Page 3 of Take Me Tender

Take Me Tender

By: Christie Ridgway

Could it really be? He frowned. “You don’t like men?”

She took a breath.

He leaned forward so as not to miss her answer.

Another female’s voice found him first. From the vicinity of his back door floated a light, sugary voice that he was painfully familiar with. “Jay? Jay, darling. I can’t go another minute without seeing you.”

Tension tightened a strangling hand around his neck. He closed his eyes, opened them, and was distracted for a second from the sticky problem coming up behind him by Nikki’s pretty, pretty face and those witchy, witchy eyes.

Hmm. Was she or wasn’t she?

“Jay?”

Uh-oh. The sticky problem was getting closer.

“Jay, honey, where are you?”

Nikki’s bi-colored eyes were big and full of questions.

Jay had one of his own, of course. Did she really dislike men or didn’t she? But there wasn’t time to speculate, not with the minty breath of his worst double-X chromosome mistake bearing down on him.

And then, bam, it hit him. Call it an impulse, call it a brilliant idea, call it both. He kicked aside the unsettling warning that not all his impulses or even his brilliant ideas had panned out to be oh-so-successful.

Like Mom said, Jay was a hoper.

And now he hoped to kill two birds with one stone. A single, simple move—and oh, how he liked things simple—could clear up one little question as well as one big problem.

As high heels clacked on the tile behind him, he grabbed Nikki-who-might-not-like-men, yanked her across the threshold, then pulled her close for a kiss.

Two

Life is a series of commas, not periods.

—MATTHEW MCCONAUGHEY, ACTOR

Jerk, was Nikki’s first thought.

Jerk away, was her second.

Her third thought fizzled as Jay Buchanan’s hands tightened on her upper arms and his mouth softened against hers. He smelled good, the scent of sun-dried cotton sheets was wafting off the warm skin of his bare chest. He tasted faintly of toothpaste.

Not that he poked his tongue into her mouth. No, he seemed content with a thorough lips-to-lips kind of kiss, one that belonged in the last row of a movie theater or in the spotlight on the prom dance floor. It was the kind of kiss she’d fantasized about at fifteen and had—biggest blunder of her life—gone looking for in all the wrong places with all the wrong boys.

Then it was over, and he was half smiling at her, bemusement—or was it amusement?—in his gray-blue eyes. He shook his head, causing straight, dark blond hair to fall over his brow. “Hellooo.” The one word carried with it surprise, laughter, and a nearly lethal dose of charisma.

Sandy’s words rushed back. “I’ve seen him charming water from the devil at the same time he was slipping the panties off an angel.”

Nikki slammed her mouth into her fiercest frown. Lord knew she was no angel, but he had to be the devil. A blue-eyed, blond-haired devil. Kissing wasn’t any way to conduct an employment interview. And what was with that soft “Hello”? That was all he had to say for himself? She should raise her knee and return a greeting directly to his family jewels.

And she would, she promised herself, if his job wasn’t so perfect for her and how she found herself at the moment—broke, broken, and just a little bit desperate.

His smile grew wider, as if he read her mind and was appreciating his narrow escape.

Which made her want to knee him all over again. But the restaurant business was notoriously male-centric and she’d held her professional own with men who’d chosen all sorts of ways to test her.

So the kiss didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the job so she could pay this month’s bills. Straightening her spine, she stared him down and remembered her father’s advice. Don’t let anyone think you’re weak.

His expression changed. A trace of concern cooled the laughter dancing in his eyes. “Hey, now…”

“Jay?”

They both started, but he recovered first, and in a smooth move turned toward the female voice even as he slid his hand around Nikki’s waist. Without his wide shoulders blocking the way, she saw another woman standing a few feet off, poised as if she didn’t know whether to run or cry.

The easy expression spreading over Jay’s face was belied by the steely tension in the arm circling Nikki’s back. “Shanna. What’s up, sweetheart?”

His “sweetheart” pasted on an awkward-looking smile. She was older than Nikki, thirty-something, but had the kind of Hollywood curves—large breasts and sleek thighs—that shouted plastic surgery and private Pilates sessions. Her manicured nails flicked the ends of her bleached platinum and iron-straightened hair as her glossy lips curved in another embarrassed smile.

