Back for Seconds (8 page)

She chuckled. “I don’t know how much of a gift it is. The first few dozen batches were horrendous. I just didn’t give up is all.”

“You got a lot farther than I did, that’s for sure.” Mason inspected the cookie. “You know, my daughter has a birthday coming up. How much would you charge to make cookies for her party?”

Joely’s eyebrows rose. “You have a daughter?”

He laughed. He was used to the skepticism. “Yep. She’ll be six in late December. Well, six going on thirty-seven. Her elite guest list would be super impressed with these cookies.” He leaned forward. “Most of her friends are people our age. Not a whole lot of parents in this neck of the woods want their kids hanging around the daughter of a gay couple.” He then brought his finger to his lips in a teasing gesture regarding the ‘scandalous’ secret he was sharing.

That made Joely sad. No little boy or girl should be shunned on their birthday. “I have a five-year-old,” she told him. “I’m sure she’d love to meet your daughter.”

Mason brightened. “That’d be great. We should arrange a play date.”

“Maybe this weekend?” Joely offered.

“Maybe this weekend, what?” Xander asked as he walked behind the counter.

“A play date for our kids,” Joely explained, though she didn’t know why. It wasn’t like she owed him an explanation. Xander merely nodded, seemingly satisfied with the answer, before grabbing the clipboard with the closing duties checklist.

“Sounds like fun,” he offered before he headed back out to the restaurant.

Joely turned to Mason. “Here, let me give you my number,” she said as she dug her purse out from under the counter.

“I really don’t know what to say. My Lilah will love this.”

“So will Hannah. She loves meeting new best friends.”

Mason wore a soft smile, which made Joely wonder how much shit he’d gotten in this town, or in this state, for having an atypical family. She’d love to know more, she could only hope he’d share.

He glanced over his shoulder towards Xander. “I guess I better get back to my station before the boss man cracks the whip.”

Her eyes traveled over to where Xander stood with another server, going over the list. “A real slave-driver, huh?”

Mason shrugged. “He just knows what he wants. Nothing wrong with that. In fact, I rather like that in a man,” he said with a wink before he pocketed her number and headed over to his manager.

Joely watched the exchange with interest. In fact, she couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off of Xander the rest of the night. He was completely respectful of the work environment, keeping all his flirty, inappropriate behavior under wraps. If it weren’t for that consuming look in his eyes every time she caught him looking at her, she might have believed that she scared him away.

The more she studied him, the more she hoped that wasn’t true. He was young, sure, and a total flirt. He was cocky, but not like Russell like she had originally thought. He was confident without being competitive. No one around him had to shrink to make him taller. Russell’s laughter rang in her ear as she remembered how ridiculous it seemed to him that someone else might want her. He didn’t, so surely no one else would.

From the look in Xander’s eyes to the way his body strained against the clothes he wore, there was nothing funny about the interest he was shamelessly demonstrating.

In fact, she almost had to admire Xander’s honesty. He made no bones about who he was. He wasn’t a liar or a cheat, at least not yet. And if a gal has to have an admirer, he wasn’t too hard on the eyes either. He was tall, lean but not skinny, with broad shoulders that tapered down to his slim hips. His ass was firm and the promise of his noticeable ‘package’ sent a shiver right to her toes. She had to fight to pay attention to the actual work she was doing, checking customers out and, fortunately, selling more cookies.

By the time Xander locked the door for the night only two were left. She pouted only a little. “I didn’t sell out.”

With a grin he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, which drew her attention to that area of his body. Much like Kari, she blushed and looked away while Xander purchased the last two cookies himself. “There. Now you’ve sold out two days in a row.” She chuckled as she looked up at him. That was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for her. “There’s a smile,” he murmured softly. He handed her one of her cookies. She mirrored him as he pulled the wrapper off of the cookie and sank his teeth into it. His eyes practically rolled back. “These are bloody fantastic,” he said, his mouth full. She savored her bite as well. He watched her mouth as she chewed. “You should show me how you do it.”

She shook her head. “Top secret.”

He leaned against the counter. The look in his eyes was intoxicating as he said, “All good secrets are meant to be shared.”

Her breath caught and her heart thundered against her chest. Opportunity was once again presenting itself, but was she really prepared? She thought about Jena, the young girl who looked so at home at the house in Fairway Oaks – who was likely in her bed that very moment, wrapped in Russell’s arms.
That’s what happens when you take risks
, Joely decided.
You get what you want
. Joely finished off the cookie and threw the wrapper in the trash. “You think I could speak to you privately for a minute?”

