared at him a moment before she opened the passenger side door three feet in front of him.
The butterfly door lifted up, giving him a view of her in the driver’s seat — black leggings with little silver studs running up the outer seams, and a black and white sleeveless blouse with a wide black belt at the waist. Like she could be going to a board meeting or a rock concert.
The bike was out with the sleeveless shirt, so he nodded to his truck, but she shook her head.
“It’s my day. I’m driving.”
He looked at the Maserati. Then at his truck. He dug through his brain for a reason he should drive.
There wasn’t one. Not one he could say out loud, anyway.
So he stepped forward, slid in, and pulled the door down to close it.
Fuck, the seat was comfortable. Like a glove.
He pushed the seat as far back as it would go and put his seatbelt on.
And they were off. She slowed when she was past the gate so he could close it, and then they were on the mountain road, and she drove it… fuck. She drove it like one should when piloting a Maserati MCPura Cielo on a mountain road.
He put his left hand on his knee and kept it there while his right hand held onto the door.
The drive to the interstate was fine, while they were in traffic, and he almost relaxed.
Then she got on the interstate.
Driving a Maserati in the triple digits wasn’t in the same category as doing so with a regular vehicle. He’d driven supercars, and he understood the physics.
He still found his hand moving to the door grip when she threaded between two semis with what he felt was unnecessary confidence.
She didn’t comment. She was talking about the Korean BBQ place, telling him about the Zaya Premium Feast and how the dry-aged bone-in cuts were going to be the star of the show.
He was genuinely listening, but part of his brain was also monitoring the gap between her front bumper and the truck ahead of them, and finding it insufficient.
He breathed out slowly through his nose.
She changed lanes like a pro. Decisive, with no second thoughts, and he felt his right foot press down on nothing.
He moved it back to where it’d been and looked out the side window.
You’ve ridden motorcycles at a hundred and thirty miles per hour, he told himself. You’ve done things with both cars and bikes that’d make this look like a Sunday drive.
This was different. This was someone else’s hands on the wheel. Someone else’s judgment between him and the concrete barrier.
She was still talking about the restaurant — the galbi, how the marinade interacts with the grill smoke, how she was looking forward to his opinions about their dry-aging process.
He contributed enough to the conversation that she wouldn’t clock how thoroughly he was monitoring her driving from the passenger seat, and how his fight-or-flight responses were completely useless here.
They came off the interstate and she had to stop fast for a car turning left without signaling, and his right foot searched for the brake again while his left hand gripped his knee and his right held the armrest handle on the door.
He expected her to comment, but she didn’t.
He forced the hand on his knee to relax, and in his peripheral vision, he was almost certain she was trying not to smile.
Don’t, he thought.
She didn’t. She just took the next turn and flew into a parking spot, clearly comfortable with putting her car exactly where she wanted it.
She cut the engine and looked at him.
“Ready?”
“Yeah,” he said. He lifted the door to open it, and unfolded himself out of the car. It might be comfortable once inside, but getting out of it wasn’t.
She did it with grace, however.
He wanted to comment on her driving, but that would open her up to commenting on how much he detested not being in the driver’s seat, so he merely fell into step beside her.