Flavor Of The Month (Kiss & Tell Book 2) (12 page)

“Fabio, the head chef, called in. It seems he was mugged in the parking lot of the meat market we work with.”

“Oh, God! Nothing serious, I hope?”

He cracked his eyelids open. “Mmm. That feels good. Continue doing what you’re doing….”

She did, feeling a strange kind of joy at her being able to ease his tension in such a small way.

“Is Fabio okay?” she asked.

“No. I mean, yes. His injury wasn’t life-threatening.”

“Injury?”

He nodded and his eyes closed again, allowing her to concentrate on the sexy line of his mouth. “The mugger slammed his left hand in his car door. Ten bones cracked right in two.”

Reilly gasped.

She’d noticed the night before that Fabio was a lefty. That meant—

“Yeah, that means he’s pretty much out of the kitchen until he heals.”

“Oh, Ben, I’m so sorry. Fabio must be devastated.”

“That’s the word I was looking for,” he said, sinking even further into the sofa. “I could see he was devastated when I picked Fabio up from the hospital then called Lance to let him know what was happening.” His frown lines deepened. “I could have sworn the guy was a kind word away from blubbering.”

“Cooking is his life.”

Ben nodded. “Yeah.”

Reilly tried to move to his other shoulder but couldn’t reach so she began to straddle him. He squinted up at her, his mouth turning up into a suggestive grin. “Now that’s a move designed to make any man forget his troubles.”

She lightly whacked him. “This isn’t about sex, you maniac.” She felt his instant hard-on between her thighs and wondered if she could take the words back. “It’s about making you feel better.”

“That would make me feel better.”

She watched where he was skimming his hand down her waist toward her crotch. She caught his arm and laid it back down by his side. “Would you just relax? I took a massage therapy course one year. I know what I’m doing.”

He closed his eyes. “I’ll say.” He scooted down further so that his erection rested more solidly between her legs. “And what move would this be?”

“That move would be the ‘if you don’t stop wriggling I’m going to do some major damage’ move.”

“Ah. Sounds painful.”

“You have no idea.”

She smiled as she said the words because, despite his suggestive behavior, Ben was relaxing. Well, all but one part of him. She noticed his muscles slacken under her careful ministrations. Watched the tense planes of his face soften.

He quietly cleared his throat. “So tonight we go your way?” he asked.

She twisted her lips, working on a particularly stubborn knot in his right shoulder. “How do you mean?”

“Fast…or slow.”

Sex. He was talking about sex again.

And her body was responding in a way that said it was more than open to the idea.

But her mind…

“You know,” she said quietly. “You better watch out or I’ll start to suspect that you want me just for the easy sex.”

The pleasure disappeared from his face and he opened his eyes fully to take her in. “Trust me, Reilly, if this—whatever this is that is happening between us—was just about the sex, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

For some stupid reason, his response delighted her in a way she couldn’t even begin to analyze right now. Of course, he could also mean that sex with her wasn’t good enough to be just about the sex, but she chose to ignore that. For now anyway. She was sure she’d probably fret about that part of it at two in the morning when she should be sleeping.

She leaned forward and kissed him. “I like that,” she said softly.

He waggled his brows at her. “How much?”

She laughed then ordered him to close his eyes again.

For a long time, neither of them said anything as she slid her hands and fingers up and over his arms and shoulders then up to his temples. She was half-afraid he’d fallen asleep, until he hummed in approval when she worked on his hands, finger by finger.

“You know,” she said quietly. “All doesn’t have to be lost. You know, in terms of the restaurant.”

His gaze was questioning.

She shrugged. “I was just thinking…Fabio’s injury isn’t completely debilitating. Meaning he could still physically be present at the restaurant, right?”

Ben nodded. “Right,” he said hesitantly.

“Well, then, he could just supervise the other cooks. You know, teach them how to make the dishes the way he would. No, he might not be able to chop veggies or dice the meat, but I don’t see why he couldn’t do everything else.”

She watched as a grin slowly began to spread across his face. Then she stilled when he slid his hands up over her arms across her jaw then threaded his fingers into her hair so he could draw her down for a kiss. “You’re a genius.”

Right now she’d settle for bed bunny.