“I’m, uh, okay,” she said, her gaze flicking to Nikki. “I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

Oh. Embarrassment explained. This beautiful woman thought she’d interrupted an intimate moment.

Nikki started to edge away from Jay. “No—”

“Problem,” he finished for her, his lean fingers pulling her close again even as they gave a warning dig to her waist. “We were just saying good-bye.”

Nikki swung her head toward him. “Good-bye?” No. No way. She’d come for an interview. She’d stayed up late and ignored her screeching knee to bake Mr. Uninvited Kiss some cookies. Her best cookies, just like he’d asked. So he wasn’t going to scare her off, kiss or no kiss. “I’m not going anywhere.”

The other woman shuffled one step back, swallowing hard. “I-I didn’t realize you’d had an overnight guest, Jay.”

Nikki shook her head. She was no overnight guest. “I—”

Mr. Kiss stepped over her words again. “Please, let me perform the introductions. This is Shanna Ryan. And Shanna, this bewitching woman is, um, N…uh, N…” His shoulder gave hers a subtle nudge.

Oh, geez. Apparently his memory wasn’t as good as his make-out technique. “Nikki.” With a polite smile, she nodded at the other woman. “I’m Nikki Carmichael.”

“I’m happy to meet you,” Shanna murmured, looking anything but happy.

“Shanna’s my neighbor,” Jay added. “She’s been my neighbor for…God, who knows how long? Since we were kids.”

“Yes. His neighbor,” the other woman repeated. She cut her gaze to Nikki again. “And you’re his…?”

“Chef,” Nikki piped up, before Buchanan could say any different.

Shanna brightened. “Oh—”

“Private chef,” Jay interjected. He cuddled Nikki closer and his mouth brushed the top of her head. “You know. My chef with benefits.”

Nikki turned to stare at him again. Oh, good God. Now she got it. Finally.

The kissing, the arm that still had her tucked against his warm, great-smelling chest, the now-decidedly bereft look on Shanna’s face. Jay was using Nikki to announce himself as—temporarily at least—unavailable.

Though she doubted a man like him would ever want to declare himself “taken,” at this moment it was quite clear he was giving his neighbor, Shanna, the big back-off, and using Nikki to do it. It completely explained his come-on at the front door. His kissing her had been for his convenience, not for any authentic interest in finding out what it might be like.

She decided not to think about why the idea made her even more pissed off.

Instead, she considered what she was going to do about the situation, even as she sketched a wave at the disappointed Shanna, who was retreating while mumbling an excuse about something in the oven.

As if a woman who looked like that baked, let alone ate.

Jay switched his hold from Nikki’s waist to one hand, and pulled her in the wake of his disappearing neighbor. They ended up in a living room filled with sunlight, thanks to expansive windows and the ocean-facing wall that was floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors leading to a narrow deck, forty-feet of sandy beach, and then the dark blue ocean.

Dazzled by the incredible view, Nikki barely took in that he was watching Shanna as she disappeared around the corner of his house. When she was gone from sight, he dropped Nikki’s hand and rounded on her, his arms folding over his tanned chest. She took in the fact that he was muscled in all the right places and lean and tight everywhere else.

Sandy was right. With those golden, beach body looks, he was born under a lucky star.

At the moment he didn’t look like he felt lucky, though. “What do you have to say for yourself now?” he demanded.

She blinked. The laughing guy who’d kissed her was gone. His expression held only unmistakable annoyance.

“What?”

“Don’t go blaming me,” he said. “Yeah, I slept with her. Once. And yeah, it was a big mistake because she can’t seem to let go and I hate that I’m hurting a woman I’ve known my entire life.”

His hand lifted and he aimed a forefinger straight at her nose. “But this is all on you. It’s your own damn fault that you’ve just signed up to be my lover.”

While people might equate day-to-day cooking with women, cuisine was the provenance of men. Creative, cantankerous, oftentimes crazy men.

Nikki had learned long ago how to cope with their uneven tempers and their off-putting idiosyncrasies. She ignored what she could and distracted the crazy men when she couldn’t. Now she went for the second strategy.

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