Falling Sweetly (Starling Falls #2) (24 page)

Making a mental note to come back to this subject with her later, I broke away and nodded. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” she said quickly, pulling me to her again.

As the kisses between us grew hungrier, my greedy hand slipped under the skirt of her dress and dipped under the elastic of her panties. Remembering her earlier hesitation, I paused.

“Is this okay, gorgeous?”

She gasped and nodded as my finger touched her swollen clit.

“I need to hear you say it for me.”

She blushed and shook her head, but I wasn’t giving up that easily. “Let me hear you say the words, Niki.” The finger that had been circling her clit stopped and moved down to hover at the entrance of her pussy.

“Touch me, please.”

I slid a finger deep inside and the smooth walls of her sex clenched and released around me. I increased the speed of the strokes, encouraged by Niki’s soft whimpers and moans.

I pulled out of her pussy and circled her clit again, alternating between thrusting into her hot core and teasing the sensitive nub.

She was so fucking tight and hot, I didn’t know if I would actually survive being inside her when the time came.

“Oh God, Jake. I don’t think I can take anymore. Please,” she pleaded.

“Your wish, my command.” I took her mouth again, sliding two fingers into her as my thumb teased her clit.

“You’re so close. Let go, baby. Let go for me.”

Niki arched her neck, a shudder running through her body as her climax took over, her pussy clenching hard, trying to keep my fingers inside her. “Oh, yes, Jake!” she cried, her hips pumping to meet my hand.

Her chest heaved as she came down from intense orgasm, her eyes taking on the same dazed expression they had when I first kissed her. I gently pulled my hand out of her, most of her juices were wiped from my hand by the material of her panties.

“That was beautiful, Niki.” I caressed her cheek, and she flushed as she smelt herself on me. “You just came screaming my name,” I teased. “A little too late to be embarrassed now.”

She shifted her hands to the button on my jeans, but I stopped her.

Talk about déjà vu.

“Niki, no. I don’t want to you feel like you have to do that.”

“But I do want to… I want to touch you. I want to make you feel good too, Jake,” she murmured so quietly I could barely hear her. Niki’s fingers went back to crotch of my jeans, and she slowly pulled the zipper down.

My already hard cock jumped as her fingers brushed over it. I groaned but a strange smell that came from the kitchen distracted me.

“Hold on, gorgeous. Do you smell that?” I sniffed at the air. “Is something burning?”

The fire alarm started blaring, the piercing sound ringing painfully in our ears.

“Oh my God. The chilli.” Niki hurriedly tried to straighten her clothes as she rolled out from under me and ran to the kitchen. I tucked myself back into my jeans and pulled the zipper up before following her into the kitchen.

“What happened?”

“The flame was turned up high.” She took the smoking pan over to the sink and switched on the cold water.

The pot hissed angrily as steam rose from blackened sludge. Niki turned to me looking puzzled.

“I was so sure I left it simmering on a low heat.” As she started scraping the burnt mess out of the pot, I used the handle of a broom to mute the fire alarm, and eyed Shadow suspiciously.

The cat had prowled back into the kitchen and was sitting looking innocent on the counter, his tail swishing like a pendulum from side to side as he watched me and Niki.

“Niki, you don’t think Shadow could have-”

“Oh no, Shadow!” Niki gasped and left the pot in the sink looking around frantically for the cat, breathing a sigh of relief when she saw him sat on the counter. Wiping her hand on a dish cloth, she reached for the small cat and began stroking his fur.

“You poor baby. Did the loud noise scare you?” she cooed at the little beast, and I shook my head at the cat behind Niki’s back as he licked her face, not sure whether to be afraid or impressed by his deviousness.

“What were you going to say, Jake?” Niki asked as she turned back to me, still consoling the supposedly scared feline.

I paused, wondering how exactly to tell my girlfriend that I was sure her cat hated me and may have resorted to tampering with the stove to prevent me making out with his owner, without sounding like a crazy person.

Nope, there’s no sane way of saying you suspect a cat of cock-blocking you on purpose.