He gave her another kiss, this one long and leisurely. She felt a different kind of tension build up in him and transfer to her, making her all hot and wet. God, but he felt good. Too good. And while the sensation should have scared her, for some reason it didn’t. Instead she found herself merely enjoying the ride, ready to take this…thing between them as far as it would go.

She pulled back slightly from him and rested her forehead against his. She waggled her eyebrows at him. “Now, about this sex thing…” she said in her best seductive voice.

“M
OM SAYS
you’re acting like a whore.”

The following Monday morning, Reilly nearly spewed coffee all over the top of the table she and fifteen-going-on-forty-year-old Efi were sitting at in the front corner of Sugar ’n’ Spice. Five days had passed since Ben had called her sister’s house making excuses for her so she could sleep in. Five bliss-filled days of Ben coming by her place every night. Of exploring each other’s bodies. Of exploring each other’s lives.

And now she was being made to pay for it.

“I think the word you’re looking for is slut,” Reilly said, wiping her mouth and hoping coffee wasn’t dripping from her nose. “A whore gets paid. A slut just does it for the pleasure. Your mom was never really good at telling the difference.”

Efi smiled, her pink hair looking particularly bright with the morning sunlight on it. “You know, that’s what I thought. But I wouldn’t dare use either word in front of Mom or else she’d ground me for life.”

“Sounds like my sister. I’m surprised she used the word in front of you.”

Efi toyed with a sticky bun she wasn’t really eating. “She didn’t. She was talking to grandma on the phone and I was eavesdropping.”

Oh, boy. The one person she hadn’t heard from yet was her mother regarding Ben’s curious activities last week. She had a feeling that was going to change fairly quickly.

“So,” Reilly said, not about to go further down that path with her niece. “Why did you get up an hour earlier than you have to to come by here before school?”

Efi shrugged with one shoulder as if it was no big deal. Only they both knew what a big deal it was because Efi slept like the dead. “I came by to see if I could help out.”

Reilly glanced to where Tina was helping a customer. “What, for a whole fifteen minutes?” She stared at Efi through her lashes. “Don’t tell me. This is about Jason again.”

Efi turned about ten shades of red but shook her head. “No. Actually there’s a new guy….”

And her sister was calling
her
a slut?

She blinked, wondering if she’d really just thought that about her own niece. “At high school?”

Efi shook her head. “No, at Greek school. His family just moved from Astoria or somewhere.”

“That’s in New York City.”

Efi nodded again. “Anyway, his name is Kostas and, well…”

“You like him.”

Efi nodded. “He’s only a year older than me and he seems nice and everything, and every time I look at him, he’s looking at me, but…he hasn’t talked to me yet.”

Well at least she wasn’t saying she hated Greek school anymore. Her sister Debbie must be celebrating.

She asked, “And have you talked to him?”

“No.” Efi rolled her eyes then stared at her as if she’d gone soft in the head. “Mom says girls don’t talk to guys first. They wait for the guys to approach them.”

Her sister, the hypocrite. Reilly guessed Debbie hadn’t shared the story about how she’d met her husband, Efi’s father, at a Greek festival and made out with him the first night behind the gyro stand after everyone had gone home for the night.

The cowbell above the door jingled. Reilly didn’t see who had entered but knew immediately by the smell of his woodsy aftershave. “Hi, Jack.”

She heard him sigh before he walked into her line of sight. “It’s my cologne, isn’t it? The reason I can never sneak up on any of you.”

Reilly smiled at him. “That and our hunk radar alert. It goes off when you’re around.”

“Ha, ha.” He looked to Efi. “Hey, squirt,” he said, ruffling the top of her pink head. “Like the hair color.”

If Reilly had ruffled her niece’s carefully gelled hair there would have been hell to pay. But Efi not only let Jack do it, she was all smiles and pink cheeks. “Thanks, Jack.”

He looked back at Reilly. “Are the deliveries ready to go?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Only a couple of trays from the refrigerator to put in the van and you’re all set.” She smiled at him. “Thanks for doing this, Jack.”

“What are friends for?”

Thinking back on her conversations with Mallory and Layla, she wondered what friends were for, indeed.

Along with every other female in the place, she watched Jack walk toward the kitchen. She heard his mumbled curses indicating he knew they were all looking. Of course, Reilly didn’t think what she was doing fell into friendship territory, but, hey, she was only human.

