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by Tessa Bailey
So she was fixing him for the next girl?
Fuck. That stung like a wasp on steroids. Her step faltered on the dusty sidewalk, and a passerby gave her a concerned smile. Oh, she liked the idea of Jasper being brought out of celibacy by some local chick about as much as she’d enjoyed the view count on her YouTube video this morning. Also known as, not at all.
“Nothing to be done,” she murmured under her breath just as she reached the Liquor Hole parking lot. Since the bar didn’t open until evening time, she was surprised to see so many cars parked in the lot. Maybe last night’s customers had been driven home by a designated driver? At the end of the row, she spotted Jasper’s truck and released a pent-up breath. God, even little remembrances such as the capable one-handed way he drove, or the way he’d helped her climb out, as if she were a Fabergé egg—those memories worked her pulse into an insane tempo. Truth was, she didn’t need a reason to be there at that very moment. Her feet had carried her there because who knew when such a small distance would separate them ever again?
It took Rita a full three minutes—and several irritated curses—to paste a casual expression on her face before testing the front entrance door, even though she suspected she’d have to knock. When it opened with no problem, Rita pursed her lips and stepped inside.
The sight that greeted Rita sent her stumbling back, shaking the wooden door on its hinges. Behind the bar and spilling out onto the dance floor, at least thirty senior-citizen women stared back at her, lips peeled back in bright, welcoming smiles. In front of each of them—on the bar or on folding card tables—little cooking stations had been set up. No stoves or ovens, but an assortment of ingredients, mixing bowls, kitchen utensils. It was like she’d entered a completely different dimension than the bar she’d stood in last night watching her brothers try to off each other.
Rita caught sight of Jasper’s grandmother, Rosemary, as she sailed forward through the group of white-haired women. “Rita!”
Her boots felt like cement shoes. “Hi. What…”
Rosemary drew close and encompassed Rita in a big, squeezing hug. “I was so excited when Jasper told me you were staying another day. Why, I got the phone tree lit up right away and moved our get-together to Friday, instead of Saturday. We are raring to be taught a professional recipe, I’ll tell you what.” She looked Rita up and down. “Black shorts, green shirt. Where is that rascal grandson of mine?”
“I was just about to ask the same thing,” Rita said, bolts tightening on either side of her neck. Until Rosemary’s explanation, she’d completely forgotten the conversation over lunch about Rita giving a cooking demonstration. Why would she remember something so offhanded when they were supposed to be back on the road by now? It had never really been a possibility in her mind. “Jasper planned this.”
It wasn’t a question, but all thirty women bobbed their heads with unrepentant enthusiasm, making Rita feel a little dizzy. And at that exact moment Jasper walked out of the kitchen, jingling his car keys, probably on the way to go pick her up at the Arms. Even though Rita had seen him only a matter of hours ago, the sight of his easy ruggedness spiked her blood with longing. When his gaze landed on Rita, she saw the purpose there, knew he’d spent the last few hours working hard to put the demonstration together, but nothing could eclipse the sudden anxiety. It barreled through her like an Amtrak train, releasing black smoke into every region of her insides, covering them in soot.
Jasper was in front of her before she blinked. “Hey there, beautiful,” he said for her ears alone, while Rosemary faded back with all the subtlety of a circus clown. “Changed clothes, did you? Damn, but those shorts hug your hips. If I didn’t have so many hawk eyes on me, I would turn you around and see what they do for your ass.”
Why was he talking to her like that? Couldn’t he tell she was debating whether or not running and leaping through the plate-glass window was feasible? “Jasper…what did you do? You shouldn’t have done this. I’m not…” Her palms started to sting, the sensation traveling up her forearms. “I’m not ready for this.”
A shadow passed over his eyes as they reassessed her, a slow journey over her face. “Sure, you are, Rita.” His voice had grown even more hushed. “You were in the kitchen last night and you survived. I thought—”
“You thought wrong.” Oh, God, she sounded like someone had hands wrapped around her neck. “I’m sorry, but you were wrong. You shouldn’t have done this. I’m going to disappoint them one way or another.”