“Don’t worry about it, babe. It’s nothing.” I glared at the cat as Niki took him over to his food bowl.

Socio-cat: 2, Jake: 0

CHAPTER 21

A month later

Jacob

I frowned at the boxes sitting in the back of the delivery van, exchanging confused glances with Martina who moved to stand next to me, and stared into the truck too. “What’s in the boxes?”

“I have no idea,” I sighed, and used a key to cut open the tape sealing one of the boxes. I pulled out a rectangular, bright yellow plastic device, opened the device and handed one to Martina before pulling another out of the box.

The device opened like a book; along one side there was a thin, hollowed section with plastic slots, and on the other side was sharp wire which lined up to fit into the empty space.

“What is it?” Martina asked, looking as perplexed as I felt.

“That’s a great question.” I held out a hand and prevented the delivery man from taking the rest of the boxes out of the truck.

“Bob,” I said, reading the man’s name tag. “What are these things?”

He scratched his hair under his hat with the edge of his clipboard. “Sausage slicers.”

“Sausage… slicers?” I repeated slowly.

“You know,” the man paused and took the device out of my hand. “To slice your sausages. You put your hot dog in this part and then close it and BAM… sliced sausages.” He grinned. “Got these babies in the shop last month. Nothing else can do what these things do.”

“Oh I don’t know about that, Bob. I have a knife in the kitchen that says otherwise.” I pinched the bridge of my nose, trying to summon whatever patience I had left after what felt like the longest week ever. “How many of those things are in the truck?”

He looked down at his order form. “500. You know, you could probably slice bananas in them too.” He looked at the device again. “Although it would have to be a sorta straight banana…”

Breathe. Just breathe.

“I ordered a deep fryer,” I ground out. “These things are not going to fry anything. Why the hell would I need 500 sausage slicers?”

The delivery man smacked the gum he was chewing a couple of times. “Gifts?”

“I don’t need sausage slicers for gifts, Bob!” I exploded, and then immediately put my hands up in apology. “I’m sorry… It’s been a long day. Can you just take a look at that order form again for me and check that you’re at the right address.”

He nodded warily. “We’re at the right address. It says here that a deep fryer was ordered but someone from your restaurant called a week ago and switched the order to the slicers.”

I gritted my teeth. “I don’t suppose this person left a name?”

Bob looked down at his clipboard again. “He did. It was a Mr Ben Dover.”

Martina and I stared at him with identical looks of disbelief, waiting for the penny to drop.

Bob looked at us and then back to the clipboard. “Oh shoot. So… I’m guessing you don’t want the slicers?”

I shook my head vigorously in response. “Not really, Bob,” I said through gritted teeth.

Martina patted me on the back. “I’ll sort this out, Jake. You go on inside.”

I nodded once more not trusting myself to speak and stalked back into the restaurant, trying to ignore the battleground the interior resembled.

Work at the restaurant was going slower than planned, after several complications with the wiring in the restaurant, I was running way behind schedule for the opening.

One of Uncle Jeremy’s friends had a construction company and had given me a good rate on fixing the plumbing and the electric, the only thing left on the to do list was clean up the place and decorate, a task I was learning that I should have called someone in for, as I was beyond clueless.

I was staring at the blank walls wondering what the hell to do with them when Tisha walked into the dining space from the kitchen and stood next to me. “You hoping if you stare hard enough that the walls they will just decorate themselves?”

“Hilarious,” I told her sarcastically, not wanting to admit I was kind of hoping that the space would speak to me, however the fucking silence I got in return had not been inspiring at all.

“I know someone who may be able to help-” Tisha started to say when there was a loud clunking noise and Derek came running out of the kitchen.

“Come quick.”

Tisha and I dashed in after him to see smoke rising from the back of a large stainless steel freezers. I pulled the plug from the socket and there was some sparking before all the lights and other electrical items stopped working.

  “What the fuck happened?” I turned to Derek who looked perplexed. Tisha pulled open the back door to let some of the smoke out.