And so was Efi, if her rapt attention on Jack’s tight, yummy behind was any indication.

“He’s all that and a double cherry coke,” Efi said with a sigh.

“I’m not even going to ask what that means.” Reilly made a face. “Anyway, as I was saying before we were so welcomely interrupted, if we women waited for the guys to approach us, we’d never date.” Even as she said the words, she wondered about her own dating methods up until that point. Ben had practically had to seduce a “yes” right out of her.

Efi’s mouth gaped open. “That’s what I told Mom.”

“So, then, what’s the real reason you haven’t talked to him yet?”

Efi seemed to be paying too close attention to her sticky bun. “I don’t know.” She gave another of those one-shoulder shrugs. “I guess I’m afraid he’ll think I’m stupid or something. You know, a hick.”

Reilly laughed then abruptly stopped when Efi glared at her. “You’re from L.A., Efi, not Toledo.”

“Where’s Toledo?”

“It’s a city in Ohio. But that’s not my point. My point is that I highly doubt he’s going to think you’re stupid for talking to him.” She dared another sip of coffee. “Ask where he’s from. What high school he’s going to. What he thinks of Southern California. That kind of thing.”

“But I already know the answers to those questions.”

Reilly stared at her. “Then ask him out for a hot dog.”

“A hot dog?”

“Okay, a piece of baklava. Bring him here. Tell him you need a New Yorker’s opinion on western baklava.”

“That’s so lame.”

“Yes, it is, isn’t it? But lame is a step up from stupid.” Reilly glanced at the clock on the wall. “Anyway, eat up or you’re going to be late for school.”

Efi pushed the sticky bun away. “I’m going to be late anyway, so why don’t you just call in sick for me and I’ll hang out here and help out?”

So now she hated high school. Complicated role, playing aunt to a fifteen-year-old girl.

Reilly shook her head. “Not if helping out is what you just did here.” She smiled. “Anyway, I value my life. Your mother would skin me alive if I contributed to your delinquency.”

“You’d be teaching me a career.”

Reilly got a bag from behind the counter and put the uneaten sticky bun into it. “What good would that do if you’re illiterate?”

Efi rolled her eyes as she slid off her stool. “I learned how to read in the first grade, Aunt Rei.”

“Yeah, but not the really big words. Like capital punishment. Which is what your mom will be facing after she kills me.” She handed Efi the bag then gave her a gentle push toward the door. “Go.”

Efi kissed her on the cheek and went. Reilly stood at the window watching her. Interesting how when the girl got ten paces away her step picked up, almost as if she’d already forgotten what they talked about.

Ah, to be fifteen again.

Then again, no.

She turned away from the window and cleaned off the table, passing by Johnnie Thunder where he sat in his usual spot again this morning. “Can I get you a refill?” she asked him.

He seemed surprised to find her standing next to him and pushed a button that made his laptop computer screen go blank. “Um, no. Thanks,” he said almost sheepishly.

“No, problem,” Reilly said, stopping to ask the other two customers if they were good to go before she headed behind the counter.

Tina’s heavy sigh reached Reilly from the counter. “I don’t know how you stand it, Aunt Rei,” she said. “Efi’s neurotic episodes. Mom and I don’t have the patience.” She sighed again as she slid a tray of scones back into the case. “God, I don’t remember ever being that young.”

Funny, Reilly thought, the last time she looked Tina was still that young.

“Anyway, Jack’s waiting back in the kitchen,” Tina said. “Do you want me to handle him?”

Her older niece’s dark eyes were a little too bright, her smile a little too…predatory. “I think what you meant to say is should you handle the situation.” She shook her head, took two sticky buns and put them into a bag, filled an extra large coffee cup, then went back for another sticky bun before closing the bag. “And, no, thank you. I’ll…handle him myself.”

She ignored Tina’s horrified gasp and could only imagine what was going through her mind following “The Ben Incident.” At this point, her family probably thought she was sleeping with every single male in the greater Los Angeles area. Then again, why stop with males? It was L.A., after all.

She pushed into the kitchen and found Jack sitting reading the morning paper at the extra large island designed to handle the biggest orders.

“Ah, a woman after my own heart,” he said, accepting the coffee then looking inside the bag. “Three? I must have been a very good boy indeed.”