He stood. “Of course.” He led her around the counter and kept his hand on the small of her back until they were locked away in his office. The minute the door shut, Joely pushed him up against the door, reached up and planted a kiss on his unsuspecting lips. It was the most brazen thing she had ever done in her life, but after the day she’d had, she needed something – anything – to make her feel good about herself again. Russell and his new little friend made Joely feel about two inches tall, which devastated her after the great day she’d had the day before, when she’d actually dared to believe she was special.

It was that need that made her open her mouth over his. The minute her tongue touched his lips, he surrounded her with his arms and crushed her to him for a white hot kiss. It set fire to her insides when he searched the recesses of her mouth with his forceful tongue. She moaned against him. He spun her around, his hard body pinning her to the door. She was breathless when the kiss broke. His eyes never wavered from hers. His hand snaked up to her hair, grabbed the pin holding the perfect bun in place, toppling her long hair down around her shoulders. “There,” he murmured as he bent for another kiss. “Much better.”

She shuddered in his arms as he kissed her slow, like Russell used to kiss her when they first met. Long, leisurely make-out sessions were a thing of the past once the kids came along. He was working all the time and she was tired all the time.

She wasn’t tired now. She’d felt more alive than she ever had. Every nerve ending sang with pleasure as his body responded to every kiss, every moan. She felt him grow against her, which made her long for something she hadn’t had in a long, long time. When he muttered, “Come home with me, Joely,” into her mouth, she very nearly said yes. Despite the intoxicating spell he was casting, it scared her straight.

As impulsive as she had been, this wasn’t her anymore. This wasn’t her… ever. She pulled back, regretfully shaking her head. She realized too late that her wanton behavior had very real consequences, like forcing her to make decisions she wasn’t quite ready to make. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that,” she tried to say, but he put his finger over her mouth. His eyes dropped to examine her swollen lips as his fingertip gently brushed against them.

“You needn’t apologize for kissing me, Joely,” he murmured. “You took what you wanted.” He bent to kiss her lightly, his eyes locked with hers. “You should do it more often.” His eyes closed and he kissed her long and deep, until she was practically jelly in his arms.

She was breathless as she attempted to wriggle out of his arms. “I should go.”

His grip slackened. He watched her with those mesmerizing eyes as she fumbled with the doorknob and scurried from the room.

She was still flushed and breathless as she reached her car in the parking lot. She almost expected to see him slam out of the building and follow her, demanding that she come home with him for a night of passion she could only imagine.

The thought was so primal and so thrilling that she sat there for a couple of minutes, dallying with every minor task in the world, just to see if he would.

Finally there was nothing more to do than start the car and pull out of the parking lot. No one was more surprised than she was how disappointing that proved to be.

Joely spent a sleepless night tossing and turning as she relived her kisses with Xander over and over again. She was exhausted when her alarm went off at six-thirty that following morning. She dragged herself out of bed and trod down the hallway to rouse her sleepy children. She didn’t even bother changing out of her lounge pants and T-shirt. She figured she could get a short cat nap after she dropped them off at school, then she’d begin her new workweek as a cookie entrepreneur.  She was about ten minutes into said nap when someone rang her mother’s doorbell.

She dragged herself out of the bed and down the stairs. She gasped as she peered through the peephole. For a split second she considered not even opening the door. Finally she pulled it open and used it to brace herself against the entirely too cheery Xander Davy.

“Good morning,” he bid as he gave her a mock bow.

“Morning,” she managed. “What are you doing here?”

He didn’t bother waiting for an invitation as he pressed through the door frame, carrying two cups of takeout coffee. “We have a busy week,” he tossed over his shoulder as he headed toward the living room. She had no choice but to follow.

“What do you mean busy?” Then, “What do you mean ‘we’?”

He put her cup of coffee on a coaster on the table before he plopped down into a comfortable armchair. “Didn’t I tell you my major was marketing? I’ve come up with a brilliant plan for
Back for Seconds
.”

She approached warily. “What kind of plan?”

“PR stuff. Branding. Advertising, really. I think you have something here and I want to be a part of it. If you’ll let me.”

She took the coffee cup and brought it to her lips, studying him over the rim. “What do I have to do?” she finally asked, though she was scared to death of the answer – mostly because in her fantasy it involved his picking her up and carrying her upstairs to the bedroom, which was completely foreign to someone like Joely.

“It starts with you getting dressed.”

That was not the answer she expected, which is exactly why she decided to see where the day might lead. Within the hour they were at an upscale beauty salon, where a hairdresser was tasked with updating her ‘do. She added some blonde highlights in Joely’s dark hair, which lightened it up and brightened her face, and her new sassy layered haircut easily shaved about five years off. It also gave her more interesting things to do with her hair than ponytails and buns. A nail tech gave her a manicure and another cosmetologist gave her a makeover, complete with a tutorial how to replicate the look at home.