“I don’t know. I opened it to get something out and then it made the weird noise and started smoking. I’m sorry, Chef.”

“It’s not your fault, Derek. These units have probably been here since the 80s. It must have blown the circuit.” I rubbed my head as a headache started to form at the thought of yet another problem to add to the ever growing list of expenses.

“What are we going to do with the food in the fridges?” Tisha asked opening one of the large doors to check the contents. “There are the samples we’ve been trying out and some other fresh ingredients.”

“Until I can get the electrician back out here, we’ll just have to take all the food back home with us. Hope you guys are feeling hungry.”

This day needs to have ended a couple of hours ago.

* * * * *

“Hey… Jake,” Martina called coming back into the bar
,
perching herself on a stool. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah sure,” I put down the papers I was looking at. “Thanks for dealing with that by the way. If Bob had said the word ‘sausage’ to me one more time
,
I think I would have lost it.”

She laughed lightly. “Sausage slicers are gone. They’ve put a rush on delivering the deep fryer. I’ve told them that if it’s not here in a week, I’ll be going down there myself.”

I snorted. “Heaven help them if it comes to that. Thanks again, Martina.”

“No problem. This is getting ridiculous though; the wrong paint, those weird sausage slicer things. You know who is behind the changing of all these orders, don’t you?”

“I have a good guess,” I replied dryly. “I don’t care what Marco says. I might have to go pay Monty and Dillon a visit after all if they don’t stop this childish bullshit.”

She nodded in agreement. “I’m still going to call all the suppliers we’ve ordered from and tell them not to take orders from anyone apart from me.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Martina nibbled her bottom lip nervously. “So, umm…about that thing I had to talk to you about.”

Her nervous behaviour had me worrying immediately. Martina and I had started at Marco’s in the same year. She had worked her way up to being management from starting as a waitress, and in all that time I had never seen her look as unsure as she did in that moment.

“What’s up? Are you okay?” I came round the bar and sat on a dusty stool next to hers.

She opened her mouth, but stopped herself when no words came out, and she started playing with the wedding ring on her left hand.

“Martina, you’re really starting to freak me out. What’s going on?”

“I have to quit,” she blurted.

My jaw dropped as I felt all the breath leave my body. Of all the things I thought she might have said, that certainly wasn’t one of them.

“Are you not happy here? Did I do something or-”

Martina finally looked up at me, taking both my hands into hers.

“No, I am happy here. I’m so sorry, Jake. I know this is the worst time to be telling you this when you have so much on your plate,” she burbled quickly.

“It’s just that Tom got offered another job
,
but it’s on the other side of the country, and there’s a pretty big bump in salary. We love it here, and usually we wouldn’t consider moving but…” she trailed off, placing a hand over her flat stomach. “It’s not going to be just us for much longer, and we really need the extra income.”

My eyes widened. “You’re pregnant?”

Tears filled her eyes as she nodded. A happy laugh erupted as I picked Martina up and hugged her gently.

“Congratulations, Martina. You’re going to be an amazing mother.” Putting her down, I kissed her cheek. “I’m so happy for you and Tom. I didn’t know you guys were trying.”

She shook her head. “We weren’t. It just sort of happened. I’m excited but nervous and sad about having to leave.”

“We’ve had an amazing couple of years at Marco’s, Martina. I’ve loved working with you, but you have to do what’s right for you… and your growing family.” I looked down at her where she was still holding her belly.

“Thanks. I wasn’t sure how to tell you. I hate leaving you in the lurch. But, we’re not going to be moving in a couple of months, so I can stay on and train whoever you choose to be your new manager,” she added quickly.

I hugged her again. “I’m going to miss having you around here. You better come back and visit.”

“Thanks, boss,” she said returning the hug. “And of course I will, you guys became like family.”

The sinking feeling in my chest grew a little heavier as I pictured what a Martina-less restaurant looked like. We had formed a nice partnership over the years, each of us knew how the other liked things done, and we’d formed a working dynamic that allowed both of us to do our jobs well.