If someone had told her that morning when she awoke that she’d be involved with a Madewood, she would have laughed. And being kinky? Sterling Andrews didn’t do kinky. But the sight of Jack watching as she coaxed an orgasm from her body was sexy and thrilling, and pushed her hunger for him to an epic level.
When he finally joined in, thrusting two fingers into her channel, she could barely hold it together. Her insides clamped down on his fingers and her legs shut tight around his hand, trying to heighten the sensation.
“Jack!” She cried out and slumped back against the seat, her legs still gripping him tightly.
He spread her legs open, his thumb grazing against the flesh of her thigh. “We have all night, baby,” he murmured seductively.
He lifted off his heels and with his free hand grabbed the back of her neck, his fingers curling in her hair. “There’s plenty of time for me to give you pleasure. But first, take it for yourself. Fall over that edge. Let me watch you. Let me hear you scream.” And with that, he took her mouth in an explosive kiss.
Unable to breathe, unable to stand the tension, she shattered into a million pieces. Arching into her release, she embraced the waves of her orgasm.
He continued to kiss her as she came down from a state of ecstasy. When she finally focused, she kissed him back. Gripping his hair between her fingers and tugging him to her body, she focused on the sounds he made with his mouth.
“I need to be inside you.” He could do whatever he wanted, because this time she wanted more. She wanted it all and everything he had to offer because boring, vanilla Sterling was out for the night.
The words she wanted to say so desperately were on the tip of her tongue.
Fuck me
. But she couldn’t get them out.
He gripped her hair at the nape and tugged her head back, exposing her neck, gliding his tongue along her skin.
An overwhelming urge to push him back and straddle the sexy man who held her bubbled under her skin. This man made her feel things she thought were a myth.
Maybe you just never found the right man. The right man should make you feel all these things.
Just as she reached for his body, the
ring, ring, ring
of her phone interrupted them. Again.
“Son of a gun,” Sterling whined. It was late. It could be an emergency. “I have to get this.”
Jack let out a heavy breath and his head fell forward. She crawled to the other end of the limo to grab her phone. Surprised at her comfort level, her naked body revealed, as if a stranger in her own skin. A more outgoing stranger.
She had expected to see Penn’s name displayed across the screen, but when she glanced at the brightly lit area, a strange number stared back at her. She sighed and hit the talk button.
“Hello?”
“Ms. Andrews. We’re calling about some suspicious
activity on your credit card. Do you have a few
moments?”
That light feeling that fluttered in her stomach turned to lead. This call could only mean one thing. The moment she had been dreading for the last five years.
She looked over her shoulder at Jack, who still had that come-hither look on his face. How the hell was she going to tell him that their night had just been trumped by a credit card?
Chapter Four
Sterling stormed inside the small Tudor-style home without knocking. She didn’t have to—her name was on the mortgage. “Mom? Dad?” she called from the front hallway.
They had just interrupted her life—again. And at the worst possible time. She had been mortified at having to rush off. Jack seemed understanding, but she had remained tight-lipped and didn’t go into details about the situation.
“We’re in the kitchen.” Her mother’s voice carried from the back of the house.
Sterling kicked off her shoes and padded through the hallway, past the family room on her right and the pine staircase that led to the second floor on her left.
When she entered, her mother scrambled to clean up a mess of papers on the kitchen table. “Sterling, honey, we didn’t expect you tonight.” Her mother spit out her words in flustered huffs of breath.
Her father sat at the head of the table playing solitaire; his hair was cut close to his scalp, predominantly dark but graying at the sides. He hadn’t even acknowledged her arrival.
“I was just in the area. The girls out?” she asked, directing the question to her mother. Her younger twin sisters, Surrey and Sidney—named after the last two cities they’d lived in—had been a surprise as well. In their junior year of high school, they were part of the reason she felt obligated to support her family. She wouldn’t wish her childhood on anyone, and if she had the means to provide her sisters with a stable and supportive environment, she’d do it.
“Of course,” her father said. “They party too much. Just like you did.”
She shook her head. She had never partied a day in her life. How soon he forgot that her late nights were spent working at movie theaters and fast-food restaurants. She wanted to believe that inside, under his prickly demeanor, he was a loving man. But she knew better.
John and Leslie Andrews were high school sweethearts. Hippies who never grew out of the lifestyle. During her childhood they had moved Sterling from province to province. She’d never had the chance to make lasting friendships, never went to a school dance, never even kissed a boy until she had moved out on her own.
It’d been a long time since she’d felt anything but obligation toward her parents. Call it the residual effects of being related to addicts. They were constantly trying to worm their way around the truth, spinning it to their advantage. Over the years, she’d learned to deal with their games. She didn’t want to stay here any longer than she had to, but first she needed the truth. And since they weren’t going to offer it up willingly…
“Did you use my credit card?” she blurted.
They both sat silent. One not looking at the other.
“Mom?”
