Nice & Naughty (6 page)

“You’re so sweet.”

He laughed. “Not that sweet. I’m serious about you learning to cook everything we serve at that party. I mean everything. Even if we end up having to buy hundreds of appetizer-sized quiches frozen to bake and serve for the party, you’re still going to learn how to make quiche from scratch. That’s the only way I’ll do this. Got it?”

“Yes.” Lexi leaned forward and brushed her lips lightly across his. “And thank you. You saved my life.”

It hadn’t been a real kiss—Lexi was too shy for that—but it was close and with Scott, any contact was good.

“You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat. “That’s my job.”

Was he blushing?

“No, this is definitely not part of your job. How can I ever repay you?”

“No need to thank me or repay me.” He leaned back and breathed in deeply. “We better get started. Can you get a pad of paper and that cookbook? We’ll start planning the menu.”

Chapter Six

“Deeper, from the belly. Like this. Ho, ho, ho.”

Someone needed to tell this guy that although he looked like Santa Claus, snowy white whiskers and belly that shook like a bowl full of jelly and all, he was not actually St. Nick. He was sure acting as if he was Jolly Old St. Nicolas himself and taking this job of training the Santa class very seriously. Scott tried to take it seriously as well, as hard as that was to do. He figured if he was going to have to play Santa the week before the bachelor auction to promote the calendar and event, he better learn how to do it now, during the special crash course set up for the firemen at Santa School.

Delusions of Santa or not, the instructor demonstrated again, then gestured for the guy in front of Scott to try it. He did.

The teacher nodded. “Good.” He took one step farther down the row until he was directly in front of Scott. “Next.”

Scott attempted his best imitation of the teacher’s ho, ho, ho-ing. He ho’d, the teacher listened, nodded and luckily for him, his hos must have been sufficient, because the teacher left him and moved on to the next victim.

When the coast was clear, Scott leaned over to Antonio and Troy. “So are you guys in? Will you help me and Lexi cook for the event?”

Troy scowled. “It would serve her right for coming up with this humiliating auction and event if we didn’t help.”

“Come on, Troy,” Antonio whispered. “If hundreds of people are willing to pay two-hundred and fifty dollars each just to spend two hours mingling with us at a private cocktail party before the public auction, we have to do it. Think of all that money for the hospital if they sell all those tickets. It was a smart idea. Lexi Cooper knows her stuff, even if she can’t cook.”

Scott leaned forward. “Remember, no one outside of our house can know she can’t cook. If the press gets a hold of that, she’ll be ruined.”

“I know, I know. So now I have to be groped at a party, auctioned off half naked
and
help you and her cook hors d’oeuvres for a party I don’t want to be at. I’m really glad you met this Lexi person, Scotty. Have I mentioned that to you before?”

Troy’s sarcasm wasn’t lost on Scott, even as the teacher spun around with a giant, “Shhh.”

Scott suppressed a smile as Troy sent a look that said
thanks a lot
in his direction.

While they’d been talking, the Ho-ing lesson had apparently ended. The teacher approached the blackboard and wrote in dusty yellow chalk
How to Handle a Crying Child
.

Well there was something to look forward to. Scott picked up his pen, fully intending on taking notes, but his mind wasn’t on board with that idea.

He began to daydream—extremely vivid and tantalizing daydreams. In his mind’s eye, he was wearing a Santa suit and was seated in the big gold throne set up in Bryant’s Department Store’s holiday department. He knew it well. His mother had brought him to visit Santa at Bryant’s every year when he was little.

In Scott’s dream, Lexi was there too, dressed as the sexiest elf he’d ever seen. She sauntered over to him in a very short red velvet skirt and high-heeled black boots. He didn’t question why elf Lexi was wearing boots more worthy of a stripper than Santa’s helpers. Instead, he just rolled with the image. The vision was so strong, he could imagine the feel of the white fur cuffs on the sleeves of her low-cut top. The fur brushed his face as she wrapped her arms around his neck and crawled into his lap. He cupped her shapely ass and surprisingly found it bare beneath her skirt. Her skin was warm against the palms of his hands.

“Naughty elf. You’re not wearing any underwear,” he’d say. Then Lexi would say, “No, Santa, I’m not. What will you do to punish me? Are you going to spank me with those big hands of yours?”

“Maybe if you show me how nice you can be, my sexy elf, I’ll give you a big candy cane instead.”

As the fantasy got interesting, Scott pulled his chair farther beneath the shelter of the desk and enjoyed the triple X movie running in his head.

“And that’s it for today.” The instructor slapped his two hands together to knock the chalk dust off.

Shit, it was the end of class. Scott glanced down at his blank pad of paper and noticed he didn’t have a single word written. Not one note on how to deal with crying children. Oh well, he didn’t know how to deal with crying women either. May as well be consistent.

What Scott did have after the class was an overwhelming desire to drive over to see Lexi—more than just ‘see’ her actually. But he also had a shift starting at the firehouse in less than half an hour.

He sighed. Even if he and Lexi were up to that much anticipated physical stage in their relationship, which they weren’t yet, there wouldn’t have been time. Half an hour including travel time…not even Santa himself could pull that feat off, magic sleigh, reindeer and all.

Besides, he had frozen up the other night when Lexi had done nothing more than given him a chaste little thank-you kiss for offering to help her cook for the event. He wanted her on her back and naked so badly, he hadn’t dared to return her kiss. He didn’t want to move too fast and scare her away. Besides, what if she didn’t want him in the same way?

He’d been with Linda for too long. He’d forgotten the hellish insecurity that came along with starting a new relationship. The dance a man must do to determine if any advance he made would be welcomed or met with a slap. Or worse, the I-only-like-you-as-a-friend speech. He had to find out where he stood with her, and soon, or he might explode.

