Cockney: A Stepbrother Romance (6 page)

Not, of course, that I’m going to tell
her
that.

She shoots me another glaring look full of daggers, “You want to give me some fucking slack?” 

“No, actually,” I say, smiling widely at her and loving the way it gets her all flustered looking, her mouth opening and closing like she can’t
even
find the words to express her anger at me. Her cheeks get all flushed and pink looking, and I can’t help but remember the last time I saw them like that.

Of course, that time I had her shirt half undone, my cock pressed against her thigh through our clothes, and her moans melting through my ears as she kissed me like our lives depended on it.

Suffice to say, I would be
extremely
curious to see
that
particular blush on her face again.

But I quickly shake that thought from my head. I have to be the hard-ass here. If not for her, at least for the rest of the kitchen. 

“Be on time,” I say again, forcing the grin from my face and mustering my hard-ass chef glare. 

And she
rolls her eyes.

“You know what, screw this,” she spits out, her eyes narrowing at me. “I don’t need this shit, not from
you
.”

I shrug. “Hey, you don’t want to work for me? Wicked, I don’t want you in my fuckin’ kitchen either.”

She whirls back and drops her jaw and opens her mouth, but I push a finger against her lips; her soft, pouty, totally fuckable lips. 

Oy, you need to shake your head right clear of that RIGHT now.

“Look, just walk away, sweetheart. Maybe the kitchen just ain’t the place for you.”

To call the look I get from her after that
“fierce”
doesn’t quite do it justice. 

It’s a look that says this girl doesn’t take shit from people. It’s a look that says she doesn’t back down from challenges, she chases
them. It’s roaring, and full of all the piss and vinegar in the world. It’s defiant.

And I
like it
.

Of course, a kitchen’s only got the room for
one
defiant hot-head, and that would be
me
. She wants to work in
this
kitchen, with
me
? 

Well then, she better ask nicely, because I don’t recall her asking at all.

“Look, luv,” I say, leaning closer to her. So close that I catch the slightly imperceptible intake of breath across her lips, see the way her eyes dart around mine, smell the
faintest
scent of some sort of lotion on her skin. “Our parents might be together, and you might live in the room next to me. And at home, we might chat all chummy like and have dinner and go do whatever it is stepsiblings do. But here?” I smile widely at her, spreading my arms, “This is my
domain
.”

“Yeah,
got it
,” she says, frowning at me.

“I’m not gonna be easy on you in there, sweetheart, understand?”

She scowls.

Jesus, I’ve got tattooed, 20-stone tough guys working for me who would’ve already been on their knees begging for a second chance and forgiveness by now. And here we’ve got little miss sassy baker-girl - Ms. Prude, the spitfire -
still
just giving me lip right back.

I watch the defiant fire blaze in her eyes; that challenging, obstinate way she squares her shoulders at me and purses those plump lips together as she matches my narrowed gaze right back at me, not backing down
one bit
.

This kind of defiance, and generally not getting my way, is not something I’m too familiar with. When I say “jump” in my kitchen, they say “how high, chef?” And women? Forget it. Even before dad’s inheritance, and even before I ever worked in kitchens, I’d pretty much never heard the word “no” from a girl. I’ve been leveraging my looks and that asshole bad-boy charm girls seem to go ga-ga over to drop panties since I was old enough to figure out how much fun it was. 

And yet, here we’ve got Chloe fucking Caulfield: the girl that said no. She said it five years ago, and I’ve been carrying that chip on my shoulder ever since. But now, here she is trying to throw sass in my face at the door to my kitchen domain?

I let my eyes dart for just a second to the way her blouse strains across the soft swell of those perfect tits, arched high as she squares off against me. And I want to strip that shirt from her body, I want to cover those mounds with my lips, and I want to slip my fingers down the front of those pants and tease her until she’s begging me for release.

The wicked little thought of Chloe begging me for
anything
is enough to get my cock rock-fucking-hard in my loose-fitting chef’s pants. Hard enough that if she looked down, she might get
quite
an eyeful.

I think it’s really a combination of things that puts the idea into my head, but once it’s in there, it burns like a hot coal.

Stepsister or not, I’m going to fuck Chloe Caulfield, and I’m going to tame that wildness.

The girl that said no? Yeah, I’m going to make her mine. I’m going to have her
begging
for it;
begging
me to make her come.

But first things being first, I
will
have her obedience in my Goddamn kitchen.

She starts to push past me towards the backdoor of the restaurant when I stick my arm out, stopping her as I just lean down a little into her ear. “Listen, I will
not
be easy on you in there. Do we understand each other, sweetheart?”

She mutters something.

“Chloe.”