“No. No, you won’t.” He cupped the sides of her face, eased into her space. And, damn him, it calmed her some. Not enough to ebb the terror, but enough that she could focus on his blue eyes. “This is just a hurdle you need to jump. Let me help you do it.”
“I didn’t ask for your help.”
“No, you didn’t. I don’t think you’d ask for someone’s help if you were on fire.” Rita’s body tensed at the choice of words and Jasper hung his head with a curse. “Jesus, I’m about as smooth as a pothole.”
“Everything okay over there?” Rosemary called, sending Rita’s heart into a round of thundering palpitations.
Jasper turned his head slightly. “We’ll just be a minute.” When he turned back to address Rita, his expression was one of determination. “I didn’t ask for your help naming my restaurant or giving my kitchen your seal of approval. Didn’t ask for this morning, either. But I’m damned grateful for it. Maybe I just needed to return the favor.”
Her head was full to bursting with arguments. Sound ones and immature ones, namely the one echoing the loudest. I don’t need these people. I don’t need this. Just turn and walk out. But then she saw the cookbook lying on Rosemary’s workstation. Miriam Clarkson’s Main Dish Cookbook, to be exact. And there was no doubt in her mind she stood in a room full of people who knew Miriam was her mother. That before she even picked up a spoon, she wouldn’t live up to the legacy. “Did you tell Rosemary?”
“No, she figured it out on her own.” Jasper sighed. “Every day I wake up wishing I’d never taught her how to use the Internet.”
If she walked out of the Liquor Hole now, she wouldn’t only be disappointing the women, she would be letting her mother down. Again. They would shake their heads, the way she’d seen so many critics and customers do, lamenting her inability to measure up.
Damn it.
No choice. She’d been given no choice. Resentment at being thrown back into the cauldron so soon making her throat feeling like sandpaper, she shrugged Jasper off and walked to the only available station, observing the ingredients. “I see we’re making french toast today.”
She picked up an egg and her hand began trembling violently. A ditch dug itself in the very center of her gut, deepening as the silence stretched, everyone watching. Looking for faults, of which there were so many. The egg cracked in her hand and she could only stare. Not really seeing the egg, but all the failed dishes and the fire. Always the fire now.
Jasper walked up behind Rita, reaching around her to collect the broken egg with a clean rag. She didn’t turn around to see where he discarded the mess, but his hands were back a few seconds later, lying over the backs of hers and picking up a new egg. Her hands were steadier this time around thanks to the warmth from Jasper’s solid touch, his reassuring presence at her back. But the resentment didn’t fade, making her acceptance of his help more grudging than anything else.
They cracked the egg together, releasing the yolk into a bowl as Jasper breathed against the top of her head. In, out. Rita finally found the courage to speak after the second egg was cracked into the bowl. “Would you mind bringing out some nutmeg and sugar from the kitchen?” she asked Jasper, craving some breathing room before addressing the ladies. “We’ll get the mixture done out here, then I’ll bring you to the kitchen in groups to lay your french toast on the griddle.”
That was all it took to get her audience chattering, their spoons tapping along the insides of metal bowls, eggs cracking along with jokes between frien
ds. On his way into the kitchen, Jasper turned and glanced back at Rita, but she quickly averted her gaze.
After the time they’d spent together, how could he not have realized being propelled back into the fire would only cause the opposite of progress? And who said she wanted to make any progress at all where cooking was concerned? She’d been prepared to move on, happy never to pick up a kitchen utensil again, until being blindsided by this presumptuous surprise party. Jasper’s doing.
God, the smells, the sounds of food being prepared were throwing her back to the Wayfare kitchen, flames ripping up the walls, eating up any evidence of her pathetic career. Her live-television flameout. Miriam’s quietly patient voice echoing past. Was that smoke filling her nose—or just a hallucination? Deep breaths. She would get through this. She would.