Scott’s only request of Santa this year would be that he wake Christmas morning with Lexi as his present, wrapped in nothing but his bed sheets. And if that image didn’t inspire a belly full of heartfelt ho, ho, hos, he didn’t know what would.

Just the possibility of having more with Lexi was definitely worth the trouble as well as the fear. Hell, just the promise of Lexi had him coercing his entire house to cook for a party none of them really wanted to be at. But how could he not help her? The poor thing was so nervous about this gig she’d practically given herself a nervous breakdown.

If it weren’t for this event of hers, he would have sucked up his own fears and already put on the charm, full steam ahead. He’d get on that task the moment this fundraiser was over, if the frustration didn’t kill him first.

Oh well. Good things come to those who wait, or something like that. They had less than two weeks to pull off the fundraising event of the year. He’d waited this long to meet her, he’d just have to wait a little longer to get to the rest.

With that agonizing thought in mind, he headed for a very long twenty-four hour shift at the firehouse.

Chapter Seven

The hot lights of the television studio shone down on Lexi as she stood with her hands on her hips. “I want to start doing my own prep and cooking on the show.”

A frown creased Robert’s brow. He grabbed her arm and pulled her into a deserted corner. “Are you crazy? You aren’t ready yet.”

Her eyes opened wide. She didn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re the one who encouraged me to…” she spotted a workman nearby and lowered her voice to a bare whisper, “…learn to cook in the first place.”

Robert nodded. “Yes I did, and I am very proud of you, but you’re not ready. Not yet. And stop frowning at me. You look like a spoiled child.”

Lexi hated when he treated her like a child and hated even more when he was right. She tried to smooth the frown from her brow. But she still felt she was right about the cooking thing. In the last week, she’d squeezed in as many cooking lessons with Scott as both of their schedules would allow.

She’d successfully learned to create almost everything on the menu for the event. With Scott’s tutelage she’d made spinach-stuffed pastry triangles, sesame chicken skewers, Swedish meatballs, tiny lamb chops, stuffed mushroom caps, crab cakes and a few other things that escaped her at the moment.

She was sure she was ready to cook on the show. “Can I at least cut my own damn vegetables on camera?”

“I don’t know, can you?” At Robert’s condescending tone, Lexi had visions of her grade school teacher who loved that very question to illustrate her
may I
versus
can I
grammar lesson whenever a student asked incorrectly.

“Yeeessss, I can. So may I?”
 

Dammit. It was her show. She shouldn’t have to ask permission to do anything. If she wanted to cook naked while standing on her head they should all agree whole heartedly. She was the expert, after all.
 

Then she remembered what she sometimes managed to forget when the lights and cameras were on. She didn’t know squat about cooking and Robert, who was always looking out for her, knew that all too well. “Please, Robert? I think I’m ready for at least chopping vegetables. I’ve been practicing.”

He softened visibly with her begging. “You’re making basil macerated strawberries on the show today. You have to chiffonade the basil. Can you do that?”
 

“Sure I can…as soon as I figure out how to chiffonade and find out what macerated means.”

Robert raised a brow. “Look, I don’t think this is the day for your on-air chopping debut.”

“Yes it is. Show me the stuff the studio prepared and I’ll copy it on camera.”

Macerated
. What a horrible word. It sounded too much like
emaciated
for her taste. What insane chef came up with
that
unappealing cooking term? She had a sudden vision of crazy Chef Frederick and immediately rescinded her question.

With a big sigh, Robert led her to the kitchen on set. The prepared ingredients were all laid out and ready for her. Lexi eyed the bowl of shredded basil and tried to figure out how to recreate it herself. She wished Scott were here, for many reasons, only one of which being he could show her how to do this. Feeling his strong warm hands on hers while she smelled the clean cotton of his T-shirt as he showed her how to hold the knife wouldn’t be unwelcome either. If only he’d make his move and put those hands on her…

“Lexi. Please save this display of bravado and independence for a later show.” Robert was using that tone again. The one that made her feel like a child. He was totally ruining her Scott fantasy which only made her more determined to get her way.

“Nope. I got this. No problem. Let’s start filming. I’m fine.

Lexi watched Robert shaking his head as he walked away and had a sudden memory of her father often looking the exact same way. Oh, well. At least she was consistent when it came to frustrating the men in her life.

The director yelled for quiet, the spotlights flashed on and the cameras swung toward her. Lexi read the prompter like the pro she supposedly was and whizzed through the introduction for the recipe. Then it came time to demonstrate cutting the basil.

Having mentally made a plan of attack before the cameras started to roll, she stacked the basil leaves, one on top of another until there was a tall pile in front of her and then took the large knife in her hand. She breathed in deeply and plunged right in, making long thin slices out of the basil so it looked shredded like the pre-prepared ingredients set out for her. It was only once she started cutting that she realized she also had to look into the camera and keep an eye on the teleprompter at the same time. She hadn’t taken that into consideration during the planning phase.

She could do this. She had to…

Lexi shifted her attention to the teleprompter and tried to catch up with the passing words while still slicing the basil leaves. She felt the moment the knife sliced into her flesh, though there was a slight delay before the pain set in. She stifled a yelp and continued to smile for the camera.

Grabbing a kitchen towel to hide her hand, Lexi improvised. “There, you get the idea. Let’s just skip ahead and add the basil I prepared before the show to the strawberry mixture. And when we come back, we’ll put it all together and show you how to serve it to your guests.”

“Cut!” The director yelled the order and Lexi sagged against the counter.

Cut.
Yup, that’s what she’d done to herself, all right. She let her on-camera smile disappear and dared to glance down at the now red kitchen towel still in her hand.

“Jesus, Lexi. You’re bleeding.” The director led the way as he and half the crew surrounded her.