The Contract: Sunshine (13 page)

Sunshine picked up one of the chocolate chip cookies that had already cooled.  “My mother’s bright idea.”   Leaning against the kitchen island, she broke the cookie in half.  “She thinks my dating a preacher will really please my grandmother.”  She took a bite from one of the cookie halves.

“What do you think?”

She finished chewing and swallowed before she spoke.  “I think my mother is an idiot and that preacher last night proved my point.”

Yoon had to agree, but he wasn’t prepared to call her mother an idiot aloud.  Sometimes people didn’t appreciate the op
i
nions of others when it came to their family.  Besides, he didn’t really know enough about her mother or her family to pass judgment.  

However, he did think they should be ashamed for not being the type of family Sunshine could call on when she found herself in trouble.  If they were, he wouldn’t have been able to blackmail her into hel
p
ing him.

He watched in silence as she finished the cookie and brushed her palms together as if she was brushing away the crumbs.  His eyes fo
l
lowed her movements as she opened the oven and peeped inside at the next batch of cookies that was baking.

His eyes smoldered with fire.  She shifted from foot to foot and her toes wiggled against the temperature controlled tiled flooring.  It was as if she was hearing a tune in her head that he wasn’t privy to that caused her sexy round bottom to wiggle from side to side.  The long t-shirt rode up but not enough to see the sexy lace etched lavender panties he spotted last night while she was sleeping on the couch.

“Hmm.  Almost done,” she murmured.

So I
am
, he thought.   “I’m done with all this talking.”

“You like yours while they’re hot?”

“Oh, yeah.”  He nodded with a big grin.

“I will give it to you, but you really should let it cool at least a little bit or the chocolate will burn your tongue.”

He only got the words “chocolate” and “tongue.”  Both sounded very sexy to him.  Sunshine’s chocolate and his tongue.  What a heady thought.  The crotch of his jeans tightened and he shifted from one but
t
cheek to the other on the bench of the breakfast nook where he sat.

She stood and placed her hand on her lower back and stretched backwards until her naked nipples beneath his t-shirt blossomed large and succulent.  His mouth w
a
tered.

Her feet padded softly to the refrigerator and she removed a carton of milk.  Moving to the cabinet where he kept the glasses, she ros
e
on her tiptoes and the t-shirt rode high.  This time he caught a glimpse of all her thighs and the beginning swell of her butt chee
k
s where her undies had ridden up. 

Yoon found himself drifting to the side as if doing so would allow him to see more than what was logically possible in her current pos
i
tion.

His chin practically kissed the corner of the table when he was saved from making a complete fool of himself by the shirt falling back down into place.  The sound of the two glass tumblers softly being placed on the counter next to the milk carton was heard in the quiet room.  It was so quiet he was surprised she didn’t hear his heavy breat
h
ing.

Clearing his throat, he picked up his fork and jabbed at what was left of the eggs and shoved a bite into his mouth.  It wasn’t nearly as a
p
pealing now that it was cold.

Ding
!  Yoon jumped as the stove’s oven timer sounded.  He was strung so tight he was going to have to go and take a very cold shower and pray that it helped.

“Next batch of cookies are ready!”  She announced cheerfully.

Yoon rolled his eyes. 
Cookies
for goodness sakes!  And it wasn’t the kind of
cookies
he hoped to be snacking on this morning.  He was more interested in what her
cookies
tasted like.  

She couldn’t be a paid escort, he reasoned.  Did escorts bake cookies and cook breakfast like a 5-star chef?  He looked down at his plate.  She had even decorated the side of the plate with curly green stuff like one would find in a restaurant. 

As a matter of fact, why did he have this curly green stuff in his refrigerator?  His last housekeeper never served him a plate that was d
e
corated.

He needed to take inventory of his own kitchen.  He rarely went in the kitchen except to get something to drink out of the refrigerator.  This was the first time in the three years he lived in this particular co
n
dominium that he sat down and ate a meal in the breakfast nook area.

Yoon usually ate in his office or on the sofa in front of the telev
i
sion when he was alone and in the formal dining room when he had guests. 

He was stunned Sunshine had found the ingredients she needed in his pantry to make the chocolate chip cookies.  Why would his last housekeeper purchase chocolate chips?  Brown sugar?  If she had been baking cookies for an
y
one, it wasn’t for him.  Maybe she just never got around to making them.  He did keep her busy with his impromptu di
n
ner and cocktail parties and his friends were definitely not the
cookie
s types. 

“Sunshine?”

“Yes?”  With oven mitts, she placed the hot pan of cookies on a waiting rooster shaped black iron trivet.