Hurt was an ugly thing, though, and it wouldn’t stop rearing its ugly head, looking for something to swallow. Someone to bring down with it. Perhaps Rita had kept the pain at bay too long and it had grown too much to control. There was a voice telling her to calm down before making any rash decisions, but it was drowned out by the ceaseless acknowledgment of bitter disappointment. All her willpower was going into staying put, going through the motions without breaking down, so she didn’t listen to the voice.
Chapter Twenty-Three
You done fucked up now.
Leaving Rita this morning, Jasper had known he needed to do something big. He’d never been a party to the kind of beauty Rita had thrown at him on that mesa. Setting aside her own insecurities to patch up someone else’s. His. Going a long way in doing it, too, if the new confidence he was experiencing told the tale. Maybe Jasper could fit in a thimble what he knew about a woman’s mind, but a man stepped up to the goddamn plate and made an impression when necessary. Of that he was certain.
And Rita was synonymous with the word necessary.
Unfortunately—as they entered hour two of Rita refusing to look at him—he’d stepped up to the plate and hit a foul ball. Even worse? A million times worse? She looked shaky as hell. Horses-trotting-over-a-rope-bridge shaky. In a way that made Jasper think he might have done serious harm trying to push cooking on Rita. His aim had been to remind her why she loved working in the kitchen. He’d wanted his kitchen to make the difference. His presence beside her. She’d made him feel worth a damn, and he’d been compelled to use that gift she’d bestowed.
Yeah, there was even a part of Jasper that had let him believe the impossible. That he could make Rita think twice about getting back on the road. But the distance in her eyes told Jasper he’d been a fool. It also made him want to carry her home, climb into his bathtub with her, and just rock.
If she could just see herself through his eyes in that moment. She moved between groups, giving helpful instructions and smiling patiently, even though it took obvious effort for her to be positive and upbeat. She was good. Really damn good. Her hands were so nimble, the movements of her wrist as she whisked so natural. If he didn’t think it would earn him a black eye, he would have told her. Beautiful, I could watch you move in this kitchen for around a hundred years and never get bored.
And hell if he wouldn’t mean it.
When all was said and done, the demonstration, plus the subsequent cooking and eating of the french toast, took around two and half hours, sending early evening rolling in, about an hour from the staff’s arrival. Animated conversations flared between each bite, probably making it last twice as long as necessary, but Rita didn’t rush, saying thank you when the women remained behind to help clean, hang utensils and pans back in their rightful spots.
Jasper worried that Rita might make an immediate break for the door once the last senior lady left, but he forced himself not to accost her, knowing it might be too late for patience but trying anyway by waiting in his office. Pacing the floor like a man awaiting sentencing. But when Rita walked into the doorway of his office, locking seductive eyes with him for the first time in hours, Jasper’s sentence became clear. And despite the denial his brain shaped on cue, his pulse began to thrum with answering male hunger.
“Rita, please sit down so we can talk.”
She sauntered into his office, releasing the bun she’d fashioned before entering the kitchen earlier. It sent glossy black hair spilling over her shoulders, curling at the ends. Curls that would catch around his fingertips, snag in his thigh hair. Jasper expected her to sit in the chair opposite his desk, but she kept coming, strutting right into the space between his outstretched legs, propping both hands on his tense shoulders and leaning down to speak a breath away from his mouth. “I’m done talking.”
Jasper knew exactly what Rita was doing. Seduction as a form of revenge. He’d stripped her of a protective layer this afternoon and, hell, he deserved this. Deserved to have his own weakness amplified. But Rita wasn’t shaking anymore. At least not in the terrified way. Her poise was back, and he hated the very idea of taking it away from her.
On top of it all, on top of everything in the motherfucking world, he wanted to fuck Rita. He’d wanted to fuck her on the roadside in the hot sun, those black combat boots leaving marks from digging into his ass. Resisting the pull of attraction was wrecking his head, his body. His cock was heavier than an anvil in his jeans, dying to be let out. Dying to ruin that tiny piece-of-shit vibrator for her, for all time. To show her how getting off felt when done his way. A shred of determination to talk, to right his wrong, still cycled through his mind, but it thinned every time his dick grew thicker.