Her mother looked up, sadness in her eyes. “I’m sorry Sterling. We…the girls needed a few things and I just couldn’t say no to them.”
Sterling took a deep breath. It was for the girls. She sighed in relief. “So you haven’t started again? You’re not gambling?”
“Of course not, dear.” Her mother reassured with a smile on her face. “We just didn’t want to bother you. We’ll pay you back.”
She knew she’d never see the money again, but even the most organized people made mistakes. Sterling didn’t, but some people did.
“I’m sorry.” Her mother did look sorry. Her father, on the other hand, still played his game.
With that weight off her shoulders, Sterling glanced to the mess of papers on the other end of the table. Loose paper—an organizer’s bread and butter. “Let me help you with that, Mom.” She reached for a few pieces of paper to organize. “Remind me next time to bring you some file folders so you can—”
“No!” her mother screeched. “Just leave that.”
She retracted her hands, jolted by her mother’s high-pitched tone, but she already had a few of the papers in her grasp. She recognized the green logo and the red stamp that glared at her from across the page. Red stamps only meant one thing. And since her parents’ financial status was really her own, she needed to read that page.
It was even worse than she had feared. The letter was a demand for payment. Payments for the mortgage Sterling co-signed because their credit sucked. The real reason why she held back on living her own life.
She had thought her parents were well along in their recovery. She’d made sure that they attended the local rehab meetings she’d found for them. Although maybe they weren’t as effective as the website claimed. Now it seemed the shoe she had been waiting to drop finally came crashing to the ground. She had come here for a credit card charge and instead saw her financial future plummet.
A heavy feeling grabbed at her insides as déjà vu sank in, a feeling she had thought she’d banished for good.
She stiffly turned and stalked over to the sink. Opening the bottom cupboard, she pulled out the garbage can. She reached inside and moved around the contents. Sure enough, at the bottom of the bag was all the evidence she needed.
Lotto tickets.
There must have been twenty, maybe even thirty. Her heart sank. Disappointment overwhelmed her. She moved across the kitchen to the junk drawer. Sure enough, hidden in the back was a stack of scratch tickets wrapped in an elastic band—all of them brand-new.
She slammed the drawer shut and threw the stack on the kitchen table. “I thought you had this under control?” Tears welled in her eyes. Her throat clenched.
“I…” Her mother danced from side to side, transferring her weight from one foot to the other. She stared at her father, a desperate plea settling in the depths of her eyes.
He placed the deck of cards on the table and finally acknowledged her presence by looking her directly in the eye. His look gave nothing away, his eyes locking her in a stare that was so practiced and stoic that she never knew the truth.
“You’re gambling again.” A tear escaped and ran down her face. She couldn’t stop it. This scenario was all too familiar. All too disgusting. “How long has this been going on?”
She looked at her mother, then her father. But neither of them looked at her. Instead they looked at each other as if silently corroborating their stories.
She whipped the non-winning tickets in the garbage. Weren’t they supposed to be the adults? Weren’t they the ones who were supposed to be bailing her out of her financial mistakes? “Answer me.”
Her mother jumped at the shrill sound of her voice. She didn’t even recognize it herself.
“For a couple of months.” She sat in the old wooden chair and clasped her hands on the table.
“Is it both of you?” she yelled. Maybe it was just her mother. Maybe if only one of them had fallen off the wagon the situation would be salvageable. There was only one way to find out.
She knew all the hiding spots. She flung open the freezer door of the stainless steel appliance—the one that
she
bought when she signed a large contract with a law firm in the downtown area—removing a box of chicken fingers. Instead of frozen strips, she found her father’s notebook with his sports picks, the point spreads, and the amounts wagered listed in small, neat writing.
She ran to the front of the house and grabbed her father’s jacket out of the closet. She searched inside the pockets and found what she’d been looking for. The small square tickets were like acid on her fingers. Race seven, ten-dollar box, seven, with two, three, nine. She crumpled them in her hands.
The sight of the ticket stubs brought back so many bad memories. Eviction notices and missed opportunities. It had become apparent when she was twelve years old that her parents had a gambling problem. The twins had just been born and they’d just been kicked out of their fourth apartment in the Surrey area. She couldn’t wait until the day she could move out on her own. And as soon as she was able, she left her family and moved to Toronto to start a life for herself. She hated leaving them behind. She hated leaving her sisters, but needed to get out.
She stomped back into the kitchen and threw the tickets on the table. “I see you’re both off the wagon.”
“It’s none of your business what we do, Sterling. Last time I checked we’re the parents, not the children,” her father said.
“Last time I checked,
I’m
the one paying
your
bills.” She fell into the chair and hung her head in her hands. She had loosened the leash on her parents once they’d proved they were better. In control. “How many months are you behind?”
“Four,” her mother answered.
Four. Not so bad. Two would have been better. At least it wasn’t like last time. Four months was doable.