Reilly laughed as she took the chair next to him. “You have been.”

He devoured half a roll then took a long sip of coffee. “Care to fill me in on what I did? You know, in case I decide I like the treatment?”

“Aside from making these deliveries for me three times in the past week because I’m having zero luck finding a part-time driver?” She shrugged and folded his paper for him. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess it’s because you haven’t said anything to me about Ben Kane and about our…well…”

Her words hung in the air for a long moment before Jack said, “What? The two of you getting in some major sack-session time?”

She reached to snatch back the sticky buns.

He chuckled. “I’m just stating facts, Rei. Not passing judgment.”

He was right, of course. He hadn’t passed judgment. He hadn’t even said anything on the subject until she, herself, had brought it up. “Why aren’t you? Everyone else seems overly qualified to do so lately.”

His chewing slowed. He seemed to take a long time swallowing the rest of the sticky bun then washing it down with coffee.

She, Layla and Mallory knew that Jack Daniels was a recovering alcoholic. In the beginning he had quipped that it was his destiny, having been named after hard liquor. But Reilly knew how serious the situation was. She had even attended a couple of AA meetings with him back when they’d first met three years ago. And every now and again he took up smoking to see him through the rough spots. But she realized with a start that he never really talked about that time much. In fact, he never really talked about much at all. He merely seemed to enjoy their company. Was drawn to the tightly knit group of friends that had come together after that comedic incident outside Layla’s free clinic three years ago.

“I’m the last one to be judging anyone,” he said quietly.

He rolled up the top of the bag and put it on the island.

“Besides, I figure you’re getting enough from Layla and Mall. Lord knows I’m getting an earful.”

Reilly frowned and propped her elbow on the counter then rested her head in her hand. “I don’t know. I mean on the one hand I understand their concern. On the other…”

“You wish they’d just butt out.”

Reilly smiled at the handsome man next to her. “That about covers it.” She traced a path on the clean tile of the counter. “Tell me, Jack, how come none of us ever…well, you know, dated you? I mean, I know we three women made a pact in the beginning. Decided that if this friendship was to work, then we would have to swear off any designs on you. But…”

Jack stared at her for a long moment. “But?”

She smiled. “You’re not going to help me out on this one, are you?”

He shook his head and grinned. “Nope.” He waggled a finger at her. “That’s the problem with letting a sentence hang. You never know if the other person is going to pick it up for you.”

Reilly reached for his coffee and took a long pull of the black liquid.

“Reilly, you know I’m here if you need anyone to talk to, don’t you?”

She nodded. Yes, she did know that. Better, she knew that she could say anything to him without worrying about it getting back to Layla and Mallory. And that he would listen without reservation.

“Do you have your two-cents worth on the situation?” she found herself asking, even though she knew she was maneuvering through a potential mine-field. “You know, on my dating Ben Kane?”

He rested a large hand on her shoulder and gave a squeeze. “Babe, I think you should go with whatever your heart tells you. Even if it leads you wrong—and I’m not saying it will—at least you won’t ever wonder ‘what if.”’

The organ in question pitched to Reilly’s feet at the quietly offered advice. She leaned into the man who smelled like the outdoors in the middle of L.A. and briefly closed her eyes. Had she ever been this close to either of her two brothers? She didn’t think so. And, boy, did it ever feel good to be able to count on him for some good, no-nonsense advice.

And, of course, to make her deliveries.

She reluctantly pushed away from him. “I guess you’d better make those deliveries.”

Jack scanned her face, as if trying to decipher her emotional state. When she smiled and tried to blink back a veil of tears, he grinned at her. “You women are a mess, you know?”

She laughed and cried simultaneously. “I know. I don’t have a clue how you put up with us.”

“Because being around you guys keeps me sane. Makes me realize how bad things can really get,” he teased. Then he gave her a tight, brief hug. “And because I love each and every one of you.”

She blinked up at him.

“Like sisters, of course.”

She laughed. “Of course.”

L
ATER THAT NIGHT
everything at Benardo’s Hideaway was running like clockwork.

Well, except for the irritable chef who couldn’t cook, and the still unfilled pastry chef position.

At least the electricity was back on, Ben thought. That was something.

Of course, until they figured out who had cut the line to begin with, he couldn’t say with any certainty that the culprit wouldn’t do it again.