Rita’s lips were still hovering a hair from his. “God, I want you, Rita. But not because you’re mad or want to teach me a lesson.” Not the first time, not ever. “Just listen a min—”
“No more excuses,” she whispered, licking along the seam of his mouth and frying his ever-loving brain. Her hands slipped down from his shoulders, easing the button of his jeans free.
His deep, prolonged groan widened her eyes a fraction, making Jasper want to grab her shoulders and shake. “What, Rita? Goddammit. You don’t realize how bad I want this?” Without taking her confused gaze off him, she slid his zipper down, the jagged sound making his stomach hollow out, his hips thrust forward involuntarily. “If you meant nothing to me, I would have rode you on my dick. Night one. Because God knows I’m so attracted to you I can’t even see or think or act straight.” Breathe, man. “But you mean something. I’m just trying to mean something to you.”
“Stop it, Jasper. Just stop it.” If he squinted he could probably see the wall she’d built around herself. “I’ve been respecting your boundaries. …I understand them. But you didn’t give me the same courtesy. So let’s just get to where we’re going.” Shit. Nothing would get through the steel armoring her. Especially not him, since he’d been the one to force her into a hurtful situation. He’d brought this magnetic, irresistible Rita down on his head.
Even worse, he didn’t want to say no. His willpower had so many puncture holes it was transparent. She was damn gorgeous, a little sad, and, yeah, needy. But no more needy than he was. She wanted a distraction from whatever pain lurked inside her. And there was a sense of responsibility in him—one he’d never experienced before—to boost her into oblivion every single time she required it.
With a barrier a mile wide between them, though, he needed to make an attempt to get them back on even footing, because he would resent anything that came between them when they were finally skin to skin. “I know you’re angry at me for this afternoon. I deserve it. So yell at me.” Even as he pushed the words out, his thumbs were drawing circles on the insides of her thighs, right below her denim-cradled pussy. Hypocrite.
Apparently Rita thought so, too, and he didn’t blame her. His brain had no control over his body around her. It craved any form of connection, even as self-preservation tried to apply the faulty brakes. “I’m tired of your mixed signals,” she whispered, dropping to her knees with a hollow thud, and Jasper saw curtains come down, signaling the end of the show. “So I’m going to send you a
really clear one.”
She withdrew Jasper’s cock from his jeans, sending his hands flying to the armrests, his teeth gritting so hard they could have shattered. His control thinned and stretched as Rita perused him, base to tip, pleasure—and, yeah, maybe a little awe—infusing her expression. She closed her fist around his thick flesh and jacked him once, twice, making Jasper twist in the chair like a man being tortured for information. “Oh, Christ. I’m in pain here. Real bad. Don’t play with me.”
His eyes were riveted by the pink, feminine tongue that flicked out against his head, then licked more thoroughly, tilting her head one way, then the other. “Playing is kind of the point, isn’t it?”
The armrest creaked beneath Jasper’s hands. His rational self was vanishing as if it had never been there. What would come after—after they both relieved themselves of lust? That eventuality was fast being overshadowed by the guarantee of hot, filthy, in-the-moment, unrepentant banging. Needing to be inside her. Needing her mouth, needing to pound the pussy he’d masturbated the night before. It was waiting for him, begging for him. It was his. But not until he claimed it.
Oh shit, that last part did him in. Not his? Rita was not his yet?
Moving all on their own, Jasper’s hands delved into Rita’s hair. “Quit playing,” he growled, freedom expanding every molecule in his body. “Get a little purr started in the back of your throat and take me back there to feel it.”
Rita’s mouth had just sunk down to cover the head of his dick, but she paused at his words, surprise coloring her cheeks.
“Tired of mixed signals, isn’t that right?” He massaged her scalp in rough circles, until her eyelids drooped, little gasps puffing past her lips. “I need you hungry for cock. I need you to let me feed mine to you.”