Her mother gave her a guilty look. At least one of them had the decency to feel bad. “Sterling, honey, we’re—”
She shook her head. “Don’t. I refuse to listen to more excuses.”
What was that saying? Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…
“Family is there for one another,” her father said, looking up from his game. It was so nice of him to join the conversation. “Family doesn’t let family suffer.”
There it was. The guilt. The reason it was so damn hard to say no. But tonight, she wasn’t in a very generous mood.
“How are you possibly suffering?” she cried. “I’m the one who made sure you had a roof over your head, food on your table, extra money in your pocket. I’m such an idiot. I can’t believe I let you do this to me again.”
“Sterling, we need money to—”
“Get a job,” she yelled at her father. There was always some reason he couldn’t work. When his employers finally realized he was never going to rehabilitate and reenter the workforce, they would kick him off disability. He always had an excuse. “I am not an ATM. It’s not my job to support you.”
“But how will we eat? How will we be able to do things?” her mother asked.
“You mean how will you be able to gamble? Isn’t that what you really mean, Mother?” How was she related to these people? Could she really be the genetic result of their union?
“You’d rather see us on the street?” her mother wailed. She had a flair for the dramatic. After all this time, how could she even think Sterling would let them wind up on the street? “Because that’s what’ll happen. We can’t live on my pittance of a salary.”
“You won’t be on the street, Mother. I’ll take over the bill payments. I’ll give you a tiny amount to keep you going. I’ll fix your mistake.” She glared across the table at her father. “Again.”
She was done here. Taking a deep breath, she stood and walked away.
“Sterling, please,” her mother whined.
But she didn’t stop. With her world crumbling around her, she left without another word. Her mother called after her, her voice a distant murmur. And when Sterling looked back at the house before she drove off, her mother stood in the doorway, her arms wrapped around her chest.
Her parents had taken advantage of her again. She felt violated. But she had stood up to them. For the very first time.
Overwhelming guilt nagged at her. How could she not help? They were her parents. Her family. But sometimes family needed to be put in their place.
Shaking her head, she cursed at herself. And to think she left Jack Vaughn and his talented tongue for this. But something was different tonight. Maybe Jack had inspired more than just her desire for a one-night stand. Maybe this was the beginning of a whole new life.
…
Jack entered the large kitchen. The smell of garlic, pancetta, and cream greeted him with open arms.
It was the first time in months the house had been filled with the savory smells of food. He hadn’t felt like cooking, at least not for himself, saving up all of his skills for the program. But last night had changed everything. He had come home renewed, inspired, and for the first time in a very long time, sexually frustrated.
He placed the freshly picked parsley from his backyard garden on the counter beside the double sink and soaped up his hands. Washing away the dirt, he rinsed the parsley under cool water before setting it aside on a towel to dry.
He approached the gas stove. Two stainless steel pots bubbled on the burners. The oversize stainless steel exhaust fan worked on a low setting above. He turned down the heat to the first pot, too much steam rising off the top of the smooth, creamy mixture of white bean and pancetta. It seemed as though his frustration had seeped into his cooking. He hadn’t scalded cream since he was seventeen.
The second pot, potato and asparagus, held his favorite. The asparagus was fresh from the garden. The mini potatoes he dug up from the ground himself.
Once the vegetables were cooked through, he picked up the small hand mixer and immersed it in the pot. The blade roared to life, emulsifying the vegetables, turning the soup into a thick consistency.
These soups were the perfect complement to Cole’s new menu down at Bistro—a French-American fusion restaurant—and Jack hoped he’d offer it as the soup du jour.
When the soup was smooth, he eased off the power and pulled out the mixer, laying it on the dark granite counter. With a slotted spoon, he stirred the contents one more time before turning off the burners. He’d let it sit before he took it to Cole.
He cleaned up his mess, letting the rich smell of pancetta take over his senses. Just as Sterling had the night before. Having to leave her was torture. He was just getting started and barely had the chance to warm up. But she obviously had good reason to take off.
There was no way he was going to get over his time with Sterling when it had been nipped in the bud so soon. He had so many more inches of skin to taste, so many more orgasms to coax from her. If she could inspire him this much in just a few minutes, imagine what he could do after spending an entire evening—a whole weekend—with her?
He glanced around at his childhood home. Feelings of nostalgia got him every time at the sight of old pictures and furniture. There was a memory around every corner. Maybe he should stick around. Send someone else to Chicago to help with the restaurant.
Jack shook his head. No. There was no one else. Besides, his life was no longer in Toronto.
In reality, there was no place for him here, which was part of the reason he left. Neil handled the business end, including the gourmet food stores, and channeled his grief into a new project. Cole and Finn completely revamped the restaurants, infusing their own unique culinary viewpoints into each dish. So Jack had forged his own path, despite their disdain at his choice of business. Instead of fine dining he opened five of the best hybrid restaurants—gourmet food by day, club scene by night.