“My housekeeper of all things?” he asked suspiciously.  “Why?”

“Why not?”  Her eyebrows lifted in question.  “Okay I will be honest with you.  As of tomorrow, I will officially hit my rock bottom.  I had an eviction notice on my door this morning.”

“I see.”  Yoon didn’t know what to say.  He’d never been good at empathizing foolishness when it came to money.

“Let’s just say I hoped the preacher thought I looked like a mi
l
lion dollars yesterday in that beautiful designer suit and shoes that set me back three months rent.

Yoon choked on the juice he was finishing up.  “You used your rent money to buy expensive clothing?”  He managed to asked between clenched teeth even though hearing it the first time was one time too many.  How could she be so such a reckless idiot?

He held his tongue.  He practically bit it off, but he resigned himself to hold verbalizing his judgment.  She was already feeling the outcome of her foolhardiness by receiving an eviction notice.   He didn’t see a reason to kick her when she was already down.

Sunshine picked up the spatula and carefully moved the warm cookies to a silver contraption she called a “cooling rack.”  Another item he didn’t know he owned or why the housekeeper would buy it. 

It could have been any one of the many housekeepers he went through that purchased these items.  They may have had good intentions like baking him cookies, but after one of his infamous clientele parties, didn’t stick around long enough to follow through.

He couldn’t pass judgment on Sunshine when he haphazardly paid out household expenses without looking at the receipts to see what he was actually purchasing and if it was necessary.

The difference was he could afford to do so.  He didn’t notice because a few thousand a month didn’t matter to him one way or the ot
h
er.  But to Sunshine, it meant having a roof over her head and food in her stomach.  So why did she chance it on one date with a guy her mother set up for her to meet?  What was he missing in this scenario?

“Sunshine, what about your mother?  Can’t you call her and tell her your situation?”

“No way,” she replied with hesitation shaking her head.  Her freshly scrubbed face, void of all makeup, scrunched up as if she smelled something bad.  “My mother is the reason I’m in this mess.  I don’t want anything to do with anyone in my family until I can be completely ind
e
pendent of them.  As you can see, I’m not off to a good start,” she admi
t
ted with a sheepish smile his way.

Yoon thought her completely adorable at that moment.  Any anger he had felt at her confession of stupidity fell aside.  At the m
o
ment she looked like a grownup sixteen-year-old.

From her bare feet; the hanging shapeless t-shirt on her petite frame; the ponytail atop her head bouncing about like one of those yapping dogs that overcompensated for their size by bar
k
ing too much.  Her soft features, saddened when she thought he wasn’t looking, told him she wasn’t as strong and carefree as he first believed.

Yoon also found it hard to believe she was the paid escort he first believed her to be because of the expensive clothing and lack of monetary resources.  Also the fact that she had been the sexual pursuer the night before, he assumed she was giving him a taste of what he could have.  And she had him.  He was prepared to be very generous for her present and future services as he had with the women he dated in the past.

Yet, surprisingly the woman he woke up to this morning was nothing like the one that he held in his arms last night.  This woman was vulnerable.  This woman that he stared at now scared the hell out of him because she touched some deep seeded need inside him that he thought had died after he failed at his first marriage. 

Seeing Sunshine like this in his kitchen and in his shirt cooking the food that he bought and moving around the kitchen as if she’d lived there since the day he moved in brought out a protective instinct in him.

His eyes soaked her in as she flitted from the kitchen island back to the countertop and next to the oven to spoon up yet another batch of cookie dough onto the cookie sheet.  She fingered up a dollop of cookie dough and sucked it off her finger.  

Yoon’s body ignited again in intense awareness of her se
x
iness, a sexiness he thought was all intentional to snare him the night before.  He now could see it was just Sunshine being Sunshine.

His heart raced with a sense of panic.  It was happening too fast.  Had he gone crazy or had his mother been right about too much lonel
i
ness would eventually drive him insane?  How could this woman, in less than twenty-four hours, make him question all the conclusions he made about himself and his life?

Sunshine brought out a domestic need he thought he was incap
a
ble of feeling.  He spoke to his father about it and several of the men that worked with him after they would cry off a late night of working or going out for drinks afterwards because they wanted to go home to their wives.  He couldn’t imagine any man wanting to hurry home to their wife unless they were trying to prevent her nagging. 

Watching Sunshine baking those cookies of hers made him u
n
derstand why those men rushed home to their wives.  They were afraid they would miss something. 

Such as the way she wears her hair.  The way she looks in the clothing she wears.  The way her eyes gleam when her cookies turn out perfectly and that unexpected smile she turns on you when she catches you staring...like...right...now.  Yoon’s breath caught in his throat.