“
Fine
,” she grumbles.

“Yes, chef.”

She turns to me, her brow wrinkled, “Excuse me?”

I grin; okay, this is going to be
way
too much fun. I look her dead in the eye, “You’ll respond with ‘yes, chef’.”

She narrows her eyes at me, “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Do I look like it?”

Everything around us goes still and quiet, as if we’ve hit pause on the whole world as we just
stare
at each other; a cold war of wills right there at the backdoor of
Jolie.
It’s tough keeping that gaze, knowing from my position so close to her, I could probably look down and into some
delightful
cleavage, but I stand firm. 

And then, the miracle happens: she
nods
.

It’s barely perceptible, but it’s there, and that little gesture is my small victory

“
Fine
,
chef.
” Her voice is
dripping
in sarcasm and disdain, and it’s not
quite
what I’m looking for. But, it’s still sweet, sweet victory to my ears.

“Lovely. Well, we’ll work on that.” I move my arm aside, nodding towards the door. “Go get changed and start prepping, we’ve got a shitload of work to do today.”

She walks away without another word, but I’m too busy eyeing that tight ass of hers in those jeans to bother saying anything this time.

Mercifully
, my station in the kitchen is on the other side of the room from where Oliver stands by the service window, barking orders like freaking drill sergeant. So for my entire first shift at
Jolie
, I’m mostly left alone.

Thank God.

Because after that little run-in this morning, I walked away a raging little ball of fury, ready to lash out at the first person to look at me funny. And the worst part? The worst part was that I couldn’t tell if Oliver being that bossy and commanding had me more
angry
or more turned on.

Please be the first.

It has to be the first, and anything else attached to that is just...oh, I don’t know, withdrawal? A lack of anything
resembling
a sex life for the last few months since I made the decision that I wasn’t going back to school in the fall? That must be what it is, because anything else is just
wrong
. He is my
stepbrother
, after all, no matter how aggressively attractive he might be.

I briefly wonder if “inappropriate sexual longings” are a lesser known side effect of jetlag.

And what am I saying;
‘bossy’
? Bossy does not even
begin
to describe Oliver when he’s in his little fiefdom of a kitchen. By the end of the shift, as we’re starting to wind down, I’ve seen him yell, threaten, break things, throw a fit, and hurl a cut of meat he deemed “ruined beyond any shred of redemption” straight from the poor grill-guy’s hands against the wall.

He mostly ignores me, mercifully, but he’s like a demon in that kitchen when the rush hits. It’s like he’s got five arms and three heads, cooking, expediting food from the service window to the servers; perfecting every plate like some little piece of modern art that someone’s about to just stick a fork into.

He might act like a dictator, but
this
is his domain, and he owns it. It’s certainly not
abuse
either, it’s...I don’t know, motivating? He’s really no different than a football coach, hurling obscenities and physically pushing his team to their breaking point because he
knows
they can take it.

And they do.

And they respect him for it too. Huge guys with tattoos and beards and facial scars bow their heads and say ‘yes, chef’ when he roars at them about making sure the hake is perfect, or that the bechamel is thick enough. It’s impressive, honestly, and, well, captivating I guess; the power he wields. He knows how to use that power, too. 

I suddenly flash back to that first time, when we knew each other briefly before. That time he demanded my lips and kissed me hard and hot like I’d never been kissed before. 

Oliver Beckett; cocky, demanding, and captivating. Looks like nothing much has changed since that time he had me moaning into his mouth.

I snap out of my daydreaming with a start, wrinkling my nose and shaking my head at the thought of fantasizing about my
stepbrother
.

My commanding, demanding, bossy stepbrother. 

I suddenly look down and realize I’m burning the brulee I’m about to put out for a desert ticket; badly. 

“What the
fuck
is this?”

Of course
, he’s right there the second anything in his little kingdom goes off-course. I bristle as I feel his voice in my ear, feeling his body and his commanding presence right behind me.

“Sorry,” I mumble, shaking my head. “I zoned out.”

“You
zoned out?
” His voice is louder now, loud enough that the bustle of the kitchen around us slows a little bit, people furtively looking in our direction as if pausing to check out a car crash on the side of the highway. 

“
Yes
, Oliver, I zoned out.” It’s my
first
fucking mistake all night. My
first
night here, I might add, not to mention the fact I’m still jetlagged. And after a night like tonight under those conditions, I am
fresh out
of giving a shit about playing any of Oliver’s little power trip games.

I turn to him, meeting his glare with my own, “Look, it was an accident, okay?”

Oliver is utterly silent, and other people start glancing up in the kitchen; the sound of a few hushed whispers and smirks the only noise in the now dramatically quieter kitchen.