She was stunned when Xander pulled out a credit card to pay for her beauty treatment, splurging for hair products and cosmetics as well. “I can’t let you do this,” she said.

“Consider it an investment,” he dismissed easily.

“Seriously. I don’t want to owe you.”

His eyes met hers. “You don’t owe me, Joely.” He handed her the card. It was for Lillian’s Place. “What’s good for you is what’s good for the restaurant. Like I said, it’s an investment.” She blushed and said nothing as he finished the transaction. 

Afterwards he took her to the mall, where he led her straight to a store that sold contemporary women’s clothing. “I have plenty of nice things. I don’t need clothes,” she resisted, but he pulled her by the hand into the plush environment anyway.

“You have clothes that make you look like a doctor’s wife,” he said before he grabbed a blouse from the rack. He held it up to her and appraised her with a critical eye.

“What’s wrong with that?” she wanted to know.

His eyes met hers. “That’s not who you are anymore.”

Just hearing him say it gave her a chill, and she couldn’t tell at first whether that was a good thing or bad thing. He loaded her arms with several blouses, a couple of skirts and some slacks. The selection was geared much younger than she’d normally wear, baring skin she wouldn’t normally bare. These clothes definitely would have earned Russell’s stern disapproval. It was the main reason she didn’t offer any resistance when Xander paid for them.

By the time they were done, it was well after noon. When he suggested lunch at a popular cantina for lunch, she agreed. They were seated and he ordered a couple of margaritas to celebrate their productive morning.

The waiter put the frosty, fruity libation in front of her. “I really shouldn’t,” she said, which made Xander laugh.

“You say that a lot, Joely. Who exactly makes up all these rules to which you must so strictly adhere?”

She shrugged. “Society.”

He chuckled as he took a sip. “Ah, yes. Society. Where everyone pretends to be something they’re not in the name of being polite.” He gave her a wink. “Fuck society.”

She nearly gasped and looked around as he used the profane word with utter nonchalance. “I think I’d rather not,” she said, keeping her head low.

“Oh?” he asked as he leaned forward. “Then who would you like to fuck?”

Her head snapped back as she stared at him incredulously. She finally grabbed her glass and took a long enough drink to get a brain freeze. She used a water chaser to take the edge off of the sudden blinding pain. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what? Say what’s on my mind?”

“Bring it all back to sex,” she muttered.

“Why not?” he asked with a shrug. “That’s where it all leads anyway.”

She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t.”

His eyes drilled into hers. “Maybe it
hasn’t
, but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t.”

“I think you say these things just to get a rise out of me.”

He grinned. “That’s part of it, it’s true. You’re repressed, Joely. That’s part of your problem.”

Now he was pissing her off. Again. “I don’t have a problem.”

“Really?” he challenged. “You’re completely and totally happy with the life that you are leading, are you?”

She glared back at him. “You know what just happened to me.”

“Yeah. I also know it’s not the end of the world. The way I see it, that asshole did you a favor. If he wasn’t in it 100 percent, he was right to let you go. A real man would have fought for you.”

“It’s complicated,” she dismissed as she grabbed a nacho chip and dipped it into spicy salsa.

“No, it’s not. You’re either happy or you’re not. Sure things are hard right now but that doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. You should be happy. Hell, you should be delirious. You get a chance to start over.”

“It’s a scarier proposition when you’re on this side of the table, my friend. And why do you care, anyway?”

He leaned back in his chair. “You ever see a kitten out in the yard, no owner, no way of protecting itself from the big, bad world?”

She arched an eyebrow. “Am I supposed to be this ownerless kitten? What am I supposed to do, mew helplessly until some big strong man decides to rescue me? Do you have any idea how sexist that is?”

“Then do something about it. Take charge. Take command. Like that kiss last night in my office.”

She shuddered with the memory of it. “That was a mistake,” she asserted at once, surer than ever she was right.

His voice was soft and his eyes were hard. “Was it? Or was it exactly what you wanted? You came alive last night, Joely. You felt it. I felt it. So let’s just be honest about it. We’re attracted to each other and we’re both unencumbered. There’s no crime seeing where it goes.”

“Till you get tired of me too. Then I get to watch you prance off with another helpless kitten.”

He neither confirmed nor denied. “Anything could happen. You could also find another man who turns you on in a way I can’t. Face it, love. You’re not going to be able to protect yourself from all worst-case scenarios without locking yourself away from everyone. And that doesn’t do anyone any good at all.”

