Page 20 of Take Me Tender

Her You Make Me Blush painted toenails curled into the soft soles of her flat sandals. “It was Pulp Fiction on the He-Man channel, I’ll have you know, and what makes you think I was knitting?”

He lifted the little pile of needles and yarn she’d forgotten she’d left on the opposite counter. Eleven skinny inches of knitted rows dangled. “What the hell is this, anyway?”

At the moment, Nikki didn’t have a clue. As she became more facile with the activity, though, she’d found it soothing to continue stitching row after row until what had started out as a swatch was something…well, something else. “I’m making you a tie,” she lied.

The horror reflected on his face was delicious. Maybe she had a way to put him off after all.

She smiled at him, so saccharine it was sure to leave an aftertaste. “You’ll use it, won’t you? That’s the kind of thing I particularly appreciate in a man—if he wants me in his bed, that is.”

The doorbell rang, signaling the arrival of the NYFM staff and Nikki blessed their promptness. She liked leaving things between herself and Jay just like this—him speechless and her secretly smug.

He passed her on his way to the entry, snagging a shirt he’d flung over a chair. Then he strode back, and snatched up her knitting again. With a thoughtful look on his face, he wound the length around his strong wrist.

His gaze caught hers. “Sure, cookie. I’ll be happy to use this as a ‘tie.’ It’ll come in handy when I knot your hands to the headboard before administering my patent mind-blowing orgasm.”

Evil man.

Because he left her like that—him blatantly smug and her secretly…thrilled.

No!

Because he was so not going to be administering any orgasms. So not. And he was never going to tie her down—that was certain.

Still, she appreciated the buffer the incoming staff of eight presented. They filled their plates in the kitchen, then lounged around the living room and spilled onto the deck. After the group ate, they congregated for business talk with cups of coffee while Nikki cleaned up and put the leftovers away.

Their meeting finished about the same time she did, and most of the group went onto the sand to kick around a soccer ball. The lone female in the group, a scrappy-looking woman with a freckled face and short wisps of black hair, came back in the kitchen for more of the cheddar and cayenne crackers Nikki had baked over the weekend and served with paper-thin slices of deli meats.

“Do you give out your recipes?” the staffer, Michelle, asked, munching on a handful of the cheesy bites.

“Sure. When it comes to cooking, nothing I know is confidential.”

“Good. Because then maybe you’ll also let me interview you for a piece I’m writing about the behind-the-scenes of a busy restaurant.”

“That’s not what I do now,” Nikki pointed out.

“General background stuff is all I’m looking for. It’s a ‘through my eyes’ article. I’ve lined up a few days at a top-tier kitchen next week.”

Nikki eyed the small woman. Scrappy, yes, and she supposed working with a bunch of guys at NYFM had prepped her some, but…“Kitchens have a very male-dominant atmosphere.”

Rolling her eyes, Michelle jerked a thumb toward the soccer players on the sand. “You think the dudes out there don’t forget I’m female at least four times a day? I’ve been told enough jokes about the farmer’s daughter and her hoo hah to fill that ocean out there.”

“In a restaurant kitchen, they’ll never forget you’re a woman.”

“Aaah.” Michelle took one of the stools drawn up to the kitchen bar and pulled out the other, indicating Nikki should sit. “Come on, sister dear, dish.”

Sister. Nikki didn’t have one of those or really any close girlfriends either. She thought of Cassandra and the dress she’d borrowed and would have to return soon. Before Friday, she’d not once shared someone else’s wardrobe.

“Nikki?”

She topped off both their cups of coffee as she thought how to explain. “A restaurant kitchen is part locker room, part artist’s studio, and probably a lot like a pirate’s ship where women were considered bad luck. Plates go out the door as fast as multilingual curses fly about the room and if there’s a glitch—and there’s always a glitch—it’s certain to be your fault.”

Michelle’s eyebrows rose. “Every time?”

“On occasion, the men might begin by blaming the new guy or the new pans or the customer who was stupid enough to order the squash when they should know it’s not cooking up right that day.” Nikki shrugged. “But in the end, it will be the fault of the woman in the kitchen.”

“And the penalty is…?”

Nikki studied her cup. “What makes you think there’s a penalty?”

“The expression on your face.”

“It’s not so bad.” She glanced up at the woman, then back at her coffee. “You get kind of used to it.”

Michelle frowned. “Yeah? Used to what?”

“Insults. Intimidation. Sex.”

The other woman choked. “What?”

“A kitchen is small, no matter how many work in it or how many it’s expected to serve. The space between the ovens and the stoves and the prep areas are close. Very close. Tick off another chef and he’ll take four of your six inches. He’ll bump you with his body, he’ll press his groin against your butt as he passes, he’ll find a way to brush his hand against your breasts half a dozen times during your shift.”

“Sounds like some dates I’ve been on.”

Nikki laughed. Sometimes you had to. “It’s worse, though, because the sexual aspect is a tool. He uses sex, but not because he wants your body. What he wants is your discomfort. What he wants is to feel power over you.”

In the awkward quiet that followed, she considered banging her forehead on the granite countertop. This was why she didn’t do the girl-gab thing. The way Michelle’s gaze was sliding away from hers to a point over Nikki’s shoulder shouted she’d made the other woman more than a little uneasy.

“TMI,” she said, grimacing. “Sorry, Michelle. Too much information.”

A different voice responded. “’Shelle, your ride’s leaving.” Jay’s voice. Jay, who Nikki realized now was that focal point that had snagged Michelle’s attention.

The brunette couldn’t slide off her stool quick enough. With thanks to Nikki and Jay, she and the others were gone.

The surf was loud in the awkward vacuum left behind. The legs of Nikki’s stool scraped against the floor as she got to her feet and started to busy herself about the kitchen. Without giving Jay a glance, she could feel him standing there, staring at her.

Outside, seagulls screeched, berating each other like Nikki wanted to do to herself. She was supposed to be putting walls between herself and Jay and now, she feared, she’d unwittingly given him a window.

For a man who liked things simple, Jay decided he couldn’t have stumbled across something—someone—guaranteed to complicate his life more than Nikki Carmichael. She was bustling about the kitchen, wiping countertops that were already spotless and adjusting canisters that were standing shoulder-to-shoulder like soldiers. All the while obviously tightening that armor she wore around herself as if she were expecting a firefight.

He should walk away and refuse to engage.

After a weekend without her, he’d decided to do that very thing. He’d reconsidered the plan of pursuing her for a little romp in his bed. Out from under the influence of her unbalancing blue-and-green gaze, he’d decided once again to back off—it would be the simplest solution, after all.

But then she’d sent him that sidelong look as he’d come in from the water and he’d immediately started thinking with his other brain. The one that liked her gaze on his body. The one that wanted to know her body well enough to fit her for a custom wetsuit.

“I would have thought you’d have put your black belt to use,” he said to her now, though he suspected her martial arts skills were as imaginary as his in ocean-gear design.

She didn’t pretend not to understand as she rearranged the salt and pepper shakers. Salt on the left, pepper on the right. Pepper on the left, salt on the right. “Karate kicks tend to break crème brûlée cups as well as kneecaps. Restaurant owners aren’t happy with broken chefs or broken crockery either.”

When Jay had brushed against her earlier in the kitchen, when she’d nearly jumped out of her skin and then tried warning him off with her big talk of self-defense and black belts, he’d wanted to laugh. But now, understanding why she was so skittish around him only made her that much more tempting. It was reasonable for her to be wary, given the way other men had used sex against her. It made sense that she jumped when he got too close. But what was so damn intriguing was that Nikki never quite jumped completely away.

His blood ran hotter thinking the attraction was just that strong—and it made him want to make love to her with such finesse and to provide her with such pleasure that she’d overcome her prejudice against his gender.

She turned away from him to play the shell game with a set of spices and he noted her back was stiff enough to serve as a picnic table. Oh, yeah, her armor was buckled tightly in place.

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