They fell silent as the waiter served their food. Before she could take a bite, she had to ask, “Why me?”

“Why not you?”

“That’s not what I mean. I mean… why this all-fire push to seduce
me
? I’m nobody special.”

He reached across the table and touched her hand with his. “Maybe it’s because you’ve forgotten how special you are.”

“So this is a pity project?”

“You stir a lot of emotions in me, Joely Morgan. Pity is not one of them.” She had no comeback for that. “Now eat up. We still have to get back to the house, get you changed and start taking publicity shots.”

The very thought of being alone in her mother’s house with him, especially after all he said, made Joely drain her margarita glass a lot quicker than she normally would have. She was definitely a little buzzed as they walked out to his car. He held the door open for her. She said nothing as she got inside.

Even the butterflies in her stomach were tipsy, clumsily flapping around in her belly as Xander sped back to the house in his late-model sports car that smelled of his cologne. The sensual leather of the bucket seat that embraced her, the power of the 8-cylinder engine that rattled her ribcage whenever he accelerated … it was all sensory overload. She could barely breathe when he pulled the car into the driveway. The empty house loomed large in front of them, which made her even more nervous. She was slightly intoxicated and he looked like he just stepped off the cover of a magazine.

Any way you sliced it, this spelled trouble.

She juggled her bags before sprinting up the stairs to change. By the time she got back downstairs, he had staged the kitchen for her impromptu photo shot. He turned briefly to inspect her new look, which was a flirty black retro dress covered in vibrant red cherries. “That’s more like it,” he smiled. “Come here.”

Those two words made her tremble in her shoes, but she obeyed the softly issued command anyway. She gasped as he put two hands around her waist, picking her up easily with a surprising strength and setting her on the island counter in the middle of her mother’s kitchen.

He pulled out his phone and stood back a few feet. “Okay, now place both palms on the counter next to your hips,” he instructed. She complied. “I want you to lean forward towards me and smile.” Again she obeyed his command and he clicked away, taking several shots. “Now give me your best smirk. Eyebrow up, only the corner of your mouth upturned and that same look in your eye from last night.”

“What look?” she stammered.

“Where you were stealing glances at my cock,” he answered in such a matter-of-fact tone that only made his profanity more shocking. She rolled her eyes and sighed in exasperation.

“Must you do that?” she asked again.

“I told you. It all comes back to sex,” he repeated softly, almost hypnotically. “Show me a woman who knows what she wants in bed, and I’ll show you a woman who knows who she is in the world. That’s your missing ingredient, Joely.”

“And I suppose you’re here to help me find it.”

“Something like that,” he murmured. “Now think of me and smile.” She did try, but he had her all discombobulated. After a few unsuccessful shots, he lowered his phone. “What are you so afraid of?”

She wanted to say nothing. Instead she said, “Everything.”

He placed his phone on the counter and walked over to her. He circled her waist with his arms, bringing them almost nose to nose. “That’s why,” he murmured softly.

“Why what?” she found herself asking, her eyes wide like a child’s.

“Why I picked you,” he said.

She snorted. “Because I’m afraid?”

“Because you can admit it,” he corrected softly. “You’ve been waiting for someone like me to come along, Joely. You just didn’t know it. Well, here I am,” he added in the softest of whispers that made her whole body quiver. He lowered his mouth on hers, coaxing her lips apart with his until her head tilted back. He dominated her mouth instantly. She moaned softly into his kiss. He lifted away, studied her eyes and then smiled. She didn’t stop him as he lifted her legs onto the counter and urged her to lean down on one elbow. He walked back to the camera. “Smile,” he commanded. She did and he snapped photo after photo.

He pocketed his camera with a satisfied smirk. “I think that’s enough for one day.”

She was instantly fearful that he was going to approach her again, and she knew damned well that she was powerless to fight off his curious, not to mention relentless, seduction. When he put his hands on her waist, however, he simply lifted her gently to the ground. She stared up at him, confused and flustered.

“I have enough to keep me busy for a while. I guess I should leave you to it so you can get cracking on more cookies.”

She sighed and glanced down at her watch. “Yeah. I guess it wasn’t that productive of a day.”

He tipped her chin with his fingers. “This is part of it. A big part. You were much more productive than you think.” He turned to leave. “We’ll try some other stuff next Monday.”

She had to race to catch up to him. “Why next Monday?”

They reached the front door. “It’s my only day off,” he told her. “And I want to spend it with you.” He bent down for a lingering peck on her lips. His eyes glittered as he straightened. “Now be a good girl and dream about me,” he added with a wink.